LOTS of Pictures- Christmas is Coming!

I feel like it's taken me forever to upload these pictures. To quickly get up to speed, in my last post regarding my birthday, I mentioned that we were planning on having a super romantic date night the Saturday following on the 29th of November. As the day approached, though, we were having trouble coming up with romantic things to do that were different than what we've done before. So, instead, I opted for a super fun date day!

So, we started off going shopping for a few essential Christmas items to add to our decor. To me, it's fun picking out items that we will decorate our house with. Fortunately, Jesse and I have VERY similar taste in design and it's fun to find something we agree on that will bring character to our space. Furthermore, Christmas decor makes me feel as if I'm building up traditions for our future. These are things we can keep for years to come and add to each year.

From there, we went and saw the movie "Four Christmases". We had been anticipating it for weeks, laughing hysterically each time we saw the same previews. It was a little more serious than I thought, but we both enjoyed it very much.

Afterwards, we bought our tree and headed home to put everything all together.

In the middle of it all, we had to go out to pick some extra stuff up so we made the best of this opportunity by having lunch at my favorite restaurant: Chilis!

Then we headed home to finish everything up:

(The view from our front door: The living room, dining room, and kitchen)

( Our living room table centerpiece, a bowl full of ornaments)

(Our Christmas Tree. I don't think the pictures do it justice...)

(A close up of the tree. We had pink, green, silver, and black ornaments. Can you tell I'm not very traditional? The one odd ornament was given to us last year for our 1st Christmas together. We also have black ribbon and green beads wrapped around the tree along with white lights.)

(Last year we got 2 ornaments to represent our first Christmas together. I want to make a tradition of adding at least one new ornament to the tree each year to symbolize something about that year. The one on the left is just one for 2008. The one on the right is for buying our first house.)

(The tree all lit up at night.)

(The right of the couch, just to show you a more complete picture of our house.)

(We don't have any fireplace or shelves, so I used our shoji screen to hang our stockings and made a make-shift mantle.)

(Close up of the stockings. I made these by hand last Christmas.)

(The mistletoe hanging above our entry-way. When we walk in the door, I like to obliviously say, "Oh! Look where we are!" with my shoulders shrugged. He always laughs and then kisses me. )

:-)

(The view from the other end of the room, showcasing our dining room table, back of the couch and TV)

(The tree from the other side.)

(All lit up)

(The dining table centerpiece, with garland and nativity set.)

(I wanted a nativity set that was unique. While this one has more traditional looking figurines, I REALLY liked how each piece had a verse on it which told the story of Jesus' birth.

$18 at Wal-Mart! Can't beat that...)

(The garland on the dining room table, decorated with ornaments.)

(When I was in college, I was given this nativity set to decorate my campus apartment with. I love Veggietales!)

(Our front door and new wreath)

(After my fun birthday Saturday, Jesse and Michael spent the next day hanging lights on the house)

(The lights up. Without the flash)

(With the flash)

(The sign I made for our house, now all hung up)

In other news, on Friday December 5th, Jesse and I attended his work's Christmas party. For those who don't know, Jesse works in a shop that handles friction materials. Jesse, specifically, refurbishes huge brake bands for oil liners and other kinds of big rigs. A company will send them their old brake band and Jesse will fix it up as good as new and send it back. It's a small company, but the owners take great care of their employees. He gets good benefits and the company regularly has get-togethers where they spoil their employees. Last year, the Christmas party was held at the Elk's Lodge. They had an all-you-can-eat buffet of wonderful food, all catered. Then they have a gift bag for each employee. Names are randomly drawn and each employee can come up and grab a gift bag. Each bag contains an item that is a $50 value, including gift cards to Home Depot, Jerry's, Target, Wal-Mart, cash, or University or Oregon or Oregon State University sweaters. After that, each employee is given a number of raffle tickets which they can divide amongst some plain brown paper bags. Last year, these bags contained prizes that were $500 values, including gift cards to Home Depot, Jerry's, the spa, or resorts. The grand prize winner won a $1000 prize to either a resort or one of the home improvement stores. Last year, we won a $50 gift card to Chili's. Remember? It's my favorite!

This year, the party was held at the Hilton Hotel. We were on the top floor overlooking the city in this exquisite dining room. I felt awkward taking pictures, so I only got a couple of discrete ones.

(Here is the chandelier that hung above our table)

(And this is my plate of some of the best food I've ever eaten.)

I wish I had gotten more pictures but my nerves got the best of me. Being that Jesse works in a shop, most of his coworkers are dirty, vulgar, rough-around-the-edges guys who curse a lot, smoke like there's no tomorrow, and drink constantly. Not really the kind of people I normally hang out with. So, even though Jesse is friends with some of these guys, he arranged for us to sit with Jesse's boss and his wife, Jesse's supervisor and his wife, and another couple who happened to sit across from us last year. We were by far the youngest couple at the table, but I loved that every single person at our table was a Christian, and we shared stories of church and our ministries without a curse word or profane joke heard. We are SO blessed to have Jesse's boss as his employer. This man has a heart for God. Jesse can go into his office at any time and share something that he is going through. His boss listens and encourages him and they pray together. I'm sure it would be easy for Jesse to fall in line with the other guys he works with as he's lived that lifestyle before, but knowing that his boss is there to hold him accountable is such a joy!

Anyways, from there, they had the same gift bag game, but this year someone could steal your item like a white elephant gift exchange. So Jesse and I were hoping for any of the home improvement gift cards being that we are new homeowners. He started off, though, with a U of O jacket that he really liked. Someone stole that, though, and he ended up with a Jerry's gift card for $50. He was disappointed about losing his jacket, but glad to have the gift card.

This year, there were 8 grand prizes but all were only a $250 value. There was 1 Jerry's card, 1 Home Depot card, 1 spa gift certificate, 1 bed and breakfast gift certificate, and 2 envelopes of $250 cash. We didn't win at all. However, God blessed us more than I could ever imagine, when Jesse's boss leaned over and discretly gave us the $250 cash that he had just won! He hugged us both later and said that he loved us. He said that he knew we were going through some hard times and that he wanted us to know that God is good! I was in shock, overwhelmed by this man's love. It took everything I had in me to not cry. And when we left, we each hugged him tightly. This Christmas, I want to do something really special for him to let him know how much I appreciate his support for Jesse.

And, finally, although this happened before the party, the last thing I wanted to share is my little cousin Zoe's Christmas program. She is 5 years old and in pre-school at a local Christian school. I lived with her mom, my cousin Liz, and her children Jaydon and Zoe, for a year before Jesse and I got married. I helped raise these little kids while their mom worked swing shift as a single mom. I adore them! And when I moved out, Zoe missed me a lot. She says that I am her favorite person and she always wants to hang out with me and spend the night at my house.

(She is the one in the pink dress with the plaid skirt. I bought her the dress, shoes, and hair ribbon for her 5th birthday!)

And, this is us together after her program.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, huh?!