Christmastime!

What a wonderful weekend! Friday night most of our office went out to dinner. This was our first time getting together outside of work. We had a nice time being our "regular' selves :)

Saturday morning John had to be at church for several hours for the rehearsal of the Christmas presentation. I went along and was blessed to be able to babysit a little for the worship pastor and his wife (both sing). Their baby is so cute and so much fun! But the poor little guy has a mild cold which I think he tried to give to me! Mega Vitamin C dosing is helping to fight it off.

Saturday evening was the week's highlight. My mom treated us to a nice dinner at one of those boutique-restaurants downtown. The food was pretty yummy, and the experience was nice until the end where we found out how rude the lead hostess and chef can be. I won't go into details, but it wasn't pretty. But we shook it off and all walked over to the theatre to see the local ballet company's production of The Nutcracker. They did a great job. The skill of the Sugar Plum Fairy was especially amazing. However- both mom and I agreed that this production certainly did not hold the magic for us that the 3 productions we saw and participated in when I was young did. They interpreted the story a little differently.

In fact, it was seeing the Nutcracker with my mom as a little girl that sprung me into the ballet world. After seeing that I just HAD to have lessons! Then the next year I was in the production myself, in the roles of angel and mouse. The second year I was a soldier. I think a year or two after that I quit ballet for cheer-leading. I still regret that. But oh how I remember LOVING my time on the stage.

My mom gave 2 extra tickets to a friend of ours and her young daughter. I secretly hope she had just the same magical time I did as a kid and maybe even takes up ballet. It would be even more fun for her as she is tall and slender : )

Sunday evening we had a few friends over for lots of yummy bad-for-you food, conversation and games. We also played the saddest game of Dirty Santa ever. Apparently if you all bring weird, random or unwanted stuff, nobody fights over it. Lol. We also opened a game we've had since we married (a wedding present)- but never opened: Zobmondo's "Would You Rather?" It wasn't the best game ever but we managed to laugh plenty.

The gift-giving extended into Monday- at work, 2 co-workers brought these:

I so can't wait to wear them and all their ridiculous-ness! I'm thinking peeking out of knee-high boots?

A cute memo holder (this pic is from the last day of our honeymoon) : )

 And then the same evening we had dinner with my mom and grandma to celebrate our Christmas, since we will be out of town. We got some niiiiice stuff :)

I got this fabulous Relic purse, the Sabrina double-shoulder handbag,  but I can't seem to make the pic appear. Argh. Anyway, I got the "black multi" pattern at this link.

And I got 2 headbands, 3 nail polishes and several makeup brushes.

John got some Snoopy PJ pants, a coordinating sleep t-shirt, and a gift card to Books-a-million.

But, we got a GREAT together gift:

Woohoo- no more honker TV for us!!!! We now have a 32" Vizio LCD TV! We got home too late to do anything but hook it up and turn it on for a few minutes. But the pic was clearer! Our DVD player is also HD-enabled, and I ordered an HDMI cable first thing this morning! Can't wait to hook them together and see how much clearer the picture is!

We are also excited for our trip to Tampa. I wrapped the hubby's gift last night! 4 days until!