Christmas Traditions

So we put together a list of the Christmas activities we wanted to do this year!  And we pretty much got through them all :)  Well, there are a few we left for the Jan/Feb cold months...

• Christmas Utah - There's this great house, I think I mentioned last year, that has it's own radio station and as your sitting in your car you can watch the lights synchronize to the music playing!  It's actually pretty awesome and definitely would take some time and thousands of lights.  David introduced me to it and we did it for year 2 this year... we stopped by quickly on a Sunday night between other new traditions below...
• Gingerbread Cookies - neither of us had made these from scratch before, so this year was the year.  We found a great recipe that kept our cookies so soft and yummy - we actually ended up making a 2nd batch the next week!  I wanted to take them to the older couples in our ward, so we definitely did that and had enough to do for VT's, family, and both of our works!  Who knew we were such bakers?  But it was fun even w/out frosting, next year maybe.  David made me a surprise note to take out of the oven for the last ones, awe...

• Christmas Street - This is another tradition David introduced me to last year... You know you can find those great streets all decked out with lights, so we went and visited this one up in SLC.  It was a warmer night so I enjoyed not being too bundled and getting to walk around and decide what we'll do on our future home... in like 10 years :)

• SLC Temple Lights - We grabbed some hot chocolate (with lots of syrup - oh and I totally spilled all over my hands and burned them! owe!) and headed to temple square.  It was cold, fun to be out together, and just nostalgic to see those lights each year.  Love it!  We randomly ran into a lot of old friends, fun to see...

• Decorating our home - Yep! We finally got the tree up, the outside lights we did before the snow, and all the other fun decorations.  I just love Nativities and plan to get an Italian one soon!!

• Wassail, Sledding, Ice Skating - these were on our list but as we ended Christmas early to go to Italy - we're moving them to Jan/Feb :)

• Presents - we actually had Christmas on 12/20/2010 and opened our gifts to each other, first we celebrated David's birthday (more on that) and then we came home and opened presents to each other.  I loved being able to shop and buy anything for David this whole month - I always have to limit my spending on him because I could just find so many things (mostly food like mint m&m's etc) that he'd just love.  I was excited to watch him open presents.  We both loved what we got and just having our Christmas as marrieds :)

All of these have just been the best!  What a great first Christmas together as the Clark's.  I think we fit in all that we could before our Italy trip... the whole Christmas just came and went and even though we did as much as we could enjoying the season, I wish it was a bit longer.  I love the lights and color and just the happy spirit - and especially the music!  Well, on to next year and I'm sure Christmas will be around the corner before we know it!