Christmas Eve- A day all about traditions...

Christmas Eve is definitely one of my all time favorite days of the year. For every year, as long as I can remember, we have celebrated Christmas Eve with my Oma and Opa.




And with the Best. Lasagna. Ever.

We came home in time to scoot to my parents' house for a small gathering of our church family, came back home to set out cookies and milk for Santa, and the kids and I headed to bed while Chad attended the late night Christmas Eve service with his mom- a tradition that they have shared for years.

Bader Family Christmas

Will I get through December posts before February? Nope. But who doesn't like to hear about Christmas around Valentine's Day, right? Well, maybe the 7 other people in this post below. :-)

Before our family Christmas, shortly after Eric and Caroline arrived to town, we had our first-ever-yet-to-be-decided-if-annual Christmas Cookie Baking Day.

It actually was a lot of fun and we made about 8 different cookies.





Then, on December 23, we celebrated our Bader Family Christmas.

Love a good family gathering revolving around jammie wearing and continuous snack eating.
...and gift giving!


One of the highlights...fun for the WHOLE family!






Brooklyn sewed her very first tote bag with her very first sewing machine!

Let's keep trucking through December, shall we?

We continued celebrating the holiday season when we took the kids to SciWorks for their holiday eventon Friday, December 11. Santa was a highlight for my kids.

Not so much for my sweet niece...
Don't worry, Molly. It look me 10 years to get a good pic of my kids with Santa. :-)

I took Brooklyn (with both grandmas) on Saturday, the 12th, to see "The Secret Garden." This show has a special, special place in my heart as I performed it in with my sweet Blanche about 20 years ago. I LOVE the music and was thrilled that this show was being performed in town.

Then, Christmas REALLY came when, at last, Uncle Eric and Aunt Caroline arrived into town on Thursday, the 17th. Oh happy day! We were all so excited to start Christmas vacation with them and to squeeze them and love on them as much as we could!

They were perfectly timed for Jake's Christmas show at school.

And after we froze our hineys off at the HPU Community Christmas, we went out to dinner Friday night at Ham's.

Lots of eating and drinking and laughing...but most of the time was spent snuggling.

Ending the weekend with a bang....er, parade

Brooklyn's Girl Scout troop marched in the local holiday parade on Sunday afternoon. We went out to cheer them on, and Jake was SO EXCITED that almost every float threw out candy. I swear he almost got more candy there than on Halloween.


They did so well!




I returned to work Monday and had to come up with a quick and easy door decoration for my office door. Insert all previous years' holiday cards here mounted on copy paper and a few clip art stars. I was so preoccupied with other tasks that Pinterest definitely did not get called on for this contest, but it was nice to see how my family has grown over the last 11 Christmas's.

Bad Roomies = Good Movie

After the beloved Carolina Christmas, we had dear friends come over for a very special movie screening. My brother was the Director of Photography (meaning everything that has to do with the camera and camera crews- the camera boss) on a film called Bad Roomies.

(Taken from iTunes) Bad Roomies is a dark comedy about two guys living together who, after losing their roommate, put out an ad to find a new one. After a series of disastrous interviews with potential roommates they settle on an apparently harmless but beautiful girl. All seems to be going well despite a simmering rivalry until one drunken night causes all three roommates to make a horrible mistake that start them on a downward spiral. A hilarious yet disastrous game of roommate versus roommate takes a turn that will change all their lives forever.

Yup. We were very proud and you can rent/order it from iTunes anytime you want. :-)

I mean, even the celebs are tweeting about it...

And, I have to say that by us watching this movie and seeing this opening shot...

...led to us buying a third vehicle for our family about 4 weeks later. But more on that soon...

Our 16th Annual Carolina Christmas!

My holidays are never complete until I get my Carolina Christmas, and luckily due to schedules, I didn't have to wait long this year. On December 5, we all got together for lunch at Marisa's new house and also got to meet her sweet, newborn princess, Nyla.

Ooooooo.....my ovaries exploded right here. Pure preciousness.

We've been friends almost half our lives, and it is a blessing to do life with these people right here.







Each year, we buy our "favorite thing" of the year to give to the others. This year, I was super excited that my friend, Krystin, at Callie's Corner Creations made these awesome tumblers for us "Carolina Girls." They were perfect.

I am truly blessed to have these women (and their men) in my life. I love them and their families so much and cherish every bit of time that we get together.

Thanksgiving Weekend...

Oy. It will be Valentine's Day before I get this blog caught up. I seriously enjoyed my holiday break to the point of maybe only opening my computer three times.

So, a very belated Thanksgiving from us to you!


I was in charge of the turkey this year and it came out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

The kids enjoyed building a gingerbread house in the morning before our family arrived that afternoon.

And showed me the true meaning of Thanksgiving when they managed to get along all day. :-)

Sweet cousins watching the cars drive by on a beautiful Thanksgiving afternoon...

I also managed to see some of my sweet Carolina girls that weekend (and Jake met Macie for the first time!).

Something also came over me that caused me to organize a family trip to a Christmas tree farm that Saturday.

The kids were super excited and we had a great day with the grandparents.









An added feature of Lil Grandfather Mountain Christmas Tree farm was the horse rides in the barn! This was Jake's first time on a horse and he loved it. (Brooklyn declined.)

We ended the night with a Post-Disney Reunion McJohnzler Covered Dish....yummy food and great friends...and of course, a group selfie.

And finally, the weekend ended with a Cousin Lunch at Hops Burger Bar.


It was a great weekend with family and friends...just as a Thanksgiving Weekend should be.