Friday, January 8, 2016

Christmas Time & Beyond in Pictures

Our Christmas in pictures......


Christmas Eve Day we saw this wine bottle tree outside of the beer making supplies store....very clever.  You can't see it well but it had lights rigged up inside the bottles for nighttime veiwing.




While the Santa box and Santa bear and Santa snow globe kept watch over the house, we had out traditional Christmas Eve meal at the local Chinese Restaurant.........


Then it was back home and off to bed to await a visit from the jolly old elf himself!


Santa came!

 Hubs gets a thrift store mug with his home state on it!


Nothing says Christmas like Transformers wrapping paper that is 8 years old. lol


I got me a fancy Vera Bradley wallet to hold my vast amounts of cash.....yeah, right!


Some one left a comment on the blog about showing off a photo of my nativity set that I just rediscovered in the basement after I got it set up.
It doesn't photograph well but here it is.
It's glazed ceramic.  The color is called Royal Copenhagen.


Christmas day we had a nice prime rib dinner with the brother in-law and nephew then exchanged gifts that evening.
It was so warm we had to open windows....crazy weather!


I spent the day after Christmas making this gift to give my sister in-law.


It's a crepe paper snowball.  You use an entire roll of it to wrap the present and then watch the recipient be tortured by having to unroll it all to get at the gift.


I saw this idea online and thought it would be fun to do.
More on this later.


On Sunday we were off to Virginia!


This was the car's dashboard temperature around about the time we hit Maryland.  December 27th and 72F?  Nuts I tell ya'!


We stopped for gas at the Virginia/Maryland border.
$1.89?
Coming from the land $2.39 a gallon this was a good kind of nuts. lolz


A sign at the gas station.....welcome to the South.


And if you have any doubts where you were now, here is a replica of a Confederate ironclad ship at the gas station too. lolz


About dusk saw us crossing the Chesapeake Bay to Virginia Beach.


Oh how I miss living near the water..........

After dinner at my brother's house we settled in for a visit and exchanged gifts.
Here's my sister in-law unwrapping one of her gifts, that snowball......


The next night I took us out for barbecue to the Beach.


Me and the Santa pigs in a heavy rain.


I bought a Groupon for the restaurant and we got this FAMILY FEAST for $25!  Drinks and taxes set us back another $14.00  My brother covered the tip.......


Good food and good company and we even took leftovers back to the house!


They drove us by this house in their neighborhood that they thought I'd like.


The whole yard was done in purple lights!


There was one pink reindeer amid it all.  It was stunning in person, not so much in photos.

We went to the big ass liquor store the next day so Hubs could buy some goodies for himself.


Oh, if they had only made this wine when my kids were little...."Mommy's Time Out".lolz

And the weather got even crazier....


It actually got a few more degrees warmer that day.
Crazy talk for December 29th, even in Virginia!!


The next morning we hit the road toward Fredericksburg.  It was quite foggy once we got to Hampton/the Peninsula.


We got off the interstate to get lunch at Pierce's BBQ and made a wrong turn, ending up at the old entrance to "The Pottery" as we have always called it.

No photos from lunch as Pierce's was an absolute ZOO instead.  It was so bad a couple actually ate their lunch outside on an umbrella shaded picnic table in the pouring rain!!   Must have been some soggy ass Q!  lolz

We went to our son's apartment and then accompanied him grocery shopping and to his big ass liquor store where Hubs bought more goodies.



Then we checked into our hotel and went out to dinner, our son's treat.
I had a Long Island Iced Tea with dinner and they had to pour me back into the car. lolz
Then back to son's apartment to chat until his GF got off work and then we exchanged gifts.

Back to the hotel to get a little sleep.


Breakfast and a swim were the first order of business on New Year's Eve day.


Then we were off to downtown F'burg for lunch.


Pretzel as big as your head and really REALLY good pimento cheese spread with baguette......mmmm

And I didn't even drink there!  No, really I didn't......the menfolk did imbibe however.


The GF looking thrilled here to be having her photo taken, doesn't she? lolz


Group photo outside went much better.....

Back to the hotel for a nap and then eldest son came over to swim too.

We reconvened at dinner time for a corned beef feast cooked by eldest son and we watched a movie until the GF got back from work at 11:30pm.
We had some champagne toasts and ushered in the New Year......


All under the watchful gaze of the Grandkitty......


The next morning it was back on the road to PA.......


A late lunch/early dinner stop in Carlisle and then we headed home.  The last hour of driving was dicey as the snow was falling in fits and bursts.  We could have done without that.

And that is how we closed out the Holidays.

Sluggy


6 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your holidays. That is a lot of get togethers and driving. We had everyone local for the most part so pretty restful.

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  2. That looks like a very lovely Christmas.

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  3. It looks like fun! Glad you were able to see so much of your family over the holidays.

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  4. That looks like fun! I normally don't like bottle trees (maybe I am just simple and don't get them) but that one was very pretty. I am stealing your idea and making My Beloved Sister a snowball next year.

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  5. That snowball wrap sure seemed like a fun way to give a money gift. I love that nice hotel you stayed at. Wish I could stay somewhere nice for a couple of days and unwind. I'm in for the weekend with my blanket and a movie or two. It's supposed to rain.

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  6. I'm with Clamco, I think wrapping money would be an awesome way to give that as a gift.

    ReplyDelete

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