Christmas Magic.

Merry Christmas everyone! I am warm and cozy inside my home, at my desk watching the snow continue to fall. Here in NC, we've had some Christmas magic. In many places, like where I live-not too far from the coast-there has not been a white Christmas for 40 or 50 years! This year we got one and when God gives you a gift like this He doesn't disappoint. There is about 9-10 inches covering everything and it has yet to slow down! So this is my lovely winter wonderland view:

Since it began to snow last night we left my parent's house in Raleigh so we wouldn't get stuck there for days and because my Mr. was scheduled to preach the church service this morning so we had to come home. Well, until Frosty came to town, that is. ;)  So this morning we grabbed the dog and the camera and had fun in the snow and have been enjoying it all day. What better use of all my snowed-in time than to get caught up on some blogging! 

During the Christmas Home Tour I wanted a centerpiece for my kitchen table and have been in L.O.V.E. with the Pottery Barn apothecary jars....yes, you know the ones. But, being frugal I just could not bring myself to spend nearly $200 on only 3 glass jars. No matter how I tried to justify it, I just refused. Then, Michael's came to my rescue. Not only did I find 3 almost identical jars there, but they were also all 50% off! Wooo-hooo! I spent 1/4 of what I would have at P.B.. I filled them with all sorts of Christmas candy-that the Mr. has continued to plunder-and I am in love with them!

I had to include one with the snow behind it, I couldn't resist!

I also watched the White House 2010 Christmas Special on HGTV, did you? Oh, those decorations are to die for! I saw two things...ok, more than two, but I'm only sharing two things that I will definitely be re-creating in my house next year. 

First up are the gorgeous, life-sized gold trees (yes, there were two!) that I want in my home:

Oh, did I forget to mention that these "trees" are made from rolled up newspaper and magazine pages!? Crazy good!

HGTV

There's a great underneath shot for y'all. All they did once it was assembled is paint them gold and douse it with gold glitter. And they are sooooo pretty! This project is essentially free if you already have the paint and glitter, and let's be honest, we all have loads of old newspapers and magazines that can be made better use of, don't you think? 

The wreaths hanging in the windows were also made from paper with gold paint and glitter but the paper doesn't appear to be rolled. I think they crinkled it accordion-style and hot-glued them on in random fashion. Maybe one of you other crafty ladies will take a stab at the wreaths, I'll do the trees and we'll call it a day?

Disclaimer: The rest of this post will cover some delightful Christmas activites. If you are here for decorating only reading, then you may just want to stop here. But you'll be missing out....just sayin'.

Last weekend we ventured up to Andrews, NC to the camp where Daniel and I worked at for several summers, Snowbird or SWO. It was the annual Christmas Extravaganza and we got lucky because the next day some of our friends were having their wedding there. It was a full weekend! There was so much going on that I didn't take a ton of pictures, but there are a few.

 

 Of course the SWO Christmas tree is decorated with climbing rope and Nalgene bottles. Lurve it.

 

 Blueberry "Blue" and Brittany's wedding was beautiful.

 

 

I hate that picture of us was fuzzy, but the other 3 was fuzzy too, what can you do? We are so happy for these great, God-fearing friends!

 

Because at SWO...this is how we do it!

This place is very close to our hearts. Love it here. This was how we met, and eventually fell in love.

 

Loads of memories inside the cabins and written all over the bunks. We LOVE Snowbird! It was a great trip.

 

That same weekend we had our own, and our first Christmas party in our own home. It was small, but we had a blast! In fact, there was so much fun that I completely forgot to take pictures. Dumb. I'll have to remember that for next year because I think we decided that this will become an annual Christmas party, YAY! 

 

Just two days before Christmas our Sunday School class decided to get together, kids and all and go to Beulaville for a night at Mike's Farm. Oh my, we froze our little tails off but we had so much fun, and so did the kids! It was a hit for sure and I believe another thing we all said we should do each year together. I did remember my camera for this so here are a few photos from that night:

 

This is almost the whole group. Brad and Karen couldn't come and Wayne was in a field with some of the kids playing football. But with this many people, you take what you can get! We were standing in line for the Country Restaurant and freezing to death. We still had fun talking and playing with the kids while we waited.

I think Lilly fell in love with Maggie on the trip. She's Rebecca's little girl and kept kissing everybody. I caught this sweet kissing picture of the two lovebirds. 

Here's Daniel, Corey-Maggie's husband-and their little boy, Caleb.

Finally! In the warm restaurant! I don't know how it happened, but somehow those rotten men of ours got their own table and us girls got all the kids. I can't complain, they were well-behaved and we had a great time. 

This place was huge. Also, they serve you family style, so you just order your drinks which they bring out in pitchers to the table and then they show up with great big platters of fried chicken, country ham biscuits, macaroni and cheese, corn, green beans, and mashed potatoes. The best part is you can keep asking for more and more....so we did!

 

Since the men finished dinner so quickly they braved the cold to wait in the loooooong line for the grand finale hayride through the woods. I'm glad they did because some people stood in line for two hours or more and we were there only about half an hour. The hayride was great! It was a fifteen minute trip through the woods with the BIGGEST light display I think I have ever seen! There was Christmas music playing that coincided with the scenes in the woods and of course, we had to sing along! What fun, with such great friends.

 

Christmas night at my parent's house, aka, the disaster zone.

 

In our family, this is how we do Christmas. Relaxed, the room is dark from watching movies all day, the living room is still trashed because we do minimal present clean-up, and we eat, eat, eat all day long. There was so much relaxing that I didn't take many pictures, and my dad didn't make any of them, and I have a brother in Japan right now that would usually be in there too. 

 

I hope each and every one of you have had a Merry Christmas thanking God for the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ and loving those we are so blessed to have in our lives. What was your favorite moment of this Christmas? I had two: the candle light Christmas Eve service at the church I grew up in where everybody raises their candles in the air and we sing Silent Night...breath-taking. And of course, our winter wonderland of Christmas snow! Leave yours in the comments!