Christmas Catch up

I've been thoroughly enjoying my Christmas break so far (hence the lack of posts). I spent a day or so with the hubs wrapping gifts before making the trip home to my parents' house. 

My sisters and I spent several days lounging about the house and picking up a few last minute gifts as well as catching up on our Christmas traditions. We always watch a rather long list of movies and listen to the Cinnamon Bear on CD. (The Cinnamon Bear is a radio series from the 1930's about a brother and sister's search for the silver star that goes atop their Christmas tree)

I also started playing with some illustration pens I happened upon in Hobby Lobby

Christmas Eve we went to downtown Aiken for a few last minute gifts and some treats from Fresh Market. We braved the rain and abnormally warm day for an hour or so...

Shop my look: 

Shop my sister's look:

Until we couldn't handle the gloomy weather and found a local pub. They had the best homemade Root Beer I've ever tasted. 

My sister received one her presents a little early when they adopted a 1 year old toy poodle a few days before Christmas. I was so excited to meet my new nephew Finneus! Is he not completely and utterly adorable?!

Christmas Eve my sisters, brother, and I all sleep in my old room with a view of the Christmas lights outside while we wait on Santa to visit. It's a Christmas tradition that has been carried on for years and years! We wake up bright and early and wait for the rest of the house to get up to open our gifts. On Christmas Day we go to my Grandma's early to help her finish the preparations for our rather large lunch. She cooks for over 40 people and she's 81! If that's not an impressive feat I don't know what is.  Jared and I left that afternoon to spend the evening with his parents. We opened our gifts there and had a delicious new recipe of shrimp and grits for supper. After getting to our home (and discovering a new house guest, AKA a mouse in our towel cabinet) we started on winter cleaning. We've been pretty worthless just lying around the house and watching Harry Potter since, but that's perfectly ok with me! I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as we did!