Joy to the World....

My favorite part of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation occurs when "Sparky" asks everyone for a "drum roll"  (and some of the grandparents can't roll their tongues the right way to make a proper drum sound) and then Clark himself sings: 'Joy to the World' loudly and rolls his own drum before the major let down. I think we should all be so extravagant when preparing for Christmas. :)

In Griswold fashion, Matthew and I opt to cut down our tree every year. This year we seemed to have missed the rush. It was slim pickens!

They also offer already cut and spruced trees for the lazy folk.

A little fuel and concentration for the upcoming task at hand.

Real men carry their trees home 20 miles in the rain, on their backs, wearing nice jeans and a polo sweater.

Real women cut down trees while they are birthing children.

Or we simply pretend we are strong by holding the tree upright.

Matthew did great! We had to get the 10 footer sized down a bit for our small apartment roof.

Kinsey Family Farm looked great at night. Just don't be sawing out there in the dark!

We had a fun start to the Christmas festivities at a church Christmas party. I love competition, so the gingerbread house theme competition was right up my alley. Can you guess what's coming out of Duchess Katherine's mouth... yep it's silly putty.

Out team didn't win, but we should have... I mean we had James Bond flying into the hospital with the Queen of England on his back. How did we lose?!!?

My favorite part of Saturday mornings... Matthew's famous French Toast!

Since I can't sew nor embroider, I came up with a great way to designate stockings! Next year it will probably say Mom instead!

There's something special about the first lighting of our family Christmas tree!

And of course in Griswold fashion (or Elf as it were) our tree barely fits with the star on top. I love its imperfections!

~MerryBuster