Christmas Presents

Christmas rocked this year - as always! I'm an only child so I LOVE getting presents! But I think I love giving presents even more.

Favorite presents given:

To my mom - 2 scarves I made - one while we were there visiting from some yarn she had bought years before - I love giving something I've made. The one I made while we were there was pretty cool looking - it was made with 2 yarns, a navy and a silvery-blue ribbon yarn. I may have to make another for myself!

To my dad - impossible to buy for - the only thing he wanted was a specific level so we found it and now I want one - it measures exactly where the hanger on your picture is and tells you where exactly to put the nails! I so need that!

To Darin - don't really have a fave this year - I'm a little bummed because I didn't get him anything totally cool - last year was the remote-controlled helicopter that I surprised him with - but this year I just couldn't think of anything awesome. He wanted a Playstation 3 and the latest Grand Theft Auto but we don't have that kind of cash. Hopefully they'll come down in price next year so I can get it for him. I did get him some pretty cool t-shirts - a Predators Tootoo jersey shirt, a throwback blue Penguins Crosby jersey shirt, and a "Hoosiers" Jimmy Chitwood Hickory jersey shirt - he saw that online & sent me the link just to get a rise out of me because his obsession with Hoosiers annoys me. I bought the shirt because I knew he didn't think I would! I'm not saying Hoosiers isn't a great movie, I just don't need to watch it every single time it's on. I also got him the last season of the Simpsons and 2 books. Again, nothing too exciting.

I think my favorite things I gave this year were these little antiqued angels that we had in our wedding reception - they are actually placecard holders but we had them on the tables holding pictures of us as kids. I had about 50 of them total and I ended up with about half after my mom and Aunt Phyllis divided up the rest. I gave one to my mother-in-law & sister-in-law and then to several close friends. I also gave one each to all the ladies in my office. I looked up a scripture about angels and put that on a tag with the angel - I hope they liked that. I would have done this much sooner but didn't get the angels from my mom's house until this past summer. I had almost forgotten about them!

Favorite gifts received:

From my parents: A new camera! I so desperately needed one - my old one was not too great expect for close-ups and the view screen was miniscule! I got a Nikon Coolpix and am in love with it. I can't wait for baseball season so I can try out the zoom and panorama features from the upper deck. Oh, and the camera is red - my favorite color!

From Darin: A beautiful Brighton silver heart bracelet - it matches the necklace & earrings he gave me a few years ago - I love it! He totally surprised me with it too since I didn't even ask for any jewelry this year! He gives awesome presents though and my stocking rocked again this year as usual.

From my mother-in-law: Polka-dotted galoshes!! I'm so excited about these - I realized that I needed these since my work pants keep getting soaked in the snow this winter. This is the first winter since I moved here that I have worked outside of the house. In previous years I just stayed in when it snowed, now I have to get out. So I found these galoshes on Amazon and put them on my wish list. My fabulous mother-in-law who buys the best gifts anwyay bought them for me. I just had to take a picture of them and share:

The best part of Christmas though was visiting my friends Jenny & Patti in Memphis and getting to spend a week with my parents. It was wonderful to finally meet Jenny's 5 month old daughter - what a sweetheart! And it was fun to host Christmas with Darin's mom and sister's family yesterday. I guess now it's time to take down the decorations - I may be too lazy for that this weekend though!