Holiday fun

Finally getting around to recapping our holidays. They were busy, but really nice! We went over to Jupiter to spend Christmas with the Calcotes. We drove over on the 23rd and my sister and I worked on our annual gingerbread house. We don't like to make normal gingerbread houses because that's no fun. We always have to have some sort of theme (to our mother's dismay), but we have a good time and it's become a fun tradition. Last year, our theme was "Jersey Shore" (it was pretty awesome. Not gonna lie). This year, we went with one of my sister's favorite shows, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Behold, Paddy's Pub in all it's sugar-filled glory:

On Christmas Eve, we did our usual Calcote tradition. Church at 4:30, followed by a seafood dinner (we follow the tradition of the "Feast of the 7 Fishes"- an Italian custom of not eating meat on Christmas Eve). After dinner, we get in our pajamas, dad makes eggnog and we watch "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." I can't even count how many years we've been doing this, but I love it!

Christmas morning was fun, as always. We were in the living room opening presents until around 11:00, and then we had a late breakfast and headed over to my aunt and uncle's house for Christmas dinner. Penny was spoiled, of course.

My mom always does a killer job on her tree!

So festive in her Christmas dress!

Penny got to meet her cousin, Foxy.

The following day, we went down to Miami to visit some close friends of ours. My friend Kim had triplets last year, and it had been awhile since we've seen them. They're getting so big and so cute!

Jacob

Jackson

Lydia

After we left their house, we drove by the neighborhood we lived in for 17 years (where I grew up). We got very nostalgic visiting the old park in the neighborhood where we used to play :)

I used to call this the "swiss cheese wall."

Mike even got in on the fun.

Love this place. Brought back such memories!

It was a great weekend and I can't believe the holidays already came and gone! Since Mike was in Georgia for most of December and we didn't throw our annual Christmas party, I just put up a small, fake tree instead of getting a real one. It was perfect, though :) I did decorate, as I love to do.

Penny's first ornament!

The "wedding" section of our tree :)

On the 30th, we went to Michelle's house to celebrate Christmas with the Goreckis and had a wonderful time with the family! It was great to be all together.

Penny was spoiled yet again!

Gorecki family Christmas picture.

Of course, we can't be normal :)

Since we had to forego our annual Christmas party, we hosted a New Year's Eve party which was great! We had a lot of people over and had a great time. It was good to celebrate with close friends. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and here's to a fabulous 2012!