Christmas 2012: In Review

We had a great holiday, and now we're back Monday-Friday at Grandpa Joe's House. Before we get back into the swing of things with home renovation projects, we thought we'd give you a rundown of our Christmas break. 

Most ominous performance: Philip spent a large portion of his vacation working on the drama for our church which he directed and also performed in as the never-once-seen Director (it was a play-within-a-play) whose voice creepily booms throughout the sanctuary. He's now frantically working on the upcoming Valentine's dinner theater (mark your calendars!) and we'll see if we get to see him this time.

Jokes that live forever in our mammaries: The theme that quickly emerged as the gifts on Christmas eve were unwrapped was anatomy as I received some huge jugs (green in color) and some cute little hooters (white ceramic owls) for Christmas.

Our First Christmas Tree/Decorations: Although this was our second married Christmas, our house allowed us to bust out some more decorations than the condo did, so we improved from some ornaments hanging in our condo window to a real tree and even some additional decking of halls.

I love our versatile Ikea tree decor, and how it goes with my homemade pine cones along with a little  Russian ceramic rabbit from Philip's Oma and a classy polar bear ornament from my mom.

Thrifty Shopping: We set a budget of $30 for each other's gifts (in past years we've definitely spent well over $100 so this was tight), and were pleasantly surprised to see how creative we could get. Philip bought me a top to go with some leggings I got from my mom, a Wii game that simulates...wait for it...The Bachelor! (My avatar is already engaged to Jason Meznik, but I can still win those other Bachelors' hearts.) He also made me something that we'll share sometime soon! As for what I got him, I also made something, got him a shirt, some dominoes for playing Mexican Train (we're getting old, people!), an ornament for our tree, and a Christmas pancake pan. I think we did pretty well!

No words can describe how stupidly addicting this game is.

Most Epic Adventure While Sitting on a Couch: One activity that really lived up to the relaxation we hoped for over our break was watching all three Lord of the Rings movies with Philip's brother and his wife. I'm not sure if I'm a total fan of the franchise yet... but it was worth watching. Definitely long though.

One of three movies watched over the break.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back to IKEA: We hoped to get further on our bathroom reno than our break ultimately allowed, but we did make a trip to IKEA and ponied up for some bathroom cabinetry and fixtures that we'll talk more about soon!

I think that gives a pretty decent glimpse into how we spent the last week. There was a lot of couch potato behaviour, some crafting, a few shopping trips, and lots of family bonding. Now we're back on track and ready to share with you some of the renovations we've been working on. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and even though most people had to go back to work today, it can be nice to get back into routine and get productive again. 

What did you do over Christmas? Anyone else turn beautifully innocent gifts into something else with a gutter-visiting mind? Watch twelve hours of movies?

Also, just to be different, I just shared a question on the Grandpa Joe's House Facebook page in lieu of the typical blog poll. We'll try out that way of doing things for a week and decide what we like better. Head on over and vote in this week's resolution related poll.