Christmas in pictures

I love the holidays and all of the traditions associated with it. I had lovely Christmases with J's family and with my own parents. It would take far too long to describe them all, so I'll share some photo highlights instead. :)

Remember the arts and crafts project with my church covenant group I mentioned in a previous blog post? Well - here's the result! We hung all the luminaries up in the church garden for the Christmas Eve service. They looked lovely :) 

J and me on Christmas Eve. Photo taken by a very tall friend. Scarf and headband made by me! Dress given to me by my dear friend A :)

Christmas Day with J's family. Conway got lots of treats and a toy skunk that both squeaks AND crinkles. Lucky boy. 

My ridiculously talented sister-in-law made me this medal/race bib hanger! I can't wait to put it up :)  (Photos of the gifts I made will be in a separate post!)

J played in his high school's alumni hockey game the day after Christmas. The best part of this event was that he (along with the other coach for the high school team) was honored with a very special award for outstanding service and dedication to the hockey program and for embodying the spirit/principles of it. I am so proud of him! (And it was so hard to keep it a secret because I knew ahead of time he would be getting the award that night!) 

The next morning Conway and I headed to Virginia to visit my family. He's a very good car buddy :) 

He got a new squeaky gecko from my parents!

Christmas cookies are a very, very important part of the holiday tradition in my family. Every year mom and I make my great-grandmother's cookie recipe. Mom makes the dough and I very carefully lay out cookie cutters to get as many cookies out of each roll-out as possible (all those years playing Tetris have paid off!)  Our cookie cutters and decorating choices are probably different from when my great-grandmother made them, but we have fun :) (In addition to the traditional Christmas shapes, and the dreidels, stars of David, and menorah, we now have ninja shaped cookie cutters). 

Conway "helping" my mom re-heat some Christmas leftovers. Including Barry Manilow Yams. Yum!

For Christmas my dad got me a Groupon for G-Street Fabrics, so my mom and I took a trip there this week. Heaven! And a dangerous place :) They had so many lovely fabrics and so many good sales. The $2.97/yard rack was where I made most of my selections from. I also got some home decor fabric remnants on sale. I ended up with fabric for 2 more cardigans, a skirt, a dress, and 3 purses/bags. Can't wait to get started on some new projects (and I promise I'll share them here when I'm done :) )

So, dear readers, what were your favorite holidays gifts? (I'd love to hear about either the material gifts, or the gift of being together with family, etc :) )