Tagging Through the Snow...

Dear, sweet Mrs. McMurray, tagged me (Kristin). She struck again!!! Hope it's entertaining!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Very festive wrapping paper

2. Real tree or Artificial?
Smell of real, but alas artificial is easier to deal with.

3. When do you put up the tree?
Usually the weekend before Thanksgiving because we're in Florence the weekend after.

4. When do you take the tree down?
Right after New Year (or whenever we get motivated).

5. Do you like eggnog?
Nope, but apple cider is the best!

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
Smithsonian Crystal & Gem Growing Kit
(Yes, I have been a lifelong dork!)

7. Hardest person to buy for?
My Mom & Dad

8. Easiest person to buy for?
Sweet "P"

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
Sadly, I do not.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail, but we were not on the ball this year.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
My grandma usually tends to give some pretty odd gifts,
fortunately my love for her negates this.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
The Holiday or The Family Stone

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Usually somewhere around September.
My birthday is two weeks before Christmas,
so I aim to not spend all of my birthday gift cards on Christmas presents.
(Usually this plan fails miserably.)

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Not yet, but I may have to try that next year.
Graduate school doesn't allow for large budgets.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
I like the sausage and cheese balls that my daddy makes!

16. Lights on the tree?
MILLIONS of them. HOWEVER, not the big ones or the ones that are colorful.
Nice, small, white lights...everywhere (they glisten)!

17. Favorite Christmas song?
"O Holy Night" has been a standing favorite with me,
but this year Avalon's "Jesus, Born on this Day"
has really spoken to me.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Once little people enter our lives, I am sure this will change.
However, as for now we spend Christmas Eve with my family
and Christmas day with Phillip's family.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?
"You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen.
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.
But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? RUDOLPH!"

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
A Peacock! Hahaha. It matches my decor!

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
My family does gifts Christmas Eve,
Sweet "P" and I exchange on Christmas morning before
heading down the Florence to celebrate with his family.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
My devotionals have focused a lot on this, but it truly is
a pity that we all get so consumed with gifts and chaos that we forget
to truly celebrate why this day is so AMAZING.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color?
My tree usually compliments the color scheme of our living room.
So we have a nice blue and green thing going on (thus the peacock).

24. Favorite Christmas dinner?
Really we do big meals for Thanksgiving,
but just a lot hor d'oeuvres on Christmas.
I like the ham biscuits though!

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
I honestly can't think of a thing. I'm quite happy with what I have.

Muahahaha...now I get to tag!
1. Pamela (celebrate with me in Thailand)
2. Nicole
3. Jenni
4. Emily

OUR FIRST ANNIVERSARY!

Granted most of our anniversary plans went awry when Kristin decided to take on her traditional holiday ailment including our wonderful dinner to Morton's this past Saturday night. Granted this lovely date will be rescheduled in the near future. We were awoken this morning by a City of Monroe employee informing us that we had approximately 30 minutes before the water to our house would be cut off...for the day. Evidently there was a water main leak in close proximity to our neighborhood. We decided to make the most of it and go out to lunch before Kristin's doctor appointment. We went to Stone Table Cafe in Monroe and had a lovely time. I don't believe either of us can believe it has been an entire year, but alas time flies when you're having fun. (Below is our one lone picture of the day...we will post more of our actual date night.)

Oh me, oh my!

What can be said for the past month of our lives? Albeit there has been ample time to blog, we (and by we, the individual name of "Kristin" should be inserted here) have quite frankly lacked the desire. A short synopsis of the past month goes something like this:

November 4th - This was the day of arguably one of the most historical elections in the history of our great country. It also happened to be the day Tripp won the election for District Court Judge, thus meaning 13 hours in the cold rain at various polling places wasn't all in vain. Admittedly I am selfish in this, but the highlight of my day came at about 9:30 PM when I finally checked my email only to learn that I was accepted to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to pursue my teaching licensure (eventually leading to my MAT).

November 10th - I (Kristin) became one of the most recent victims of our faltering economy and lost my job along with quite a few others. While this was not a complete shock since our firm has been laying employees off for the past year, it still stung quite a bit. Never in my entire life had I found myself with a plethora of free time. Now, with time in abundance, I was going insane. I will say that God is indeed the Master of Provision. Had this happened just a week earlier, I wouldn't have known about school and therefore would have taken it much harder. We are blessed with Phillip's new job and all of my insurance is through his company. I can say that it did provide me a wonderful opportunity to speak with my boss about God's master plan and how He put everything into place (even though we perhaps did not understand it at the moment). As I am not certain where she stands on her faith, but I do hope that she saw God's faithfulness at work that day.

November 11th through 26th - Phillip has been an incredible blessing and essentially spent the weeks following my lay off being a crutch for the girl that doesn't know what to do when she has any type of free time on her hands. We are getting to spend some quality time together in the mornings now that I am home during the same hours as Phillip during the week. I did have quite a few opportunities to do some things around town that I had been missing out on since I tended to work 24/7.

THANKSGIVING - Granted we had so very much to be thankful for this year. There are so many people that are struggling right now with finances, homelessness, marital problems, etc. We spent the day with Kristin's family. Her Uncle Steve, his wife Erika and Cameron (their 3 year old) flew in for a few days and the long-awaited Clemson vs. South Carolina game. We had a great time with them. Cameron is so very enjoyable (and insanely intelligent). Thanksgiving evening Kristin started coughing a lot, eventually this led to a diagnosis of bronchitis a few days later. Thus we didn't travel to South Carolina to spend the rest of the weekend with Phillip's family (we missed them dearly).

November 29th - Essentially the only important thing about this day is that CLEMSON BEAT THE GAMECOCKS!!! Twas a fabulous day and truly a very interesting game. Although, we're not sure how Uncle Steve felt about the game since he did fly here to go to the game and support South Carolina.