Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we had a nice day just relaxing at home. I made some hot apple cider with the new mini crockpot my mom and dad gave us as an early Christmas gift, along with the mulling spices...mmmmmm.

One of my favorite holiday pieces in my kitchen was my red and white snowflake towels...so cute! :)

Our first married Christmas Eve :)...

I made a one and a half pound ham for the two of us, with twice baked potatoes, broccoli, and cranberry sauce...

After dinner, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights in Simi, then came home, and got ready for Santa to fill our stockings! :)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

We started getting into the Christmas spirit by taking my parents to the Grove in Los Angeles for the first time, which also happens to be the location of Littlejohn's Candies (our favorite toffee in the Whole Wide World--coincidence? I think not ;) It was very festive! I felt like I was at Disneyland.


The next weekend we went to my parents' house where we had a little Christmas cheer by baking Christmas cookies.

Our Apartment :)

I guess I'm kind of funny sometimes when it comes to taking pictures of our apartment--I like to take pictures of how I've decorated, that way I can see how it looks from a slightly different perspective, and well, so I can remember it :) One thing is for sure, I LOVE to decorate...it's so much fun! Here is how I decorated for our first Christmas...

Our Christmas wreath (our door was already green ;)...


We displayed our Christmas cards on our coat closet door right as you walk in...




Here's our little tree :) It was little and cute...perfect for a first tree :) I will be excited when we have room for a real full-sized tree one day, but I couldn't have been happier with this one :)

I used this gorgeous crystal bowl that Donna Smith gave me for my wedding shower to display some festive red bulbs...

And our bar is one of the first things you see when you walk in, so it's a perfect place to display a welcoming Christmas message:

Our First (Married) Christmas Together :)

We are SO excited to be celebrating our first Christmas together! Starting new traditions, making yummy food, spending time "just the two of us," enjoying this magical season...it's one of our dreams come true!

The wonderful pictures above were taken by our fabulous photographers, Troy and Marjorie of Imagery Concepts. We sent these out as our Christmas postcards this year. Thanks again for such an incredible job!
Here we are celebrating Christmas the true Southern California way--with faux snow! Every night at the Simi Valley Town Center it snows for 5 minutes. We took the opportunity to have a "white" Christmas while we could! :)