A Rexburg Christmas

It's beginning to look like Christmas here in Rexburg. Being my first Christmas season away from home, I've had to be pretty creative with the decorations. But, pulling ideas from my mom and from friends, our house is starting to look very Christmasy and feel Christmasy too.

One of my family's Christmas traditions
is to have a chocolate advent calendar,
where we open up one of the numbered
doors and eat a chocolate each day to
count down to Christmas...yum!



Another tradition, started in my family because
my dad's family spent time in Germany when
he was young, is to celebrate St. Nicholas Day.
On the eve of December 5th, children and
adults alike set out one of their shoes, then
wake up the next morning to find oranges,
nuts, and chocolates stuffed inside! I decided to
carry on this tradition in my new family, so
here are mine and Travis' shoes filled with
goodies on St. Nicholas Day morning.



Trying to think of some kind of decoration to
put in our windows, we decided to brush up
on our snowflake making skills and fill up our
windows with "snow." Trav and I had fun
making them, and were surprised to find that
we actually have sweet snowflake making skills.
The snowflakes have been nice to have up
because we really haven't gotten that much snow yet.
Maybe we'll have some real snow by Christmas!



Then we brightened up the window a little by
putting up some lights. So far, we are the most
festively decorated apartment in our complex,
which is a pretty cool feat. I love coming home
at night and seeing our window all lit up. It
makes me smile. =)



We bought a pre-lit tree from Wal-Mart (figuring
we'll have reason to use a fake tree for a few more
years yet) and put it up together last night. Here
I am, putting the first ornament on the tree.



I thought it would be nice to have an ornament
that said "2007" to commemorate our
first Christmas together, and we found a really
cute "Willow Tree" angel ornament that did at
Deseret Book, so we bought it! Our ornament
collection is pretty limited right now, but I figure
that it is just an exciting opportunity to collect some
over the years and make them our own. We
want to make a tradition, like Brandon and
Rachel, of each person in the family picking out
a new ornament for themselves each year, then
hanging their own ornaments on the tree. So,
here is the first of many to come!



And here is the finished Christmas
Tree! I just love having it in our
home. There is always a special
feeling about having a Christmas
tree, and it is no different this year.



It's exciting for us to start making
our own holiday family traditions!

Wishing we could be with ya'll
at this Christmas time. =)