Christmas Jammie Wars!

Sorry to disappoint, but we don't have a cool rap video to go with our Christmas jammies and if we did it would be more Sesame Street rap than 90's rap! And we'd be bragging about running to the mailbox and back rather than conquering triathlons.  Truth be told, I admire the Holderness Family, not just for their awesome matching pjs but for their creativity and the ability to edit it all together.    If you haven't watched the Holderness video yet you need too! Click right here.  Just as funny is the response I saw from the Thien Family gettin' jammie with it!

Despite the competition, I am still excited to reveal our own Christmas jammies!  I'm happy to say we got ours on a budget.  Ever tried looking for matching Christmas pajamas? Apparently, it's not just our family tradition.  It's an industry just as big as the Ugly Christmas Sweater!  Take the The Company Store.  Their matching pajamas start at $49... each! Each!  Times that by the number in your family and you quickly realize someone is making A LOT of money on pjs you wear for only a few days because you feel odd wearing them in the middle of July.  Sigh. Yes, they are very pretty and they look super comfy and make for great videos, but you can get your entire family's matching Christmas set for under what it cost for just one pair at The Company Store.  You just have to think outside the box!

Instead of matching we went with a theme and it all stemmed from Ryan wanting Ninja Turtle pajama pants from Target on Black Friday.  I did protest at first.  They weren't Christmassy at all!  On the other hand, they were just $10 bucks.  I almost said no and then came across a really cute Elmo pajama shirt on sale for $5.  In the middle of a large crowd at Target, I reasoned that we can all wear a fictional characters adored by kids and kids at heart!  It would be our theme!  Of course, Ryan was happy about my reasoning and quickly got his pants.  My shirt didn't come with any pants but I found pink ones on sale that worked.  For Keira, I picked out Super Girl pajamas that even I want to wear as an adult.  They came with a cape! How cool is that?!?  She also loves to spread her arms out and pretend to fly, so it was perfect.  We were set for under $50, in fact, with a couple bucks to spare!  On top of that, we can wear them all year long.  I barely wore my pajamas from Christmas.  It does feel weird wearing "Ho Ho Ho" pants when it's 80 degrees outside!

Although we can't wear them to bed until tomorrow evening (my rule) we put them on tonight for family pictures in front of the tree.  Here they are!

The show-only-your-pajama-pants-and-your-child picture.

The look-straight-and-smile picture.  

Ryan's leg is propped up on purpose 

so you can see the Ninja Turtles!

 

The we've-got-to-get-Dutchie-in-the-picture picture.  

Take 1.

Take 2.

And take 3. Keira looks older than her age in this one!

 

 And last but not least, my personal favorite, 

the let's-pretend-to-fly picture!

Ok, with a comic book effect.  She makes a cute super hero!

Side note: Ryan got me Sony Vegas last Christmas and I still haven't completely edited a single project!  So perhaps, if I can find the time to learn this year, next Christmas we can get into the game for realz.  In the meantime, peace out and peace to you & your family this the eve of Christmas Eve!

Christmas around our home!

It's just four days before Christmas but we've been enjoying our decorations all month long.  I will be sad when the holiday comes and goes and we have to take it all down, especially our tree!  Decorations are my favorite part of the holidays and this year, Keira helped making it all the more special.

She was excited to bring the tree home!  We have this strange little nook in our living room that's perfect for our tree.  The only downside is that we have to move our love seat into the garage.  The lack of seating, though, is totally worth it in the end!

  

Keira marched around the tree with Ryan as he unraveled the string.  It magically grew with every step, which fascinated her.

I thought for sure she would have no interest in helping me trim the tree, but as soon as Ryan brought the ornaments down from the attic she got to work!  It quickly became a mommy-daughter project!

First came the lights, which she loved! Wow!

She made a really good light supervisor.  

Of course, a great boss shows appreciation, so we had to take some time out for hugs just 2 minutes in!  I was happy to oblige but we had a long way to go. 

Rather than just stringing the lights around the tree in circles, I like to zig zag them from the trunk to the edge of the tree and back to the truck over and over again until I get to the very top.  It adds depth to the glow and lights the entire tree rather than just the outside of it.  It does take a little longer and it's easy to get carried away.  I accidently used all the lights we had, leaving nothing left for our front porch!

Next came the ornaments.  I based the theme of our tree on these three signs: Merry Christmas, Let it Snow and Ho Ho Ho.  We found them in the dollar section at Target and I fell in love with the mix of red, blue and green.  On the plus side, we already had red and blue ornaments, so all we had to buy were green ones, saving us a lot of money!

Christmas exploded in our living room!  We've collected a lot of ornaments over the years.  Ryan dislikes this part the most, but I assure him there is a method to this chaos.  

Keira takes a more active role when it comes to the ornaments. Unpacking things just happens to be her specialty!

You never fully know until you experience it, but Christmas is more magical with children! I had so much fun with her this year, the first of hopefully many to come.  I know it will only get better!

So here it is, our tree completely decorated and presents at its feet. It's such a merry little tree! In fact, if Keira were a Christmas tree this is exactly how I would picture her! It just captures her spirit perfectly and the color combo reflects the kid in all of us, but is grown up enough for our adult side as well. 

I had pictured putting these signs on our mantle, but decided they were better suited for the tree.  Ryan didn't like it at first, but after adding all the other ornaments, they seemed to fit right in.

One of our Christmas traditions is buying an ornament that best represents the year.  I really didn't have time to look for one at Hallmark, but I did happen to see this one at Starbucks when I was picking up a cup of coffee.

