It's Christmastime in the City

So my mom asked my family if we wanted to go give out a few gifts to the homeless on Christmas day. Of course we said yes. None of us had any idea that we would be standing on the streets of Baltimore for two and a half hours, but it was a great experience! The pastor leading the worship service holds a church service every Sunday morning for the homeless. They can come there to get jackets and gloves and also just warm up for the few hours they're there. We heard some people's stories, sang Christmas carols, and gave out a meal, warm gear, and boxes of presents. It was a great reminder of what Christmas is all about - Jesus! We don't really need anything besides Him, and we depend on Him to meet our basic needs. It was awesome to get to worship alongside people so different from us yet have the same savior. It definitely helped us appreciate our warm car driving home too.

The twist was that halfway through, one of the women in charge told Whit that they needed a Santa and asked him if he'd be willing to dress up. He obliged and I helped him put on the Santa suit. He hid behind a van for like 45 minutes before they needed him, and we enjoyed the ridiculousness of the situation. At least with all his gear on he kept pretty warm!
Us pre-Santa.Whit in all his santa gloryLooks like I married Santa!Santa handing out giftsWith some kids :)
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Whit, and although it wasn't really his "thing," he enjoyed getting a good story out of it, and my family enjoyed watching the whole ordeal!

Ornaments, finger food, and friends

On the 22nd we had our first annual Christmas party and ornament exchange. It was hosted by Danielle and Andrew, whose new house looked suuuuper cute decorated for Christmas! They had a real tree and it looked so great next to their fireplace with all our gifts on it. Danielle had really cute Christmas-y plates to put our food on that we brought. We were supposed to bring a finger food, so I brought a finger-dessert: cake balls! I had such a busy day trying to see friends at Casa Grande and return wedding gifts at Short Pump, but I made the cake balls happen! It was tough, but Nicole came to help me do the last part, which took the longest. It was great to get to see her and spend more time with her before she heads off to Australia for a year!

It was so fun to see all our friends and get to hang out. I LOVE all those people!! It is the best time when we get together - everyone knows each other so well and we are all crazy, so it makes for a fun time. I know there were some great quotes from the night but I can't remember them (let's not forget the lunch quote - can I change mine to beans??). We were mostly divided into girls and guys after the game so it was fun to get some girl chatting time in - we talked about weddings a lot because there are so many that just happened and are coming up! (And Jamie and Kevin are engaged now!!! Yaaaay congratulations to them!!)

Danielle had the great idea to do an ornament-themed white elephant gift exchange, which was great because we all got stuff we can use, even if it was weird. Jamie and I decided we're going to make this a tradition, have it at a different house every year, and get a small tree to put all our ornaments on that we get from the party. There were sooooo many weird ones!! Actually I think they were pretty much all weird. Here are some highlights: sock animals, sparkly ones (including giant lips), feathery birds, a hula cow, a couple homemade ornaments, and a bag of pipecleaners to make your own ornament. The guys used the pipe cleaners to make penguins for the girls.

We had so much fun and can't wait for next year!

A Dicken's Christmas

Last night we went to Dicken's Christmas in Roanoke. It's a really fun Christmas tradition for us! We found out about it our junior year (well technically it was my sophomore year) and went with a bunch of friends the next two years. I missed it a lot last year! The historic part of downtown Roanoke is decorated and lots of vendors are set up outside as well as regular shops being open too. You can browse lots of cool handmade items and then run inside somewhere to warm up!

Whit had really wanted to eat at a nice restaurant overlooking the decorated streets. We found the perfect place! It was so cute and right in the middle of everything. There was no wait, which we were worried about, so even though we got there a little late we didn't lose any time. I was excited to finally order gnocchi, which I tried once last year but haven't seen on a menu since, and Whit tried duck. Both were scrumptious! So the reason they call it Dicken's Christmas is because they have all these people dressed up as characters from A Christmas Carol who act out various scenes randomly throughout the night. We stopped to watch a few performers who standing right outside a shop. In the middle of this girl's lines, this lady hastily comes out of the shop and knocks over this thing containing like a million beads, which went everywhere and made a huge commotion! It was hilarious, and the poor girl could barely get through her lines without losing it. This is them picking them all up afterwards.I bought a sweet hat from Nepal! I hate how I look in hats, but Whit thinks I look really cute in this one :)Enjoying the festivities :)Then we walked over to the Hotel Roanoke to look at their decorated Christmas trees. They had about 25 trees decorated by different organizations. You walk around the whole hotel and vote on your favorites. The contest was already over, but we enjoyed looking at all the trees and wandering around the nice hotel (and getting the feeling back in our toes!)This was my favorite - the Grinch! It was by some water supplier. Another good one was from Advance Auto - they had put wheels and an engine on a cool-looking sleigh and put it in front of a backdrop with lights twinkling for stars. It was pretty awesome. The most elaborate one was by the Boy Scouts who had cut like 50 sections of a tree trunk and laid them out on the ground for you to walk on which led you into a tent. Then at the end (outside of the tent) they had a cool tree.

Ellie

Meet Ellie. She's our Christmas tree. The day Whit and I went to get her we were brainstorming Jackson family Christmas tradition ideas. We decided that one will be to choose an ornament together every year. Once we brought our little "pet" home, we decided that we should name our Christmas tree each year since we feel like a real family now - celebrating Christmas together and having our own tree. We figured that the name should be meaningful to our lives each year, and since we live on Ellett Road we decided on the name Ellie. She's so cute, soft, and smells so good! We love having her!

This was our house before she came (a wreck!):She wanted to cuddle up close with us when we took her home - she loves us already! We rearranged the dining area for her so we can sit in that big cozy chair and enjoy her beautiful lights. She got all dressed up and looks so fancy now! (Thanks Mom for saving all my old ornaments - we didn't need to buy any!)Jackson family Christmas picture 2010 (with Ellie)! Yay! :)

Christmastime is Here

I am triple excited for Christmas this year. Why?
1. It's Christmas.
2. I didn't really get the whole Christmas experience last year, tradition-wise.
3. Whit & I are married!!

This creates lots of Christmas thoughts and planning in my little Sydni brain. I cannot stop planning parties/get-togethers, thinking of things I want to bake, and decorating the house. It's just so fun!! Since last year right after Christmas when I went shopping and bought a few things for our house for a year from then (when I knew Whit & I would be together - we had to be), I have been too excited about it. It's bad - I seriously have been anticipating Christmas ALL year. And everything since I've come back to the US has reminded me of Christmas, or at least winter. This resulted in Whit and I listening to a Christmas CD throughout our Thanksgiving break travels - which were plentiful. We were in the car for SO long, listening to so much Christmas music, that I had to turn it off a couple times for fear of ruining Christmas music before it even became DECEMBER. Ridiculous.

December welcomed us to Christmas merrily by giving us two days so far of snow flurries! And more expected to come! When I came out to my car tonight I just thought it was so cute - it was all trimmed nice and neatly with snow exactly how you would create it if you were decorating a car for a movie. YAY Christmas! :)