There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

In mine and Aaron's life, the word "home" has numerous meanings to us because we use this word in so many different ways... We've lived in four different places the past two years, lived with other people {family and friends}, in a hotel, and so on and so forth... if you've been a blog reader for a while you will have noticed how all-over-the-place our lives are, and you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Simply being in the South feels like home. The hospitality, humidity, casseroles, all of our family and friends, polite manners, poofy hair... You get the picture. Fairhope is where we have spent ten years together growing up... Mississippi is where we spent four years of college and is actually where I have lived most of my life {if you include college}.

Please note that no female in this household put those horns on the mantle. 

We didn't get married and "settle down" like most people do... We don't have an apartment or a rental home, and we are not homeowners... we've come to realize that it doesn't matter if you have an actual "concrete" house to live in, just being with each other gives us that warm, content feeling and makes us feel "at home" in the biggest sense of the word.

We have come to "define" home as each other. No matter where we are, whether its in the Northwestern tip of the country or the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, if we are together we are home.

I will say though, Fairhope is a place we call home and there's nothing like spending Christmas here with our family. Aaron, being the only child that he is, has fit right in to all of our family traditions these past few years and loves being right up in the middle of it. Him and Dad have started a few new traditions of their own actually... I will show you later on in this post.

Every year we wait until everyone is home to decorate the tree. We turn on the Christmas music and start rummaging through all of the ornaments wrapped in tissue paper. When we were younger we used to "call" who got to hang certain ornaments on the tree. For instance, Bully was a crowd favorite and the cinnamon stick ornament was always a hot item because it smells like cinnamon and after years of hanging on our christmas tree, it still smells like cinnamon!

This picture collage is GINORMOUS and I have no idea how to make it smaller... at least you can see each ornament really really good!

There are about ten ballerinas on the tree that are mine {I was a ballerina for 7 years of my life}... Julie always gets to hang the ER ornament because it's hers, and she has been that show's most loyal fan most of her life. We have ornaments on our tree from every vacation we've ever taken and the Disney characters are ones mom and dad bought on their honeymoon! {They went to Disney World}. We still hang our handmade ornaments from Sunday school and preschool... I would say they give it character!

Our tree is beautiful in a sentimental way... Every ornament on our tree means something to one or all of us... and we intend to always keep it that way.

Every Christmas Eve we get really busy in the kitchen and cook up a big, fancy dinner. This year Dad marinated and grilled moose steaks and I made an herbed parmesan butter to melt on top. For our side dishes we made Pioneer Woman's Roasted Ricotta Roma Tomatoes {with a "Jillia" twist of course!} and her spinach salad.

For dessert, we made Martha Stewart's miniature chocolate souffle's {with a "Jillia" twist- I don't know why I can never exactly follow a recipe }.

They were almost too pretty to eat!

After supper we have always opened one gift and it is always new pajamas... which of course we wear to bed. As we fall fast asleep, Mr. and Mrs. Clause set up all the gifts in their prospective spots. Yes, we have "spots" on Christmas morning. Mine has always been the couch {which I now share with AW}, Julie has always gotten the main chair in the room, and Jessica has always claimed the smallest chair in the room. Sometimes it pays to be the oldest! :)

This is Christmas morning... BEFORE. Don't dare look at our faces closeup. Opening presents always takes about 2-3 hours because we d-r-a-g it out as long as we possibly can. We go around the room and open presents one at a time so we can see what every body is getting. Dad made coffee and pumpkin bread and mom cut up strawberries with fruit dip so we wouldn't be absolutely STARVING while we opened presents.

In the middle of opening presents, Rocky and Rudy thought all the tissue and wrapping paper was the best spot to have a WWF smackdown... {There was catnip involved and it makes them go crazy!}

Then they got over it.

Did I mention that Papaw Horace spent Christmas morning with us? He always makes a good time great. Santa even came to visit him too!

This picture was taken AFTER we were done.

After all the presents were opened, we cooked up a big pancake breakfast {as we do every Christmas morning}.

After breakfast, we {the girls} piled up on the couch by the fire and watched movies all...day...long... In between movies, we made moose chili and taco soup and it was delish.

Aaron and Dad have started a tradition of blacking out the living room, pushing the two couches together, and playing the newest Call of Duty X box game all day... However, this year they both got "toys" that almost distracted them from the x box...

And you better believe their remote control helicopters {flying aimlessly around the house} distracted us from our movies a million times... Aaron and Dad are literally big kids.

And I will now end with a picture of Mom's adorable piece of pottery we got her. We love it!

All of our Christmas traditions make each year so meaningful. Christmas, to us, is all about spending time together, giving, receiving, and all the while realizing how blessed we are that God has sent his Son for us so that we can rest in knowing that our eternal home is with him... and that's a reason to celebrate!