Our First Christmas

Belated Yule-Tide Greetings!  :)

I finally finished this post.  I hope my tardiness does not keep you from being interested, but if it does I totally understand.  :)  I wanted to get all of our Christmas stuff into one post, so it took a while - ya dig?

Mr. Robinson and I were not dating last Christmas, so as you can imagine...this Christmas was very special to us.  It was our first one together and our first Christmas as a married couple!  We really had a wonderful Christmas together, and this post captures every moment, detail, laugh, and ounce of crazy.  :)  After all, Christmas with family members always involved a little crazy right?  No?  Just my family then!  :)  So....get ready for a long post with lots of pictures!

Our First Christmas

My favorite thing about our first Christmas is that I started a tradition that I just know we will always cherish.  I created a Christmas Memory Book that looks like a scrapbook but behaves like a journal.

  We wrote down every memory we made this Christmas season, and we will continue to do so for the rest of our lives.  :)  The best part is that the book looks pretty and is displayed with our Christmas decorations.  Not to mention the fact that it will be an heirloom passed down for generations - and y'all know I'm all about a good heirloom!  :)  I highly recommend that each of you make/buy a Christmas Memory Journal.  You can read the post I wrote about ours here.
Mr. Robinson and I had a huge Christmas this year.  However, my grandparents are pretty loaded and everything with them is huge and big and expensive, and all around over-the-top.  Needless to say, we had a huge Christmas this year.
Christmas Eve:We went to Pa & Ma's house (my parental grandparents) at 3.  We ate so much yummy food.  The first course was an old Italian recipe (my family is Italian) called anyalanes.  I have no idea how to spell it, I'm sorry.  It is similar to chicken and dumplings, but better.  Homemade, handmade noddles stuffed with  veal and chicken.  Mmm...  We had tons of other food too....ham, macaroni, bbq, etc.  My crazy aunt (anyone else have one of those?) forced all of us into taking about 7-trillion pictures.  Oh. My. Gosh.  BUT....they did turn out pretty cute.  

The Robinson's! 

Mr. & Mrs. Robinson

Zombie aka "Santa Paws!"

My husband, the photobomber

Ma, with all of her grandbabies! 

funny face picture ... & grab my boob I guess?  That's grandma-appropriate fa-sho.

funny face pictures do not amuse or flatter me...

L-R:  Me, Pa, Nicole, and Miranda (my sister)

got me some good Christmas lovin'!

Ater much food and many, many pictures.... we all went to church for a candlelight service.  Our church is currently without a pastor right now...which actually pretty much sucks, but the Body is amazing and we don't want to leave.  However, that made our Christmas Eve service a little...different.  A member of the church just so happens to be a retired pastor, but he has never been our pastor.  He filled in and headed up communion.  However, he is very old and is on a lot of medication and is just...kind of losing it.  We all felt like the service was not very reverent, and didn't really enjoy the way he did it.  However, it was still good to be in the Lord's house!  

