The Beginning of Christmas Festivities

We've had a wonderful Christmas season this year! Of course, I've taken way too many pictures, so there will be several posts for my documenting purposes! 

One of my favorite things to do each Christmas season is baking cookies! I love the entire process; baking, decorating, taking pics, and eating them! ;)

This year I went with traditional Christmas colors. I just use Betty Crocker's sugar cookie mix because it's my favorite. But I top them with homemade cream cheese icing! It's the best!

Snowmen, bells, Christmas trees, stockings, gingerbread men and women, and stars!

Our traditional initial cookies! F=Fiona A=Amanda T=Trey

FAT 

:)

I also hosted my first Christmas party this year! It was fun! It was just my group of friends. We all brought food, drinks, and we drew names for presents. I only took pictures before everyone arrived, so I don't have pics of all the food, but it was delicious!

Here is the drink set up.

I made cream cheese sausage balls! (Recipe coming soon!) These were FABULOUS! One of my favorite Christmas foods!

And I made bruschetta! Here is the recipe. It's delish.

The last day of school was a fun day for the kids! We started it off making reindeer sandwiches for snack. They LOVED them.

They had fun at our party, too! They decorated cookies, made magic Sprite (candy cane in Sprite and it turns red!), made candy cane ornaments, and Christmas trees out of ice cream cones. We also had a book exchange.

They loved these trees!

After my last day of school (which was Wednesday December 21!!!), we celebrated by enjoying some Christmas lights!

My favorite lights are by Chesapeake Energy. Pictures cannot capture how cool they really are!

They are the most brilliant, bold colors and they change!

You can see behind us in the next two pictures how the lights change colors.

The pink tree is my favorite!

We also enjoyed a delicious dinner at Cheesecake Factory (one of my faves!) and browsing through the new Whole Foods! We just love going to Whole Foods because it's neat. I loved the bathroom. So, I took some pics! :)

See? It's awesome!