the christmas story-the 2nd chapter.

i know i am a little late on this, theres been a lot going on with holidays/work/training/life in general. plus i wanted to make sure i put my full time into it. christmas is a super special holiday to me. i have loved it forever and even my 3 seasons in retail couldnt shake my true love for it. i love to decorate and shop and give and be involved in traditions. it makes my heart warm and fuzzy for days:)

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this was richard and i's 2nd christmas together so this time we already had the basics. we got to focus more of our money on the gifts and the season this year rather than the apartment. the 2nd year also meant there were some traditions in place for ourselves. for example christmas pjs, we'll get to that story.

i had changed my mind on what to buy richard quite a few times but always came back to the same basics. he had been telling me for weeks that he wanted clothes, which i was very excited about because hello im a girl:) but they arent the funnest christmas gifts to buy. the other issue was that he loves express, i means loves. he will find things in there that i also love on him but express is expensive. one can not buy their entire wardrobe in there on a reasonable budget. the problem is he falls in love there and wont shop anywhere else. so my plan was to buy a few there and then hope he liked the other great things i found. when the extra money i had set aside for something else fell through i was actually able to score great deals during 1 of there holiday sales! i knew he would love it and its what he really wanted.

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as christmas got closer presents started to arrive under the tree and this year a few of mine where under there before christmas eve! we shopped for each other and friends and families, this year was actually a really fun shopping year! we also for the 1st time made a christmas card to send to friends and family. i (the hopeless romantic) have always dreamt about it for years and ran out of time last year, so i made sure this season it was a priority. it came out amazing!

finally it was christmas weekend and we were making final plans. we spend christmas eve at our house making pizza and watching love actually (yay!) after richard got home from work, then wake up on christmas do our own thing and head over to my parents house before everyone else got there to do a family christmas. great plan! even if my family kept trying to change things. i did my long run saturday and met tiffany to exchange presents as richard left for work. we came home later that evening and i got to cook dinner and he fell asleep while we watched the movie. afterward as i was heading to bed i tried to give richard his pjs so he could wake up and wear them on christmas, big mistake. he got pretty mad that i had told him we were doing a gift christmas eve (even though i did the exact same thing last year) and he didnt have anything for me to open. i kept telling him that wasnt the point, i already had my pjs, it was his turn. we finally compromised on that would be the 1st gift he opened so he could put them on (boys!).

christmas morning came and richard was actually up before the alarm! i had set it for 9a so we could make breakfast and have plenty of time for presents before going to my parents. as soon as i was up richard wanted to open presents. i told him no way, we could do stockings and then ill make breakfast then we can open the rest. that was a no go. so i made breakfast then we opened it all. except he kept trying to make stockings last, again, no way!

as soon as richard opened his stocking he wanted to bust out his drill, he finally had drillbits! and i laughed hysterically when i found ghost in mine:) we both also found candy and christmas cards. we started opening the gifts and i got to add to my princess train, a harry potter cookbook based on food they ate in the series (so cool), plus i finally got to start my 1st 2 seasons of gilmore girls!! richard loved his clothes, got to change his xbox to a tron box and a hilarious new towel so he knows which end to use. now, in my stocking there was something wrapped in ribbon that richard kept hiding.

my silly gift, hehe.

richards silly gift, hehe.

after almost everything was unwrapped he grabbed my ipad to load wsomething but it wouldnt work so he turned on my laptop to load something. i got to open my mysteriously wrapped ribbon package to reveal a huge surprise,2 tickets to phantom of the opera on jan 7th!!!!! i have always wanted to see this show on the strip! i saw it in new york years ago and have heard fantastic things about the vegas one. i think i only mentioned once that i wanted to see it and he remembered:)

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we cleaned up our wrapping paper mess and got ready to go over to my parents house to continue christmas. once we got there they had already done their christmas and the boys were already upstairs getting my dads new xbox set up. mom and i convinced them to come downstairs so we could do our christmas. after reading our picture books and giving my family their pjs, we got to the fun stuff. richard bought my mom the steve jobs biography and she hid it right away from my dad. he bought my dad a straight razor professional shave which he talked about it all day long. kyle got his own xbox skin that im pretty sure richard was just as excited to put on. i actually bought my dad one as well, all the boys got one:) kyle and i bought my mom a hot stone massage/pedicure plus my dad added an extra one so she could take a friend! i gave kyle a super funny big rig alarm with a truck driver that yells at you to wake up haha!

my parents were very gracious to us and gave richard gift cards to express plus a cool crockpot cookbook! they gave me my black boots i had been hoping for, a beautiful purple sweater and a white button up shirt i had my eye on. plus we got an awesome blender for our apartment:) it was a very successful christmas! i didnt take nearly enough pictures, i just got so excited.

our friends came over and we enjoyed lots of food, even if it was in shifts haha. we ended the evening by heading to our annual movie. my mom and brother decided on we bought a zoo, now originally richard was not at all excited about this choice. but he was a great sport and the movie turned out really good! he even recommended it to a friend of ours the next week:)

christmas goulash!

we headed home afterward to get in our pjs and enjoy the end of a fantastic christmas. i am sooo super excited about my phantom tickets and richard has been waking up each day trying to choose from all his new clothes choices! when we came home that night we didnt even turn the tv on and just talked and opened up to each other, it was great. we seem to have those kind of talks a little bit more often now and i really dig it. it means so much:)