Meet the Mathewson's

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This Christmas was so much fun! We got to spend Christmas Eve with Jeff's family and Christmas Day with my family! Jeff used to tell me all about his fun Christmas Eve traditions and I was so excited to become a part of the traditions this year. 

We slept at his parents on Christmas Adam (Jeff's nephew, Dean, notified us that the day before Christmas Eve is Christmas Adam because Adam came before Eve. lol) I woke up to the sweet smell of chicken and onions (it actually did smell really good)! Jeff's mom got an early start on her famous Chicken Enchiladas and made the kitchen smell so good!

Meanwhile, Jeff's sister Brooke was in the basement making delicious carmel apples and pretzles. I started helping her because with all the baking going on, the basement was getting too hot for the carmel and chocolate to set. Within a couple of hours we had it all figured out! Then Scout and Jeff helped us finish decorating the pretzles. They look so cute (especially Jeff in his little girly apron)!

Jeff's Cute Apron

Apples

Pretzels

After eating Mama Deb's famous Chicken Enchiladas, all of the kids (including me and Jeff) re-enacted the Naitivity. Brooke and Amy were the costume designers. The kids wanted Jeff to be the donkey so Mary could ride him into Bethlehem. They wanted me to be the star because I'm so awesome, of course!

And here is what everyone else was...

After the Nativity they had the annual Neice/Nephew gift exchange, the girl's book exchange, and the FIRST ANNUAL male meat exchange! You can only imagine all the innuendos that were said - needless to say, everyone had a great time! There was even a special announcement (play the video to find out). Congrats Kevin and Kerry!

Girl's Book Exchange

Meat Exchange

We finished off the Mathewson Christmas Eve Bash with a trip to the cemetery to sing carols to Grandma and Grandpa Mathewson. This was my first experience with Cemetery Caroling, but it is actually a tradition that a lot of people do. As we were driving into the cemetery, I noticed many other families caroling to their loved ones. Graves were covered in candles, wreaths, luminaries, and music boxes. I felt so special to share that moment with my new family. I never go the chance to meet Grandma or Grandpa Mathewson, but I sure did feel them there with us as we were singing to them.

Then it was off to the Strasburg household. We arrived around 10PM expecting that we were going to sleep and start my families traditions in the morning. However, they were waiting for us to start the party! We played BINGO and won several prizes including a special prize with "Darwin's" name on it. It was pink pig gummy candies (pigs are his least favorite Christmas present so it's fun to get him pigs for Christmas)!

We then did our gift exchange. My sister, Bonnie, and her family were in Alaska so we skyped them and it was just like they were with us. Jeff had my brother-in-law Bric for the gift exchange. Last year Bric had Jeff and played a prank on him. So Jeff had to get him back this year! He decided to get him a Scooby Doo snuggie wrapped in a Victoria's Secret bag. He told Bric that the gag was that it was wrapped in a Victoria's Secret bag. Bric opened the gift and pretended to love it. Later that night, Jeff surprised him with the real gift. His face was honestly priceless. Bric loves the Steelers and Jeff found him a Canvas print of the Steeler's Stadium.

After the gift exchange, we helped my mom wrap presents until about 3AM. We went to bed only to wake up a few hours later to "HURRY, WAKE UP!!!! SANATA CAME!!!!!" Ugh, now I know how my parents felt every Christmas of my childhood! No wonder they made a rule that we cannot wake them up before 8AM. There was a ton of presents under the tree - Santa outdid him self again!

Wrapping presents until 3AM

Jeff spoiled me!! Watch this video to see what he did for me this Christmas...

Ahhhhhhh!!!!! WooHoo!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm such a lucky girl! We're going to Kauai for a week in March!!!!!! I'm so EXCITED!!! It will almost be the 2 year anniversary of when we went to Hawaii the first time -- when we fell in LOVE  :)

These are all of the clues Jeff gave me

After opening presents, we got to go to church with my parents. When we got home, Rachel and Travis made eggs and CREPES!!!! They are amazing cooks!

My dad got the xbox connect for Christmas. He got dance central so obviously me and my sister had to break in my dad's gift! It was so much fun! We danced for hours! I didn't even realize how good of a workout it was until the next day when I was sore!

 

We then returned to the Mathewson's for a friendly game of Dicecapades (if you don't know what this game is, it's super fun and you should buy it)! We got to play it with some of Jeff's good friends. There were questions like "What National Park is Old Faithful located at?". And there were challenges like "Arm wrestle the player to your right"...

Brooke won  :)

We also got to go to the Festival of Trees for the first time. All I can say is , "WOW"! What an awesome event. The trees and other decorations are very beautiful, but the stories are even more beautiful and touching. All benefits from the Festival of Trees goes to Primary Children's Hospital. Each tree has a story attached to it of why the person decided to donate the tree. They usually did it in memory of a loved one who passed away or was miraculously saved by the doctors and nurses at Primary Children's. This is going to be a tradition for us because it shows the true meaning of Christmas - people serving others and it makes you realize that no matter how difficult your life seems, it could always be worse.

This was my favorite tree. Jeff was going to let me buy it, but it was already sold.... probably for thousands of dollars!  :)

This was Jeff's favorite tree. It was actually pretty awesome. There was sports memorabilia from almost every player from Utah who has gone pro. This tree must have sold for millions!

The tree we were able to use this year is a little more modest, but it worked great for our first Christmas together!

So instead of spending thousands on a Christmas Tree, we spent lots of our gift cards and a few dollars on supplies for a tree that will look similar to the thousand dollar tree. Nothing beats after Christmas sales!

Our tree will look great next year! I can't wait for more fun memories and build on our traditions next year! Here's to a Happy and Healthy 2012!

P.S. I wanted everyone to have a good laugh. Check out this awesome gift Brooke gave Jeff for Christmas...