The Holidays with the New Stiffler’s

I love the holidays. Celebrating the birth of Jesus in the midst of the dark, cold winter just gives a warmth to the season that isn’t found otherwise. For John and I, this was our first holidays as a married couple. I wanted to share some of the details of our holiday season.

It was a lovely season filled with cookies…

… and decorations! My Sister made us this lovely wreath. Since we don’t have a hook to hang it on our door, it became a table centerpiece with the addition of a white candle in the middle:

And my amazing sister made that bow herself. It was not pre-made. She’s pretty crafty.

John and I also got a 7 ft pre-lit fake tree from Joanne’s on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was an amazing doorbuster deal! It originally cost $139 and we got it for $40.

John and I affectionately call it our Charlie Brown tree due to its sparse branches. I managed to bend them into looking a bit fuller, but we are very glad that we spent only $40 on it. It worked great for us though! Our 1 bedroom apartment had very little extra room, so a fuller tree would have taken up our entire living room.  Unfortunately, when I decided to take pics around the apartment, it was daylight and so I didn’t take a picture of the tree. So I drew this illustration for you:

Yes, the tree is sitting in front of the sliding glass door that leads out onto our patio. And the tree plugged in behind the table, so whenever we wanted the tree on or off, we had to shimmy in the small space between. (And we have four chairs, I just couldn’t figure out how to draw in the fourth one without blocking everything.)

Our holidays were fairly chill with time spent with my family and John’s family. We spent Christmas with my family. The highlight of the day was probably when Jacob was completely entranced by his Thomas the Tank Engine train set from Grandma and Grandpa; and Ranelle, his mom, stuck a green gift bow on his head. He didn’t notice for a good 4 minutes. Here is a pic of him with the train set sans bow…

Trains ended up being the theme of the day as John and I got my parents the game Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. We played it later with my dad dominating the teams of John and I, and Brian and Ranelle.

The day after Christmas, we went to celebrate with John’s family! One of the funniest gifts for me was something I didn’t get. Since, Anne (my mother-in-law) and I both compulsively straighten table cloths, put away stray shopping carts, smooth out the arm covers on couches, et cetera, she almost got me a shirt that said, “I have CDO. It’s like OCD, but with the letters in order like they should be.” However, the shirt was bright orange, which dissuaded her from getting it for me. She put a picture of the shirt in an envelope and wrote a sweet note about our shared compulsions.

She did get a shirt for her husband that said, “It is what it is,” which cracked me up. She could have gotten John a matching one since he repeats the statement almost as much as his dad. My first Stiffler Christmas with Dave, Anne and Katy was a blast.

For New Year’s Day, our church had small gatherings in people’s homes. John and I went and ended up hanging around after the “service” ended… for about 8 hours. The family was super sweet and we enjoyed getting to know them better!

How were your holidays? Crash anyone’s house for an obscene amount of time? Have little ones in your family? Jacob makes the holiday’s so precious to me. Get any super thoughtful or outrageous gifts?

Happy New Year from the new Stiffler’s!

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