let life surprise you: All is Calm, All is Bright... My Christmas Recap

This was the first Christmas without my sister (she's a newly wed and having her first married Christmas with her in-laws) and I didn't know what to expect. Over the years as our family has grown and each Christmas is different, the change is never easy but I'm happy to say that this year we had a really good time with just the five of us --Granddad, Nonni, Rob, Landon and ME!

Landon (4 yrs old) picked out their stocking stuffers and labeled them.

So many firsts this Christmas, Landon set out milk and cookies for Santa and he was so kind to leave Landon a note and proof (footprints in the snow) that he had been at our house. Next, Landon was the Pickle Winner of 2013 and got a glass bottle Coke --such a lucky boy.

The only thing I would change this Christmas would be Landon's stocking...poor kid had to use someone's else stocking w/his photo taped onto it (making memories for sure). A long long time ago, back when we actually had a Christmas all together at my parents house in 2001, my sister-in-law Lana made our families stockings with our cartoon portraits on them by Joel and ever since then we've been using them. Even though I'm not on top of things this year, I've already got his stocking being worked on for next year -- better late than never. But as you can see he can hardly even tell that anything is wrong, he's too excited about the Christmas Day!

Recreating the the photo on the stocking.
Thank you Uncle Rob for a wonderful visit --Landon is very proud of you!

Lastly, it was the first year I contributed to our Christmas brunch. Normally I would leave this responsibility up to my mom, leaving her to make the entire meal but not this year, this year I made a casserole and it was Mmm-mmmm good!