Our First Christmas Married

So Christmas this year was just the two of us! We were wondering how it would be, not having other family around (well, I was more wondering how Jason would handle it, seeing as I was away from family and familiar Christmas tradtions for 2 years while in Brazil on my mission). We couldn't travel because I'm was too pregnant to fly.
It turned out to be just perfect though. We woke up, ate breakfast (biscuits with butter, honey and jams), opened up our gifts and stockings, got tired so layed down and ended up taking a 3 hour 'nap,' got up and had a second breakfast (bagels and chocolate milk), watched The Nativity (5 min. version), watched some church Christmas videos on u-tube that were really cool, played a game, talked about stuff we want to do on Christmas when we have kids, talked with family, made and ate a great Christmas dinner (honey-glazed ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole and sparkling cider-yeah for sales!) and watched It's a Wonderful Life (one of my favorites that Jason had actually never seen.) I still cry at the end of the movie.
Buying presents this year was cool, fun and sometimes frustrating though. We're on a tight budget and were wondering whether we would buy eachother gifts this year. I had recently found a couple gift cards from our wedding and had the idea to use our last bit of wedding $ to buy eachother Christmas gifts. I'm glad that we didn't spend everything at once. We thought it was actually cute and will be fun to tell our kids/grandkids someday.
So, that was the cool part. The fun part was trying to be creative with what we had to spend. The frustrating part was seeing something that we REALLY wanted to get for eachother and then looking at the price and realizing that it wasn't going to happen. That was really hard. It ended up working out great though in the end. Jason got me a really pretty snow globe. It's coincidentally the colors of our wedding (red, white and silver). I posted a picture. It has two little kids on a sled with blue eyes. I think of the bigger one as Henry, and the smaller one as whatever sibling comes after him. On the bottom front it says "magic of the season." Over a month ago we were walking through target and we walked by some snow globes. I told him about how I had a cheap one when I was about 11, and that it broke and how I had always wanted a snow globe, especially one that played music. I have also been bummed about not having snow on Christmas, so he got me snow. :) Here comes the frustrating part. He was worried when I opened it because it didn't play music. He was so cute. He said that he had looked for one that played music but they were all more expensive, and then he found this one. I was emotional because I think it's just perfect. I hadn't ever seen that one. I loved how it had little kids on a sled. I can't wait to do that stuff with Henry. The fun part was his gag gift. If you noticed I have a picture up with broken dishes. A while back, in pregnancy clumsiness, I was taking out bowls and dropped ALL of them, braking half of our bowls (I think it was like 6.) They were scattered on the floor, the counter and the stove. So Jason bought me plastic red bowls so that "even if I drop them, they'll won't brake." It made me laugh. In my stocking he put my favorite goodies (sour candy and gummies). Lastly with his gifts to me, he looked up how to say Merry Christmas and I love You in portuguese and wrote them on the top of the packages. It was so sweet and thoughtful.
For Jason's gifts, I had to just pay attention. Whenever you asked him what he wanted, he'd just say 'something for the baby.' How romantic. Well, I kinda used that and also did something else. I'd noticed that he'd been complaining a little about how his clothes for church and work were just boring. Well, he does actually spend most of his time at these two places, dress up. Most of his shirts are white, which is pretty boring. So I went out looking for a cool shirt for him. I found lots of cool ones, but expensive cool ones (frustrating again.) Thankfully there was a sale going on at one of the department stores putting this gorgeous red dress shirt right in my price range! I was so happy. The picture of us at Applebees (Christmas present from his family)was not actually taken on Christmas, but it shows his shirt. He looks hot in it. He wore it to work the other day and said that a bunch of people complimented him on it. Ok, moving on...in his stocking I put snickers, which is his favorite candy, and the little sleeper in the picture. We didn't really have stuff that said 'daddy' on it and when I saw this I just thought it was perfect. Jason loves it!
So, in the end, our first Christmas together turned out to be wonderful. :) We joked about how this is probably the only quiet, relaxing Christmas we'll ever have. Also, it was our first and last with just us. Next Christmas Henry will be almost a year old! It'll be our first and last Christmas in Arizona (the past years we lived here we flew back east). Who knows where we'll be living next year, but it'll be far from Arizona. Next Christmas will be great too, no matter where, or with whom we are.