friday night was my office's christmas party.  can i just be the first to say...the hubs?  he was smokin' hot.

i truly apologize for the quality of this picture.  it's atrocious.   atrocious.

please don't laugh at what i'm about to tell you.  promise?

okay, here goes.

i believed in santa until sixth grade.  and i fully believed that he lived next door to my great grandma.  this guy had a full white beard and a jolly belly and was just generally awesome.  i used to tell him what i wanted for christmas while he raked his yard in the fall.

i believe i was in third grade when my grandpa and i were spending some time together and he revealed to me that he would be dressing up as santa for our extended-family christmas gathering.  he asked me to keep it a secret.  i was so excited to have such exclusive insider information.  i mean, my grandpa was going to be playing the big guy, and none of my cousins were going to know!  that's power.  so when i spilled the beans to them, i immediately felt overwhelmed with guilt that ate away at me. 

and when it came time for santa's visit, i could tell it wasn't my grandpa behind the beard.  still, thinking about it now, i feel awful for taking that year away from him.  he wanted to keep the experience magical for the younger grandkids, so he found a stand-in.

it was after that year that i realized this wasn't the first time my grandpa was going to be the guy in red.  i began to look at pictures from years past and recognized those eyes.  and then i realized my grandpa had always, amazingly, managed to be off somewhere doing something else when santa came to visit us.  he always managed to miss santa, and now i understood why.

but you know what?  the magic wasn't lost for me knowing that the real santa never came to visit us personally.  in fact, there is so much more magic in the memories that i carry of my grandpa in this role than any real santa would have ever provided. 

so here's to my santa, whom i still very much believe in and miss with all of my heart.  the magical part of you will live on in me until i'm old and gray.



this picture doesn't need editing.  it's perfect just the way it is, in all of its 1986 glory.



last night was our sunday school christmas party and, yup, you guessed, it was tacky-christmas-sweater themed.  our sunday school class is filled with an amazing group of people and i love them all.  we always have such a great time when we get together.

this might be one for the christmas cards...

check out the intense blame-game going on here.  this game isn't for the meek.

there was also a white elephant exchange.  wifey managed to be the hero and seal the best prize for her hubs.  was it the functioning bread maker?  nah.  was it that statue of a basketball-playing santa?  nah.  there's only one prize eric had his eye on, and who could blame him?

ohhhh yeahhhhh.

if there is anything my husband hates, it's shopping.  the second we walk into a store, by the look on his face, you would think someone just told him his puppy died.  so when he suggested we go christmas shopping together earlier this week, initially my jaw dropped.  then i got excited.  and then i became skeptical.

i have to admit, he rocked today.  the dead puppy face made minimal appearances, even after six hours of shopping.  we managed to finish up both of my brothers, one of his sisters, his mom, his grandma, and all three of the kids we picked off of the angel tree at church.  i also found a dress for my work christmas party next weekend and snuck in a purchase for eric while he wasn't looking.  all-in-all, a pretty successful shopping day.

i don't know if he would have made it without the stop we made at the food court to eat at panda express.  the man loves panda.

after shopping, we changed into our jams and watched "the muppet christmas movie" while we finished decorating our tree.  it's so much fun pulling all of the ornaments out of storage.  every year for christmas, my grandma gives all 14 grandchildren (16 now with spouses) an ornament.  how she has always managed to keep track of what we all like amazes me.  for 8 years, my theme was "i love lucy":

i realize my love for this woman may be bordering on unhealthy.

by all accounts, eric and i should not be married.  this is precisely what should have happened on our first date:



yes, i am an ohio state fan through and through.  i have known the words to the fight song since i was approximately four years old (thanks dad!). 

unfortunately, eric was doomed from the start.  his dad and his dad's dad both went to U of M for college, and as a result was brought up as a wolverine.

ask 9 out of 10 buckeye fans, and they will tell you this is a deal-breaker.  but somehow, we beat the odds and instead, we ended up like this:



(side note: why do both of these have female michigan fans?  get some smarts, ladies.)

now this doesn't mean we don't face some bumps along the way.  during the game on saturday, i was in michigan with eric's family.  i rocked my scarlet and gray, but when ohio state was doing well, do you think i cheered very loudly?  heck no, techno.  i want to be invited back to neebish island, thank you. 

also, it wasn't pretty.  and as much as i try to convince myself that michigan still maintains a large lead over ohio state overall in this rivalry and that my cheering is justified, i just can't stand to see my husband unhappy.  it's really sad, actually.  i mean, we're talking pouty lip here.  and that leads me to do things like this:


i'm soooo sorry :(

but never on osu/michigan game day.  and not likely when michigan is having a winning season.  this is only because i feel sorry for my husband.  because lets face it, love makes you do crazy things. 


and without sports, this wouldn't be disgusting.

 as expected, neebish island was amazing.  we ate like calories are no object, lounged around the fire, read some books, watched some football and connected with family.  oh, and on saturday, we hunted for our perfect christmas tree to bring home with us.  i dragged eric around for longer than he was hoping to be out, only to end up choosing the one we had found in the first 15 minutes of looking.  but lets face it, you can never be too sure about these things.  i can rest easy knowing that there wasn't a better option out there.

can i bring them all home, please?

yahhhhh buddy.

neebish island is located between the upper peninsula in michigan and ontario, canada, in the st. marys river, which flows from lake superior down into lake huron.  eric's uncle owns a house up there, which was once his grandpa's, and they have been visiting the island for eric's whole life.

 
eric's family goes up to neebish island for thanksgiving every other year.  two years ago, while eric and i were still dating, i was lucky enough to be invited along for the first time to join all of them.  it was that week that i absolutely fell in love with the place.  i mean, how could you not?  check out this view:

our little tree from two years ago




perfect.

with marriage, there comes a challenge of trying to blend traditions and create new ones.  there have been some that have been tough for me to give up and some new ones that have taken some getting used to.  this one, though, has been such a blessing.  being on an island without many ammenities, there are no stores for black friday shopping, no internet, no cable.  what is there?  absolutely amazing quality time with people i love.  eric and i went up to neebish again with some friends this summer and reconnected in a way that is so difficult to do otherwise with all of the distractions that constantly surround us.