Christmas 2004
This was the first Christmas we lived in our current home. We were one of the few houses on the street (notice the wide open spaces in the reflected image). I was so excited to have a porch to put decorations on that I bought these enormous ornament balls and put them on top of flower planters. They were fun for about 3 seasons and then I got tired of them blowing away all the time.
This Christmas was part of pre-blogging days for me. It was also one of the rare times in my life where I wasn’t scrapbooking. When we moved to our new home, the basement was unfinished. There really wasn’t an area where I could set up all my “stuff” – I was a paper scrapper in those days. Most of my supplies were still packed away in boxes and I remember digging them out that December so I could make a few pages for the Grandparent scrapbooks I updated every year. I literally have no written record of this Christmas and have only a few photos to jog my memory.
My son was 11 and my daughter was 8.
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I bought these cute Santa aprons that year. We still love using them every holiday season.
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This was the first Christmas that my parents and brother Zach lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We flew there on December 26th for a visit. My brother Mike was living in Texas at the time and had driven to NM for a visit. See my hopeless look in this photo? It’s because we were playing Scrabble with Mike. He ALWAYS wins Scrabble! Notice that all of us look rather deflated? It’s a losing battle for sure.
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We went to the Children’s Museum and the Albuquerque Zoo while we were there. That was fun and the weather was quite pleasant, I remember walking around without our jackets on for part of the day.
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Christmas 2003
This was the last Christmas we spent in our old home in Murray, Utah. At that time, we had no idea we would be moving the following year. My husband was still in grad school and we had recently remodeled the 50 year old kitchen. It turned out so nice! I still miss that kitchen!
Loved those hickory cabinets. And the little shelf above the sink was fun for seasonal accents.
Santa salt & pepper shakers
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My pictures from 2003 are all very grainy. That was my first digital camera and I think it was a whopping 2 megapixels?
There’s my purple living room. I know it’s a bit wild, but it hid the walls that had been so damaged from years of wallpaper. A red and green Christmas tree was a horrible clash in that room, so I switched to a burgundy and gold color scheme.
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One of my favorite memories from the 2003 Christmas season was my last minute trip to Texas with my family. My brother Mike was graduating from college on the 22nd of December. My Mom couldn’t believe that she had to fly there that close to Christmas and thought about not going. I told her she HAD to go. When I told my hubby about it, he said I should go too! I couldn’t believe it, but he was so awesome about it and insisted that I join in. We decided not to tell my brother and surprise him with my visit. That was fun! He knew my parents and brother Zach were all coming, but he had no idea that I was going to be there. It is the only time in my married life that I have taken an actual vacation (more than just staying downtown overnight for a scrapbook conference) without my hubby and kids. I had been very sick for about a week before we left and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. Somehow, I made a miraculous recovery. My Mom, Zach, and I all flew to Austin together from Salt Lake City, Utah. My Dad flew there from Albuquerque, New Mexico as he was living there at the time for a new job. My Mom and brother stayed back in Utah to sell the house. We all had a fun few days in Texas and it will always be one of my favorite holiday experiences. We flew home on the 23rd, just in time for Christmas. Mike came back with us. I know that we split our time on Christmas day between my family and Hubby’s family.
Great memories!
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Want to play along? Do you have a year with very few photos and/or very little documentation of the holiday season? Try your best to find as many photos as you can (even if you have to make copies of a relative’s pictures) and then write down as many things as you can remember about that Christmas.
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