Merry Christmas To All, & To All A Good Night

This year Andy and I did not encounter bad roads or airport nightmares as we did not head back to Wisconsin this year for Christmas.  This is the first year neither of us spent the holiday with our families.  We chose to stay in Arizona because this was an extremely busy year of traveling for us and something had to give, so it was Christmas.  This sounded like a good idea to begin with because it would allow us to have a stress free and quiet holiday with no family drama.  However, I did miss the get together's with our families to catch up, laughter and the snow.

Since we decided to stay in AZ I wanted to try and start some traditions here that we normally would do back in Wisconsin.  On Christmas Eve after football was over Andy and I had a nice ham meal and watched National Lampoon's Christmas while we shared a bottle of wine.  We also got to Face Time with Andy's family back in Wisconsin.  I also was able to talk with my family as well, but unfortunately I was not able to Skype or Face Time with them.  After the phone calls and movie time Andy and I made a cherry cheese coffee cake for our Christmas breakfast.  This coffee cake is so yummy and my mother makes it every year for our Christmas breakfast and I wanted to do the same thing here.  It is very easy to make and I was extremely happy how it turned out.

The awesome coffee cake I made.

We woke up on Christmas morning and we had plenty of presents to unwrap.  Between presents for each other and presents that were shipped to us we definitely felt loved.  Once we got through all of the gifts it was time for Christmas breakfast.  Normally my mother makes a very large breakfast for Christmas morning, but since it was just the two of us I had to scale it down.  We had the coffee cake from the night before, eggs, bacon, toast, fruit and orange juice.  Yummy! 

After our stomachs were full we headed to the movie theater.  I have never been to a movie on Christmas day, but apparently it is common.  Anyway, we saw the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  If you have read the book, you must see the movie.  I have read the series and just love the books and now I love the movie. Can't wait for the next movie.  Seeing a movie on Christmas morning is nice to do and could become a tradition...that is if we stay in AZ again.

After the movie it was time to get ready to head to our AZ family...the Seifert's to top off our Christmas holiday.  I decided to make a cheese board with the platter we received from my mother-in-law and the cheese signs we received from our friends.  I was so proud of this cheese board that I had to take a picture of it.  We packed up the board, crackers and gifts to head over to the Seifert's.

 

My cheese board that I was so proud of.

Andy and I in front of the Seifert Christmas tree.

All-in-all it was not a bad Christmas this year.  It definitely was not a typical Christmas that we are so used to, but it was not as bad as I thought it could be.  I am not saying we will stay in AZ every year for Christmas, but if we have to do it again I know we can make it work so that it is a nice holiday for the two of us.  It does help that we have plenty of loved ones that kept checking in on us to make sure we had a special holiday.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and we wish you a happy 2012!