It came with a gold pen so that you could personalize it and after much reflection we settled on this:

"The only thing better than coffee are family hugs."

Keira has definitely become a hugger!  She'll often hug you out of the blue and is especially fond of family hugs like this.  As soon as she hears us say, "Family hug!" she smiles and grabs us both by the shoulders. It's certainly something we want to remember about 2013! 

Now for the presents!  I didn't purposely match the wrapping paper to the tree, but we just happened to have a couple rolls left over from last year that did.  Sweet - another dollar saved! 

I also had some blue ornaments that didn't make it to the tree so I used them to adorn a few of our gifts.  I just love the way a simple ornament embellishes a present and instead of ribbon I used fluffy green yarn in its place.

Keira and the other kids got special Sesame Street paper that I found at Big Lots!

This year, we added a countdown to our Christmas decor, which will be even more important next year when Keira fully gets it.  I found this in the dollar section of Target too.  It has a chalkboard like surface.  I just need to remember to keep updating it, something I have not been very good at so far.

Our mantle gets to dress up for Christmas too...

and we hung stockings in our foyer, one for each of us.

Lastly, my only art & craft project this season was this wreath. I was inspired by a friend of mine who makes these as a hobby.  See her tutorial here.  Notice the yarn?  It's the same yarn that I ended up using around the presents.  To be honest, I didn't want to go back to the store to buy more ribbon, so I went with the yarn.  I like to think I was being more resourceful than lazy!

I hung it over the entrance to the kitchen.

Our decorations this year ended up being a lot of old mixed in with a little bit of new.  It all came together though... our little Christmas miracle before Christmas!

Finding the perfect Christmas Tree - our mountain tradition.

Thanksgiving was late this year and I was grateful for it.  As a result, however, there is less time between holidays making no room for putting off Christmas traditions and decorations until later.  As soon as Thanksgiving and Black Friday were over, we hit the ground running!  

First stop - Boyd Christmas Tree Farm to pick our perfect tree.  It's not christmas in the mountains unless you cut down your own Christmas tree! We started this tradition in 2009, which ended in Ryan surprising me with an engagement ring and we've been back every year since then! We found out that Jeremiah (Ryan's son) and his family were also wanting to pick up their tree from the same farm, so we decided to go together.  

The farm is about 40 minutes from Asheville between Waynesville and Maggie Valley, NC and is set against the most beautiful back drop.  The trees grow on the mountain that surrounds the valley and you can see all of them growing neatly in perfect rows all around.  It always takes my breath away!  Even Santa and Mrs. Claus can't stay away.

In past years, not sure how it happened, but we've always missed the crowds.  This year, though, I guess everyone wanted to get a jump on Christmas just like us.  We had never seen the farm so busy!  We actually had to park far away and walk into the farm. 

You felt the Christmas spirit quickly.  They had decorations everywhere!

 

I like it to be cold when picking out our tree, but not freezing to where it is unbearable to be outside.  Luckily weather was on our side! It was nippy but the sun was out to provide some warmth.

We didn't waste anytime and up the mountain we hiked to find our perfect tree!  

On the way up, we pass by a few adorable log cabins.  One day we will have stay here!

It's a lot harder than you think to find the perfect tree especially when expectations are so high. You want one, then the other, no wait, that one over there.  Decisions, decisions!

If it was left up to Keira, we'd go home with just this Charlie Brown branch!

Jeremiah and his mom, stepdad & sisters were the first to find their tree.  They just needed to yell, "We found our perfect Christmas Tree!"  It was the cue for the grounds crew to cut it down and transport it back to the tent to be bound.  

It took us a little longer.  I wanted it to truly be perfect!  Ever year, we inevitably we pick out a tree that is TOO big.  A tree on the side of the mountain looks a lot smaller than when the tree is sitting in our living room!  We've had to trim the top of our tree on more than one occasion!  We've finally learned that if a tree looks small in its natural setting, it was probably perfect for us!  We've also learned that since the trees at Boyd grow on the side a mountain one side is always lopsided, so we tried to find one on the flattest slope as possible.  After running up and down the mountain side, we finally found it!

We yelled, "We found our perfect Christmas tree!"  

Uh, we said again, "We found our perfect Christmas tree!"  

"Excuse me, we found our..."  Oh, forget it! They were so busy, they didn't hear us.  Everyone was yelling that they found their perfect tree.  Eventually, Ryan and Jeremiah physically found  a couple guys who were happy to help us and happy to take a quick picture in the process.

Sophia is Jeremiah's step-sister who was in town visiting from Raleigh for Thanksgiving.  We joke all the time that she looks more like my daughter than Sabrina's, so she fit right into our picture!  It does make for interesting eyebrows when we go out together.  It's funny to watch people try to figure us out!  We are just one big family and we were very happy to share in this tradition together.

These boys cut our tree and we head back to the tent to wait as it gets prepped to go home.  We warm up a little with hot chocolate, apple cider and cookies, which Keira very much enjoyed.  I have to admit, we were hit with a little bit of sticker shock when we paid for our tree this year, but the refreshments and time with Santa were free, so I suppose it's about the entire experience!  More reason to get your tree early, so that you have more time to enjoy it. 

I was surprised she actually gave Santa a hug!

Ryan went to go get the car while snapped a few more pictures.

 The line around this lake!

And there it is, wrapped and ready to be strapped to our car for the drive home.  

Christmas in the Felten household had officially begun!