Matt and I have several holiday traditions that we do with his family that we really enjoy. I love family traditions. I find them to be very special and they really help make the holidays even more special! Sometimes things get lost in the hustle and bustle of the holidays so having holiday traditions helps keep the spirit of the holidays alive.
Here are some pictures from our favorite holiday traditions in 2011...
1) Put up Christmas lights....the goal is always to get them up before the snow flies. This year that meant they went up in the middle of November. However, they do not get turned on until the day after Thanksgiving.
2) Get Christmas Trees from Famers Seed in Faribault, MN on the day after Thanksgiving. I love a fresh, real Christmas Tree. We are lucky to have vaulted ceilings in our living room so we can have a large Christmas tree. This year we got an 8 foot tree!
3) Dinner in Downtown Minneapolis and the Holidazzle parade. We normally eat dinner at the Hard Rock but their Downtown MPLS location has been closed so this year we went to the 8th Street Grill. It was absolutely delicious and I would highly recommend it and hope we go there again next year. Another great addition to this tradition this year was Auntie Ann, Uncle Ed, and Rhea joined us. These are three of my favorites so it was a great addition to our tradition.
4) Rice Park lights....after the Holidazzle parade we drive over to St. Paul to check out the lights in Rice Park. We haven't always been able to find Rice Park (sometimes we are directionally impaired but we try.) There were two activities we added to this tradition this year that I hope continue to be apart of our annual tradition: ice skating in the outdoor rink in St. Paul and a horse drawn carriage ride.
5) Baking Christmas cookies and treats together.
So I started blogging again with the intentions of updating our friends and family at least weekly on the ongoings of our family....needless to say I have been slacking majorly in this category. As I start thinking about goals and things I would like to try to do, I am moving blogging to the top of the list.
For Christmas, I got a journal from Matt's Uncle Bill and on the first page he wrote, "Sometimes a journal comes in handly - express your thoughts whether its I love my house, or my husband is driving me crazy today." I am going to both try to use the journal Uncle Bill gave me and journal through blogging so that our friends and family can keep up with Matt and I :)
Wish me luck as I trying to achieve my regular blogging goal...
