a new kind of christmas

This year, for the very first time, Tyler and I experienced Christmas in a whole new way: no traveling, no extended family, no set traditions, just the two of us, at home.  

It was bittersweet.  We had been looking forward to this Christmas for a long time! We were so excited to start our own traditions and to feel like our own real family and to not have the stress of holiday traveling and to ski as much as possible during our break from work!  But. We missed our family...we missed being gathered around with the people you love, we missed the surprise of Christmas morning, we missed the family conversations over dinner, we missed those set traditions that give structure to the days of Christmas, and we kind of missed having a delicious meal made by an experienced motherly chef.  

However, even with all the things we missed about Christmas, we were thrilled to do our own thing, our way.  We contemplated and researched for weeks to try and come up with some really awesome Christmas traditions we could try out this year.  Here's what we came up with:

Tradition #1: Sleeping Under the Christmas Tree

Our friends told us about their family tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree on the Eve of Christmas Eve (i.e. Christmas Eve Eve, or December 23rd, for those of you who aren't good at "eves").  So we pulled every pillow and blanket into our living room, and slept with the lights of the tree glowing on us through the night.  Ok, it wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever gotten, but there was something special about opening my eyes in the night and seeing the majestic glow of our tree over us.  This is definitely a tradition we will carry on for years to come!

Tradition #2: Christmas Eve Dinner and Movie

Yummy veggie rolls, need I say more?

And by movie, I mean my all time favorite Christmas movie to watch: 

I also loved incorporating more music into our Christmas this year.

Christmas Carol singing, accompanied by my very handsome and talented, guitar-playing husband

Christmas Morning:

We stayed at a beautiful cabin with some friends for the New Year:

We even did some snowmobiling, which I loved! (Tyler wasn't so fond of it, but that could be because he kept getting stuck...)

Last (and favorite) Tradition: Adventure

Completely unrelated photos: 

(I wanted to try out my new camera purse...it worked very well)