A Braselton Christmas

Well, I guess since I've been a total slacker, I'll have to get back to posting our Disney pictures once I blog about Christmas. So here we go.

For Christmas Eve, Emily was nice enough to invite us over, so we went over to the Nicolich's for dinner. We settled on having ham and potatoes, just like what we would have if we were back in Utah. It was fun to spend the evening with Bill and Emily and their girls. And of course the food was awesome. Emily did a spiral ham with orange-horseradish glaze, and Joe decided he wanted to make "funeral" potatoes and a yam & apple casserole. It all turned out awesome.















I unfortunately ruined the pumpkin pie! It looked really good, but I totally forgot to put in the sugar!
After dinner, Joe had a quick violin lesson from Emily, which was totally fun. He wants to add violin skills to the guitar and banjo ones he already has.





















Sally and Alice got cute matching jammies, which Sally wasn't exactly excited about, but really, what 2 year old is excited to open a present of jammies? Still, they both looked cute in them














We watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas, and I helped Emily build some awesome blocks for Sally. Joe and Bill got some video game time, which is always necessary. It was a great Christmas Eve party, Bob wants us to call it, The Griglich, which is fine.


Joe and I went home and slept on one of our presents to ourselves. . . a new memory foam mattress topper! Super exciting! But really, it's totally awesome. In the morning we woke up to open our 3 brown boxes that we received in the mail from family and Rock Band 2!
Joe really wanted Rock Band, and when we saw the last one in Costco we decided to just do it, another gift to ourselves. We got jammies, a San Francisco puzzle & an awesome "card" from Joe's parents. My parents sent us a great book of art from James C. Christensen, Joe is really excited, he's one of his favorite artists.
My brother bought me the Gospel Art Picture kit which I had asked for, I'm excited to have it.






After opening all of our stuff we started on making our Christmas day meal. We sort of missed a traditional Thanksgiving, with turkey and what not, so we made up for it. The meal turned out nice, and Joe is so good to touch the nasty gross turkey!















Later in the evening we went over to the MacPherson's, Emily and Bill came too. We played some awesome Fusion Frenzy and had a nice Christmas chat.















Our Christmas was really nice, even though we weren't around family, which would have been the best. But it was low key, and virtually stress free. Joe and I made a pact that we wouldn't buy each other any gifts. Not having to stress about buying gifts for each other was great, we were able to focus on just being together. We also decided to do the 12 days of Christmas for a family this year. I had done this growing up and decided we should do something special for someone else this year. It was a lot of fun, it's about the only time you can doorbell ditch someone and feel OK about it. I hope the family enjoyed it as much as we did.
Here are a few Christmas day photos:


































Joe actually bought me this Willow Tree Nativity last year, but this was the first time putting it up. I totally love it.


Find the hidden Mickey!

Disney World - Animal & Magic Kingdom

Monday (11/20) we had reservations for a character breakfast at the Animal Kingdom. We ate the Tusker House where they do Donald's Safari breakfast with Donald and Daisy Duck, Mickey and Goofy. I wanted to do a character breakfast for two reasons 1) Our friend Aaron brought his 12-year-old daughter, whom I thought should experience one and 2) I thought I should experience one too. I thought it was awesome! You just have to let yourself get excited for these things. Unfortunately, I think Alyssa was trying to hold in her excitement a little too much. It was fun to actually have interaction with the characters without having to wait in line, they came directly to your table.
Also, the food was really good. They had these really cute Mickey Mouse head waffles, along with all sorts of pastries, eggs, bacon, ham, cheese blintz, and other awesome things. I think it was totally worth the money, it was tons of fun and enough food to last most of the day!
After breakfast we went on Expedition Everest which is totally wicked, I highly recommend it.


I even found the "hidden Mickey" in the assortment of "artifacts" from Everest expeditions. It was a totally awesome find.















Aaron was really excited to get to the Magic Kingdom, he hadn't been there for something like 30 years, so it was about time we get there. We took a bus to the Transportation Center, and then got on an awesome ferry over to the Magic Kingdom.






















Last time Joe and I were at the Magic Kingdom it didn't go very well; it was cold and Joe made me go on Splash Mountain...after that all the magic was gone. This time it was tons better.














I'm not sure if it was all of the Halloween decorations or the weather, but it was so much fun. Aaron's enthusiasm definitely elevated ours and we were all practically bouncing around the park.


















We didn't plan on staying for the parade, but we ended up waiting around for it. They do the Spectro Magic parade now, which is of course crazy and bizarre but totally awesome at the same time, you just can't help but get excited about it.
Seeing people and floats covered in millions of lights spin around and dash about, it just makes you smile. After the parade there is the nightly fireworks display which is fantastic. They do it over Cinderella's Castle and have a little story that goes along with it about all your dreams coming true; which you'd have to say they almost always do while you are in Disney World.