december

well, we're back from another texas thanksgiving. it was super rushed, but really great. so good to spend time with family that we rarely see. but just not enough time with everyone, as always. i'm (kirsten) really enjoying "getting to know" my cousins as we get older. getting to know isn't right, but just being able to talk and hang out with them. but sadly there was family that we only saw for three or four hours, which we hate. plus, there was enough food to feed a small country and less sleep than i've ever had (both are exagerrations, but there's some truth there).

and before i move onto christmas — to give thanksgiving it's due credit — i should say that i didn't get any good pictures, so i'll point you to mat and beth's blog and flickr page (link for the flickr page there — pretty much everything i was involved in is at the end of page one and page 2, but my cousins (really second cousins) are really cute, so look through all of it.)

and i intended to blog AS SOON AS we got back, but travelling takes a lot out of me and of course we had to decorate immediately as it was already December 1st.

We have some generous friends at the church who grow Christmas trees and then let friends come and cut them down for free. So nice. But it doesn't save us the $70 that we expected it to — trees only cost like $20-$30 out here. Apparently evergreens grow everywhere... (you can't really see, but our friend tyson is to the left of the tree above. he's holding a chain saw and you can kind of see his face, but a rain drop fell right in front of his face. that's rain — definitely not snow yet. oh, and it was like 4:45 pm. that's how dark it gets. ridiculous.)


And then pulling it all out and setting everything up.

And watching some classics as we do.

Still no good pictures of the tree, so sorry all of these are blurry.

And by the third day of the month, we've already gone through 3 of our 7 Christmas movies (Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Elf, Grinch (Jim Carey), Grinch (original, pictured), A Charlie Brown Christmas and Home Alone). Great movies.

And by the way Mat, Beth, Steve and Elizabeth — Elf definitely has to be added to the list of funniest movies in the past five years. I know it gets sappy at the end and it's really season-specific, but it's hilarious.