It was a very Merry Christmas

Easily the best Christmas of my adult life so far.

We put up our tree (read: Ross took it out of the box and plugged it in) before thanksgiving. I just couldn't wait any longer and Ross was okay with the idea of it going up early. We strung up lights around the apartment and up the handrail on the stairs a couple weeks later. We got really into the spirit by watching tons of holiday movies like Love Actually, Elf, White Christmas, A Christmas Carol, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and others. As soon as I got a present home I would wrap it up and stuff it under the tree to make the apartment glow a little more and to keep Ross from peeking at his presents. Ross was so sweet and got me a stocking for Christmas since we don't really do them at my parents house and I didn't have one.

It's Hello Kitty!!

I kept begging Ross to open up a present. I tried to barter gifts to open up a big one he had under the tree which was odd because I have never had trouble with waiting for christmas or being nosy with presents. He didn't budge =/ but we did open one of the candles we had gotten for ourselves because Ross got sick and it was gonna help him get better.

On Christmas eve eve I finally got Ross to open up the gift that I was most anxious for him to open.

They have an arts festival in Tempe at the beginning of December and in the spring where tons of great artists and vendors come to sell their stuff. I passed by this great booth that had ornaments you could personalize and I just couldn't pass on by without grabbing us an ornament to celebrate our first Christmas together. Hopefully we'll be able to keep on getting on ornament for each our Christmases together =)

Here was our little tree and the gifts underneath. I couldn't pick a wrapping paper for the presents this year so I opted for brown postal paper and fun ribbon. It wasn't the easiest to wrap but I like the simplicity and highlighting the beautiful ribbons.

We went to Ross' mom, Suzanne's house on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and boy did I like it there. She is so creative and has such a great eye for decoration and her house just felt like Macy's it was sooo pretty.

We went to my parents house Christmas afternoon and evening and playing a pretty fun game of White Elephant. I'm still trying to deal with the fact that I don't have a working camera (aside from my camera phone) So that is another resolution for 2011: to save up some money and buy a nice camera and find the power cord for my current pocket Nikon.

-Mari

Holiday Well Wishes

My family has never done Christmas cards or holiday family pictures.

We've never gone caroling or made gingerbread houses.

Growing up we hung up stocking but our shoes would be the ones getting filled up on Three Kings day way after Christmas (think January 6th)

So when I stumped upon the famed dollar section at Michael's and found the most adorable Christmas cards I knew I would have to find more people to send them to other than my family.

So I want to send them to you.

If you are sad at the thought of holiday e-cards and not part of a big community of holiday card senders and want a card sent to you then this is the thing for you.

Even if you do send and receive a bunch of holiday cards and want one more this is perfect for you too.

All you have to do is send an email with your address to

Marisela (dot) Cabrera (dot) 2011 (at) gmail (dot) com

and you'll get an email from me back with my address in case you want to spread the love and send a card back.

I think the holidays are a great time to reach out and get to know people better and make some real connections even if it's just through a thoughtful holiday card.

Also if you like the idea and want to do this yourself fell free to take this picture and the button I have on the side (I'm gonna be lazy and make you copy and paste it off my blog) and write your own post.

If you write a post make sure come back and link it up so I can participate too.