christmas

dear blog,

so, as referenced in this blog post i love to start getting into the christmas spirit sometimes even before halloween. and we always decorate for christmas thanksgiving day or even sometimes the day before. (point made: i love christmas.) anyways, i started thinking about what i wanted to give everyone super early this year (paritially because of my over-abundance of christmas spirit, and partially because i am poor, so i was trying to budget) ANYWAYS... i thought long and hard about what i wanted to get my mommy. she had a rough year too, and i really wanted to get her something special and considering the aforementioned lack of cash my options were pretty limited. then (with a little nudge from pinterest) a stroke of genius hit. i talked with my sisters about it and we decided to email everyone that we could get email addresses for and ask them to write a letter to my mom about what they love or admire about her or some memories they have had with her. i have always suspected that my mom is the best, but this experience confirmed it. we received over 80 beautifully heart-felt letters. it was wonderful. here is a video of my mom opening her "big" christmas surprise. (we thought she was suspecting what it was so we threw her a curve ball and wrapped a giant box!)

for me, this was probably one of the best christmas gifts ever, and it wasn't even for me! but because of this i spent all of the time leading up to christmas thinking about my mother's wonderful Christ-like example. and that is what christmas should be all about! it shouldn't be about what you get, but what you give and this huge project definitely shifted my focus towards giving, and it really made christmas wonderful for me.

this christmas was also full of caroling (SO MUCH CAROLING,) caramel making, cookie baking, treat partaking, rhyming? spending time with family and friends, cheesy christmas movies, shopping, wrapping, twinkle lights, snowflakes (only the paper kind, unfortunately,) and so much more of all that christmasy stuff that just brings joy and warmth to my heart! 

gingerbread cookies we decorated with chris

chris straight up rolled these and cut them. what a beast!

gingerbread house!

santa and mrs. claus

matt, jay and michael playing just dance

deja playing in my mom's huge box

aunt willi's beautiful tree

sisters

visiting grandma on christmas eve

it truly was a merry christmas!

love,

rochelle

p.s. i forgot to mention that one of the most awesome parts of christmas was talking to richie on the phone! i cried like a baby and everyone laughed at me, but other than that it was so lovely to talk to him!