After church, we went back to Pa and Ma's house to open presents.  Picture this....a large living room.  11 people.  2 dogs.  Each person received at least twenty gifts.  It was pure chaos, but it's my family and I loved it because it felt so familiar.  Last Christmas, I was waiting tables and was not able to be there with my family.  It felt good to be back, and to bring my brand new hubby with me! :)  My grandparent's dog is a Yorkie Silky Terrier named Beauhiggens.  Beau is a boy and is neutered, and humped poor Zombie (also a boy, but not neutered).  Also, in the series of events....Mr. Robinson and I got caught regifting.  But before you think I'm tacky and cheap, please allow me to explain.
We are talking about my crazy aunt that took all of the pictures okay?  She is the definition of tacky.  I mean...you really just have no idea.  She is known, far and wide, for her re-gifting.  A few years ago, the Christmas gift she gave my sister a day planner that was two years old and had already been used and written in.  At one of my showers (a pounding, where people give you non-perishable food and cleaning products) she gave me me a gift bag full of "non-perishable" food items.  It was so obvious that she had cleaned out her pantry.  There were boxes that had little mouse or rat teeth marks in the corner, a few empty boxes, a bag of pretzels that had been opened and eaten out of, limited edition season jello (like the kinds you buy during thanksgiving or Christmas), among other crazy things.  Did I mention that this shower took place in July?  After further investigation, I discovered that every single item she gave me was expired.  The oldest item she "gave" us had expired in 2006.  She gave us 5 year old food.  I mean, get real, she did not  buy that from Food Lion or Walmart.  She did not buy a box of jello that a rat had eaten out of and she did not buy an already opened bag of food.  She pulled it out of her pantry.  At a different shower, she gave me crystal wine glasses that have been used before...I could tell by the grease stains around the rim left over by washed-away lipstick , the re-applied stickers, and old box they came in.  I mean, you guys, she is TACKY.  And nobody ever calls her out on it, not even me!  And I'm the queen of telling people like it is!  So, after her acting as though she was doing Mr. and I a huge favor with all of the "gifts" she gave when in  reality, she was just cleaning out her pantry...I decided I was not going to spend money on her.  Maybe I was in the wrong.  But my goodness, Mr. Robinson and I surely do not have money growing on a tree in the back yard.  She was just going to give us something she received and didn't like.  So, I regifted.  And idiot me, forgot to take the little to-from tag out of the inside of the box.  And got caught.  :(  I was embarrassed, but more so...I was mad.  I was mad because nobody ever calls her out on it because it is rude to say "hey, you're a really tacky person.  I can't believe you re-gifted me!"  She re-gifts everyone, everyone KNOWS it, and everyone just smiles and plays along.  But she announces my re-gift to the entire room.  I mean, we received so many re-gifts at our wedding showers.  And that's fine because I like all of the gifts we got and I am still thankful for the love and thought expressed by those gifts.  At least they tried.  And sometimes people just get two gifts of the same thing...I mean, you never know.  I just felt like the queen of tacky called me out on being tacky in a very tacky way, and it made me mad.  In any event, I learned my lesson and will never again re-gift.
So, like I was saying.  My boy dog (nuts in tact) got humped by another boy dog (who has no nuts).  We got caught re-gifting.  
Moving on... :) 
A few weeks ago, we went to crazy aunt's house.  She took this picture.  From left to right we have....Mr. Robinson, myself, my two cousins Nicole and Daniel (crazy aunt's children), and my sister on the end.  We four (plus my new hubby) make up Pa and Ma's grandchildren.  We framed this picture and gave it to them for Christmas.  Crazy aunt was the photographer.  This was at her house.  She did a good job.  Gorgeous background!  So this was the grandkids present to the grandparents, and they loved it!    

One gift I was really excited about was a gift that was not even given to me, it was given to my husband.  My grandfather bought all of the men the same gun, and they had consecutive serial numbers.  They are collector's edition guns that were made in honor of or in memory of the Civil War.  My grandpa bought one for himself, for my dad, for crazy aunt's husband, for Daniel (crazy aunt's son), and for my husband.  All of the men got one.  I could care less about the gun, but it made me really, really happy that my grandpa considers my husband "one of our men."  My grandparent's were a little iffy about our quick marriage at first, so this was kind of a symbol of their acceptance of him and of our marriage.  It made me happy that he was included in that.  :)  
THEN...my grandpa pulls me into the kitchen and tells me that the guns have consecutive serial numbers.  I say "okay."  I really could care less about the guns, haha.  He said that he bought 6 guns.  I said "okay."  He said, "That's one gun for every man in this family with an extra gun left over."  I said, "okay."  He nudges me with his elbow and says, "The 6th one is for my first grandson."  Ughh.  Why do people think newlyweds HAVE TO HAVE BABIES?!  Haha.  Crazy old man.  :)
So anyway, after we all opened the gifts and cleaned up their living room...it was time to go home.  My parents were kind enough to come over to our house and take some pictures of my husband and I in front of our very first Christmas tree in our very first home together!  :)   I owe credit to Pinterest for the inspiration behind these pictures.  I think they turned out pretty darn precious!  :)  We plan on using them next year on our Christmas cards, since we didn't make it around to sending any out this year.  Ooops ;) 

 

Which one is your favorite?  :)

