Tuesday, December 11, 2012

This Year's Ornament Exchange + Trolley Ride

As mentioned in a previous post, I love holiday traditions!  And this year's did not disappoint!  Last Thursday night, our group of girls got together for our annual GNO Ornament Exchange at our favorite restaurant...sitting at the same table!  This is the get together each year that everyone makes sure to attend.  Everybody is super busy, but this is such a fun tradition!  We eat.  We talk.  We drink wine.  And we draw numbers and pick an ornament.  We don't do Dirty Santa - though it was discussed this year.   Here is our group!
 Me with my new ornament for the tree!  I love putting the ornaments that I've gotten over the last few years on the tree...so fun!
 Isn't it beautiful!?  I love how the light hits it just right and makes it twinkle!
And then Sunday night was our annual Trolley Ride!  This was the second year Katie went - and she LOVED it!  Jack stayed at home with Tanja and Nick (a big thank you to them for babysitting)!  I think Katie was both excited about the trolley and looking at lights AND the fact that she didn't have to share us with Jack.  She sure loves her brother, but she loves time with mommy and daddy.
 This is a house on a cul-de-sac that has the biggest display ever!  It is a family that lost a child in an accident and they do this big display each year in his honor.  And the people's neighbors have joined in...so it is like 5-6 houses with yards full of lights!  I think we are going to go back and walk around the lights...Katie will really love that!
 Katie couldn't get over how big the trolley's tires were - ha!
 And our annual picture in front of the Christmas tree on trolley night!
I can't wait to continue these traditions for years to come!  And there are still some more fun traditions to go this year...namely, we still have to take the kids to see Santa!  I think that will happen one night this week - I want to try to hit an off-peak time! :)


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1 comment:

  1. It's so cool that you all get together and do things like ornament exchanges. I seriously have few (I mean very few) friends. I'd love to have a group of close friends like that. Feel very blessed :)

    The Trolley ride sounds so fun! I know what you mean by her enjoying one on one time. I have 3 kids and my oldest loves time with just us. I sometimes wonder if the smaller two will too when they get older.

    Can't wait to hear about Santa!

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