Ho ho ho!

Christmas was great this year.

In the last few years, I've struggled with Christmas -- being past the little-kid-excitement phase and before the I'm-excited-for-my-own-kids phase. Luckily, this year we got a tree, planned a great Christmas day dinner, and I played Christmas music on my XM starting back at the end of November. This year, the Christmas spirit wasn't going to pass me by!

Despite it being on the same day every year, Christmas eve snuck up on me as always. Christmas eve brought an early drive down to my parents' house, a nice 45 mile bike ride on the C470/Centennial Trail from their house to Bear Creek Park near Morrison and back, some cookie decorating, dinner, and presents with the family. Before we knew it, it was late and it was time to head home.

I am absolutely a traditionalist when it comes to holidays, so when we woke up Christmas morning to this on our deck, I couldn't help but get that little-kid feeling back. There's nothing like a true (and surprising!) white Christmas:
Chris and I woke up giddy around 7:30 and ran downstairs to use our new four-slice toaster to make some Eggos. Turbo seemed to know it was a special day and he bounced around like a kid. He even decided to put his new ball (a gift from my dad) in his food bowl and eat around it. He's never done this before, and it was really cute.
Santa came while we were sleeping!
You will only see me this happy at 7:30 am once a year.
Santa brought Turbo a doggy-bagel wrapped in paper! He had a great time trying to figure out how to get it in his mouth.
Turbo's other favorite part of Christmas was shredding the paper from the gifts. Watch out for hurricane Turbo! Chris was way into reading his new GPS's instruction manual.When your family is not in town, you have to experience Christmas over the phone. Chris was happy to talk to everyone and flip through his new "Ski the 14ers" book.
As I enjoyed my new Smartwool hat and socks, Garth Brooks ultimate hits CD, Polar Express book, and annual Victoria's Secret goodies, I also enjoyed a delicious Christmas cookie. Turbo is coveting it in this picture.
Awwwwwwwwww. Last year we hoped we'd be at least pregnant by this Christmas, but instead I have my sweet pup to admire :)
We bought a 17 lb turkey after Thanksgiving last year and it has sat in our freezer ever since. We finally decided to make it and after an early morning head-to-toe cleaning of the turkey juiced refrigerator, we started the meal. We had a yummy mixed green salad with feta cheese, apples, and walnuts, some baked mashed potatoes with a feta/brie/parmesan cheese mixture, lemon infused turkey, canned cranberry sauce, and homemade gravy. Yummmmmm. At 17 pounds, we'll be eating turkey with every meal for the rest of the week. Turbo's special meal included "whoops" turkey and part of his doggy bakery treat from my dad.

To burn off the turkey we battled, pretty much all day, on our new Wii. I discovered that I'm terrible at Wii tennis, but at least pretty good at Wii bowling and baseball. The highlight had to be working together to knock off enemy tanks on one of the most elementary games that came with the remote... I also enjoyed the updated Duck Hunt game. Tonight we'll probably break open Super Mario Galaxy and see how we do. The Wii is a lot of fun -- luckily I have a dad who can find impossible finds.

Christmas is over for now. The tree will come down this week and the Christmas music has been replaced by my new CDs. Luckily for us, we will be leaving Friday for St. Louis to have a great New Years with the rest of our family.

Cheers to many more Friday Starbucks Breakfast Dates...
And snowy adventures in the wild!