Our Simple Little Christmas

For a Christmas tree that wasn't supposed to have any gifts under it I think we did pretty well!  Nothing under that tree was very expensive at all and all of the gift wrapping was done using up and recycling things we had leftover from years past.  You'd be pretty hard pressed to prove that was the case, however.

One of my homemade candles

Christmas Eve was quite lovely.  That day the girls drove over to the college and picked up my oldest daughter's roommate.  They brought her home to spend the holiday with us and it really felt like I had an extra daughter under my roof.  It was terrific.  We enjoyed our traditional clam chowder supper with garlic cheddar drop biscuits and a simple green salad.  The entire meal was made from items we already had on hand in our pantry and the salad was made from items my daughter brought home from work.

I was thrilled to be able to surprise all three girls with tickets to the Idaho Botanical Garden for the Winter Garden a Glow exhibit.  The CEO of the company I work for gifted me a set of tickets.  As soon as dinner was done we headed off to see that.  Despite the cold we had a wonderful time and it was amazing.  A great way to walk off our dinner too and see a lot of Christmas lights.  So very pretty.  We loved it!

Christmas Day was filled with more of our traditions.  We opened gifts that morning and made a huge mess in the process!  Then I made cinnamon rolls from a tube (my girls love that!) with scrambled eggs and sausage links for breakfast.  After breakfast I gleaned what I could from the mess on the living room floor and then tidied up the rest.

In the fall I had purchased faux fur throws for my girls on sale at Vanity Fair Outlet for $6.97 a piece.  They are really nice ones to and regularly retailed for $19.99.  I bought two "used" books from Amazon for my youngest and when they arrived I discovered they were both brand new!  My oldest daughter needed new shoes and I was able to find her black leather ankle boots, which she loves, for $19.99 on clearance at Encore Shoe Dept at the mall which is a great outlet store for last season's shoes.  I did have my regular "Santa budget" for stocking stuffers which was mainly dollar tree items and store freebies I'd collected as well as a family game for us all to enjoy.  Santa usually brings a game or a DVD we've been wanting.  I was able to use money I earned from working overtime last month to fund these purchases and kept my spending to just under $73!  We were also able to pull together a few nice gifts and a stocking for my daughter's roommate as well, a lot of which were store freebies and items in my gift box.  My girls each pitched in and contributed some items as well.

Our supper that evening was another Christmas tradition with nice grilled steaks, au jus to dip, Yorkshire pudding, roasted veggies and a fruit salad.  For dessert this year I made homemade chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream.  There was also plenty of other sweets to enjoy that day as well.

This is what makes my Christmas perfect!

We played games, laughed, talked, giggled and enjoyed each other's company.  It was a perfect day and I couldn't have been any happier about it.  How was your Christmas?