Merry Christmas To All & To All A Goodnight

We had an amazing Christmas. Here's how it went:

Let's start off with the night before Christmas. On Christmas Eve John and I hung around the house, just enjoyed the day together, and then that night we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church with John's parents Mike & Karen. After the service we went on over to Mike & Karen's house and had a delicious dinner with them, John's sister, brother in-law, and his Oma. After dinner we watched "It's a Wonderful Life", but John and I had to ditch in the middle of it because we had to come home and let Duke out. When we got home we got cozy in our pajamas, snuggled up, watched "A Muppet Christmas Carol", and then we each opened one present.

Christmas morning we woke up; I put some bacon in the oven and then John started making cheesy eggs (Mmmmmm!), we ate breakfast while watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and then the present openings started. We were spoiled! John got me a really nice coat (I didn't have a waterproof coat [I know right, I mean I live in Oregon]) that will keep me warm and dry during all the rain; he got me new scentsy stuff (for those of you who know me you know I'm super weird about smells so scented things are the way to my heart) he got me an Irish scentsy AND a policeman scentsy for the house (cute, right?!) and he got me a lot of new scents too. He also got me an iTunes gift card and a couple books! From my family I received a lot of new clothes (which were so badly needed),  and perfume. John and I also got a nice pendulum clock (I've always wanted one of those), and a gift card. John's main present was his computer & game that he got a month ago, but on top of that he got a lot of new clothes too (also badly needed) and a nice camping lantern. Duke got lots of new toys: a rope, a frisbee, two squeaky toys (that he's already torn apart), kong stuffing, two bones, and Christmas dog biscuits that look like Christmas cookies- they're pretty cute.

After we were done with presents we got ready for the day and I Skyped my family. It was good to see them! It sucks that I couldn't be there, or they couldn't be here...but Skyping always makes me feel better, it makes them feel less far away. So I Skyped Bailey and got to see her, Matt, my grandparents, my mom & her boyfriend. Then I Skyped my dad and I got to see him, my step-mom, my sister Maddi, my sister Kendal, my brother Zack, his wife Audry and their cute little girl Kallie, I also got to see my sister Meghan and her baby boy Lukas. It was so good to see everybody!!

Later in the afternoon John and I headed over to his parent's house where we finished celebrating. We started out with a huge dinner. We had so much food: smoked turkey, smoked salmon, grilled salmon, biscuits, veggies, stuffing, salads...and then for dessert we had ice cream and pumpkin and/or blueberry pie. I'm getting full again just thinking about all that food. Then we opened gifts. From his family we got a couple Christmas ornaments, gift cards, Christmas blocks that his sister Tina made, a really cute frame/dry erase board thing that Tina also made us...it's adorable but I don't quite know how to describe it, cupcake coasters, homemade Irish cream, travel mugs, John got (or is getting) a new crab ring, and I got a big container of cream puffs (Hello, my name is Piper and I'm an addict).

After all that we came back home, put all of our awesome new things away and relaxed. John played his computer game and I got a little caught up in the excitement of my gift cards to Barnes & Noble and ordered as many books as I possibly could for as much money as my gift cards allowed. And now, here I am telling you all about my day- my amazing, Christmas day.

 Christmas morning at the Merrigan household

 Merry Christmas! From our family to yours

Our smorgasbord of food (there was actually a lot more than this picture shows)

 Look at all those stockings :o)

Mike & Karen's Christmas tree

 

New bone or new toy? New toy or new bone? Such tough decisions

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Reader Input: Christmas Dinner Traditions

I was listening to the radio today and the radio host was talking about Christmas dinner traditions. On Thanksgiving, people (for the most part) are pretty traditional in the sense that everyone has turkey, stuffing, green beans, etc., but she was talking about how nontraditional we are when it comes to Christmas dinner. I haven't really thought of that before but it's true, I mean, there's a Christmas ham but how many people actually do that? I know we don't. I don't know anyone who actually goes that route.

Ok, well...back home my grandma would do a ham, but she'd also do a turkey...no one ever ate the ham (except for my grandma because she's the one who cooked it), but everyone went for the turkey even though a month prior everyone got stuffed on it. John's family though is different which has made my new Christmas traditions different. Since being with John Christmas dinner has always meant smoked salmon and smoked salmon dip. It's one of the things I really look forward to when it comes to Christmas dinner. Smelling the smoked salmon makes it feel like the holidays in our home. Even though I've celebrated 5 (almost 6) Christmases with John and his family, no food stands out as much as the salmon. So that's our tradition.

But I'm curious. What is your Christmas dinner family tradition? Do you have a Christmas ham? Do you have seafood like we do? Are you Italian and have an Italian dinner? I'm intrigued, so please hit me up and share your family traditions :o)

Seafood and Christmas Ships

I am very excited, guys.

John and I have our 1 year wedding anniversary planned and booked. It is exactly 2 weeks away which honestly blows my mind. Sometimes I can't believe we've already been married for a full year and then other times I think about how much everything has changed since we've been married and it feels like 10 years. But in two weeks from today John and I get to pull out the top cupcakes from our wedding cake and celebrate our year together.

What will we be doing, you ask? We will be going to a nice seafood restaurant that sits right on the riverfront in Portland and watch the Christmas ships as they pass. What are the Christmas ships? Well, heh, let me tell you. Every year around Christmas the yacht club and lots of other commericial and private boats decorate their vessels with Christmas lights and displays and ride up and down the Columbia and Willamette Rivers here in Oregon and Washington. Friday, December 9th they will be passing through Portland and we will be there to see them in all their glory.

So picture this. We're sitting and eating our fabulous sea food dinner while watching these beautiful ships pass by; we finish dinner with a few minutes of display to spare and go down along side the river to finish watching (if the weather is accommodating) where we share our cupcakes. Perfect? I think so. I can't wait. It will be a beautiful celebration of an amazing first year.