Merry Early Christmas

Posted by Justin

Here's Nancy! This picture is actually from three weeks ago, but she sure looks great in the picture and we never posted it.

I'm out of school now, so Nancy and I have had lots of time together. We are still building our own family Christmas traditions. Here's a new one that we added this year: Gingerbread Baking.

We had so much fun making the cookies. We decided to tell the story of the Gingerbread Man as we made them. Neither of us remembered all of the story's details, so we had to improvise as we went along. Nancy, however, had the best impression of the Gingerbread Man when she ran in place and said, "You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" The cookies were really tasty.

When we baked the cookies, we were looking forward to a Gingerbread House Making party at our friends' house later in the week. Nancy and I enjoy a good competition, so we decided to use some of our gingerbread to make the walls, roof, Mr. & Mrs. Gingerbread Men, a tree, a snowman, and a picket fence. Ultimately, some of those elements didn't make it onto the house, but our carved-heart window did (seen at angle on right)!

We had a great time at the party.

Travelling was a bit of an adventure, however, because we had a snowstorm last night! I'd guess that there were 5-6 inches piled on top of cars when we left. It was light and fluffy. Nancy was busy working on the computer when it started snowing, so she didn't know that there was any snow on the ground. I ran outside, made a snowball, then came back inside and called for her. When she came around the corner, whamo! I threw my first in-house snowball.

Here's a picture of our tree. You can see the snow out of our window. Unfortunately, it rained later in the night, melting most of the snow.

Finally, yesterday our apartment complex had a holiday luncheon. It was at an unusual time at midday on a Friday, so the party was not very well attended. We went, though, and had a great time. The food was delicious. We met six or so neighbors. But the best part was the holiday raffle. The apartment complex bought lots of prizes for everyone they expected to attend. However, since there were only eight of us, we got to draw several times. In the end, here's what Nancy and I won:

• 3 Scratch-off Lottery Tickets (brining in a total of $3.00 in winnings)
• One ten dollar Starbucks card
• One ten dollar Target card
• One box of chocolates
• Two hundred dollars off of our January rent (!!!)

Merry Early Christmas!

Advent Calendar

Posted by Justin.

One Sorrell family tradition is putting up ornaments on our advent calendar. My Great Aunt Babs made the calendar for me when I was a baby. Grandmom and Granddad would hang it every year. You put up one ornament a day until Christmas Day. Most days of the week you put a fun Christmas present. But on Sundays, you put up a special ornament that depicts the Manger scene.

After a few years, Grandmom and I made it a game to see if I could figure out what ornament I had pulled from the bag without looking at it. I know most of them by touch. Some of them, however, like the rocking horse, always give me problems.

I wanted to pass this tradition on to my own family now, so I started with Nancy. I laid out all the ornaments and gave her 30 seconds to memorize them. Then we put them in a bag, shook it up, and then Nancy pulled one out to put on the calendar. Lo and behold, she got it right! And the next one! I missed both the second and third ones! Nancy has taken this new tradition to heart! (I still missed the rocking horse this year when I pulled it).

And as a bonus preview of tomorrow, here's a picture of the tree we bought. We got too tired to decorate it tonight.

Thank you Grandmom for being so good to us by helping us get a tree and sending the Advent Calendar and my childhood ornaments. We love you! We'll keep the traditions rolling! But I'm not sure how Santa will put unwrapped presents under the tree...