Matson Family: Holidays

Wow, the holidays sure are busy for us Matson's! This is partially my fault because I love it so darn much ad try to fit in as many "Christmasy" things as possible! Especially this year because Nash was nuts about anything Christmas and was uber excited so i wanted everyday to be magical!

Almost all of our decorations have been pretty low budget/ghetto/hand me down so far and i just didn't have the stomach to put most of them up this year but i did want the house to be festive so we moved to plan B! We went homemade and i loved it! Nash and i started by stringing air pop corn for tree garland. He was really excited until he tasted it and realized it has nothing on pop-secret homestyle!... our house favorite. We made a huge mess but i was pleased, nothing as cute as strung pop corn. I then combined ideas from two of my sister in-laws, cranberries from Megan and Oranges from Kylee. We sliced up oranges and tangerines, sprinkled them with cinnamon, baked them for a bit, then dried them out for a few days. We strung them with the cranberries as garland for the tree and mantle. They turned out pretty awesome and the orange & tangerine slices on the tree almost looked like ornaments and looked super sweet when the lights would shine through them. I took on the big task of sewing and stuffing turtle doves (actually just a bird pattern i found...but lets just say they're turtle doves.) I had some pretty posh Christmas fabric leftover from table runners I made as gifts last year and we recycled the stuffing from an old throw pillow Bri was getting rid of. I glued little alligator hair clips to the bellies and Nash helped me perch them all on branches of the tree. We then added all the ornaments we've collected over the years. Josh has a bunch of pretty rad ones from growing up including, an awesome spiderman, a Santa rock climbing, a sweet old fashioned skier, and many other treasures! His mom has given him one every year since he was born. We also have some that belonged to my dear Gma Becky and ones we've begun to collect for ourselves and of coarse passing on the tradition and getting one for Nash every year. This year he picked mickey mouse playing the drum.

I grabbed some scissors, put on my boots and headed in the back yard to cut branches from our plump little blue spruce to set on the mantel. Added our stocking hangers, some lights, and one of the magazine trees we crafted up this year! Josh was such a trooper and even made one himself! His was the best...of coarse. We spray glued them than added some glitter for a little bling. Perfect.

The best part about going homemade this year was all the stories it brought out of everyone. Our parents, gma Diane, and even lots of friends shared memories of making their own decorations, many which were very similar to ours.

Some highlights of the Holiday were:
The JNP Christmas concert. The girls blew me away with how well they performed.
Zoo Lights, even though we pretty much froze to death.
Nash's Secret elf!, My parents did the 12 days of Christmas for Nash and he was convinced it was an elf leaving him gifts on the door step every night! He'd yell out "Fank you" from the door and was so excited I thought his head would explode!!! My parents are amazing and spoil their grand kids oodles and in such fun ways! Mom never does anything so-so, its always a dreamboat.
Bradford Family party, Santa comes every year and Nash was ecstatic to see him and tell him everything he wanted! This year it was a dog pillow pet and a hot wheels criss cross crash!
Matson family party, Nash is in love with little Natalie Matson and the white elephant gift exchange is always off the hook. I stumbled across a real gem this year and got a sweet Bruce Lee pocket knife with a special box just for it! I'm so glad McKenna got it so maybe Nash will inherit it some day!
Playing Santa, This is the first year that Josh and I actually had to be sneaky and really "play" Santa. It was a fun excuse to get baby sitters, go shop for our nugget and squeeze in a mom & dad only dinner.
Christmas Eve, We had dinner up at Zack's, visited, played games and opened gifts. Liz made every couple and each grandchild their own tie quilt! Talk about a busy lady!!! She did this not only for Zack's kids, but for all of hers and her grand kids...which is a ton! She even made one for our little peanut a brewing in my belly! WOW!! We then headed to my parents for coffee, dessert, and to open our Christmas Jammie! It wouldn't be Christmas without our Christmas Jammies! My mom splurges and gets the girls the best PJ's ever. I look forward to that gift more than any other, i wear them all year!s
Christmas Day!, and what a day it was! We had to wake Nash and he was still a bit of a zombie when he came in to see what Santa had brought. Although slightly comatosed, he was super excited and kept saying "what i always wanted" he's so damn cute! We threw on our clothes and headed to my parents. I'm so happy my brothers both live near and that we have NEVER spent a Christmas apart! Hope it always stays that way. Gmahaha. Jade, Ava, and Nash made a killing then pretended to kill each other with their marshmallow loaded guns in the front yard. A highlight of the day for sure, props to aunt Helena for the fun idea! We headed home and took a quick nap then headed to papa Zack's to have breakfast for dinner and to play games. We played some sort of group charades that had us all acting like giant fools and laughing our bellies sore! It was a great day. It's quite convenient having both of our parents so close so we don't have to juggle the families. It was so great to be able to spend our Holiday with both of them.

I didn't get a lot of pictures this year...kicking myself for that now, but here's a few.