After my parents left, we unloaded all of the presents from Pa & Ma's house into the living room and loaded up the car with presents to our parents.  Then, we changed into our jammies and started watching A Christmas Story.  Well, we didn't finish it.  We were both tired and had full bellies, and A Christmas Story is not a movie you can fall asleep to.  So we turned it off and went to bed.
Mr. Robinson "snuck" into the living room and wouldn't let me leave our room until the next morning.  He was being Santa, isn't that precious?  I woke him up at 7 am Christmas Morning by getting in his face and poking his arm.  I'm a 5 year old sometimes, too.  :)  He woke up and begged for more sleep, which I denied him, and we got up to open presents!  :)  We went to our stockings first, where we both found cards.  :)  It was sweet because his card was addresses to "My Wife" and my card was addressed to "My Husband" and we didn't plan it!  :)  The cards were very sweet.  His made my tear up a little.
Then, we went to the Christmas tree to open presents.  I had two gifts, he had four.  Our limit was $250.  
I gave him a pair of custom orange and black chuck's that I designed just for him.  They have his name down the back.  He is a SF Giants fan, and orange and black are his favorite colors.  He loved the shoes.  Flipped out over them, even.  :)  I also gave him an orange and black watch because while we were on our honeymoon, he kept looking at orange and black watches but couldn't justify spending a lot of money on one.  So I found a cheaper one on Amazon and he loves it.  Then, I gave him a sign for his man cave.  Finally....I gave him "The 12 Dates of Christmas" which you will hear more about later!  :)  Basically, I arranged 12 boy-dates and he gets to pick when we go on them.  One each month.  I am SO super pumped about this, and can't wait to share all of the dates with y'all!  
He gave me a Pandora charm for my bracelet that we started on our honeymoon!  The charm he gave me for Christmas is red and white striped, like a peppermint, to mark our first Christmas together!  Pandora does have a Christmas tree charm, but the star on top is made from yellow gold and he knows I basically hate yellow gold.  So he got creative.  He's the best.  :)  He was so cute because in the box, with the charm, he put in a ton of peppermints to "hide" the charm.  It was so cute.  AND it answered my question:  "where did all the peppermints go!?"  He also gave me a SEWING MACHINE and I am pumped!  I can't wait to take it out of the box and play with it.  First, I need some practice fabric.  I guess t-shirts would work well as a practice-fabric.  I guess first I need some time.  We stay so busy, haha.  But oh man, it's a nice one!  It's for sewing and quilting.  So keep your eyes open for some sewing-centered posts.  Hopefully before next year!  
For breakfast, I made Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Pancakes.  They were delicious!  

Source: thatssoyummy.com via Kristina on Pinterest

After we ate, we got ready for church.  Mr. Robinson wore his new orange and black shoes, khaki pants, a black shirt, orange tie, and his new orange and black watch.  I wore a red dress and a (faux) fur leopard print jacket.  
After church, we went home and changed quickly.  We finished packing.  We grabbed Zombie-girl and ran out the door, and off to my parent's house for lunch with my mom, dad, sister, Grandmudder, Grumps, Uncle Damon, Uncle Oscar, and my little cousin Gracie.  We ate lunch...and oh man, was it good....and exchanged gifts!  This is when I gave my grandma the chocolate covered cherries I had been working on.  (For recipes, click on my recipe tab!  There are three!)  My parents gave us a lap top!  Yay!!  We sure did need one.  We have three broken lap tops in our house, how crazy is that?  
Then, we packed up the car with gifts from my family and headed to see his parents.  They ate lunch, so we missed it.  But we had dinner with just us and his folks.  Yummy, yummy leftovers.  And I am not being sarcastic.  We exchanged gifts with them, and then pretty much went to bed.  The next day, we hung around the house with them.  The four of us went outside and had some target practice and played around with our guns.  Hubby got to shoot his new gun for the first time, and I got to shoot my little pink gun.  Maybe one day I'll write a post on my opinions regarding guns, gun control, and packing-heat.  (Hint:  I am FOR it, and I carry my gun everywhere.)  It always good to practice.  The last thing you want to do is make a robber MAD by shooting him in the toe or something.  Then, Mr. Robinson went deer hunting with his dad and I went shopping with his mom.  I bought some GREAT boots that came up to my knees and fit my fat calves perfectly.  This is no small accomplishment, ladies.  Then, we ate again (are you seeing a trend, here?).
Finally, we packed up the car and went home.  It was the longest drive ever.  We were both very, very sleepy and very, very full.  We finally got home around 10:30 that Monday night, and we both had to work the next day.  We unloaded everything out of my car, and passed out from pure exhaustion.  
The End :)  

Here are some links to Christmassy posts I did this season...

Click here to read about our decorations.

Click here to read about the Christmas Show we saw.

Click here to see how I made a Christmas ornament out of a key.

Click here for my Homemade Holiday sugar Scrub recipes.

Click here to see how I made a festive centerpiece out of wine glasses.

Click here to check out our salt dough ornaments, with the recipe!

Click here for Breanna's guest post on making ornaments out of clear Christmas balls!

Click here for my post about cheap ideas to spread Christmas cheer!

And click here if you want to know what took me so long to write this post.