lxforever

“Pregnant ladies attract more attention than a Porsche Boxster” -Steve “Yeah, and I suppose more than a toasted marshmallow, too.” -Barb.

A surprising amount of people have commented about our Christmas as newlyweds (“first Christmas as newlyweds” would be silly, as it’s our ONLY), so for my own sake I thought I should document it. Get ready, this could be boring, but remember, I’m trying to write more, regardless of what!

Our first married Christmas started right here at 5317 on Christmas Eve when we decorated cookies. Although it wasn’t necessary, making cookies/fudge just felt like something that had to happen, and since it was my first Christmas ‘away’ (I put that in quotes because we were indeed in Madison the 26th for our third Christmas, ha), it felt even more pertinent. We frostinged and sprinkled up a lot of angels, stars and trees and made a big mess. Fun.

We exchanged our gifts by our skinny tree in our house that’s perfectly cozy for Christmastime, and totally spoiled one another, whoops, in spite of a bad economy. We then packed up and headed down to Burnsville for Christmas #1 at Jack and Laureen’s. Jeff’s cousin Danny joined us there which was an excellent surprise, and Laureen cooked up a wonderful dish yet again. We hung around drinking beer and Old Fashioneds, eating cheese and then pasta, watched some of the crazy Christmas movie and opened gifts together. The end of the night came too quickly, because, though I may stray far away from it, the Catholic guilt still runs through my blood, and Christmas isn’t the same without a little church; we hit up the candlelight ‘midnight’ mass at Annunciation which was seriously beautiful and truly candle-lit. Annunciation is actually really, really nice, and I was happy to have Jeff there with me.

We woke up Christmas Day in our own home for the first time! It was very nice and super snowy out, which was lovely. We then headed out to Cottage Grove for a day with Sue, Greg, Kelsey, and Erik and Kim G. We had the typical Akervik Christmas morning breakfast, which was a complete food overload but so delightful, and then spent the afternoon opening stockings (LOVE stockings), gifts, sitting by the fire (that was definitely my highlight; so cozy), playing Indiana Jones Life (don’t ask) and fixing Sue’s computer. The day finished up with another enormous and tasty meal and lots and lots of Chianti. With the fire and tree and village, it was simply lovely, and everyone was so sweet about me being IN the family. Why yes I am!

“Boxing Day” as they say, we went down to Madison for Christmas #3, where my family had so graciously saved all of our Christmas Eve traditions and present-opening for us. On the way down we stopped at my grandparents and had a nice chat about the Culvers, the snow, and Game Informer. It was really nice and peaceful to spend time with them alone. Upon arriving in Madison, we found my mom and dad and Jenny had prepared a smashing spread of appetizer foods and Bloody Marys (the new drink of the year BTW), and we loaded up plates as the night rolled in and opened gifts. It was SO NICE to get to do that with them! We also played Apples to Apples which was completely amusing. The Saturday after we all worked out together (DORK ALERT) and had a fondue feast. In the evening we met up with my aunts Connie and Marsha and uncle Tom and Lisa for a good ol’ family beer-drinkin’ at Great Dane. CHIC NAILS! It was so good to see them all.

AND NOW 2009 is upon us, but that was our newlywed Christmas! Preeeety preeeety good :).