Hello everyone! Did your Christmas come and go as quickly as ours did? And, here we are already almost into the second week of the New Year.
Seems like a long time since I have visited with you. I'm sure you have been as completely busy as we have been as we moved through all of the festivities and the joyful events of Christmastime with family and friends.
In the below photo you can see our Christmas day dawned bright and beautiful with a heavenly look as the sun shone through the woods.
And later on, as we look out the kitchen window, we still see
some of the fog in the air on this beautiful, peaceful and special day.
We began Christmas day being very mindful of the "reason for the season."
Our grandson Lawson, who is 11, let us know he wanted to help place ornaments on our Christmas tree this year. We picked him up from school on this afternoon and he got right to work. He did an excellent job.
Later on, after the tree was finished, we headed to the kitchen for all of us to enjoy some delicious hot chocolate. Lawson's Mom joined us also!
I discovered that Nestle "Nesquik" Chocolate, skim milk, and a few marshmallows are all you need for a very delicious cup of hot chocolate. I think I used about a tablespoon of Nesquick in a cup of milk, heated the milk on the stove instead of in the microwave, added a few marshmallows and Mmmm delicious!
Later on in the evening with the tree lights on, the ornaments
Lawson placed on the tree looked very nice.
During the Christmas season I love to see the Poinsettia plant as Christmas decorations. In a previous post I mentioned that, some say that the shape of the poinsettia flower and leaves are sometimes thought of as a symbol of the Star of Bethlehem which led the Wise Men to Jesus.
During Christmas Eve Mass it was so nice to see so many beautiful Poinsettia
plants placed on the alter in memory of loved ones during this special time of year.
Our family looks forward to going out for Christmas Eve dinner after church each year since there will be so much cooking to be done on Christmas day.
Below is a photo of daughter Stephanie with her family at the Christmas Eve dinner.
Our grandsons are sure growing up.
Stephanie and husband John, Chase-19 standing, Ryan-20 and Dillon-22.
Also attending our Christmas Eve dinner was daughter Sharon and her family seen in the below photo.
We see Preston-14, John Scott-20, Daughter Sharon and husband Charlie, Will-17, and little brother Lawson-11.
Christmas day had lots of cooking from our old family favorite recipes. I use the recipes my mom always cooked during Christmastime.
Recently at Hobby Lobby I found some Christmas pie making cut-outs to use as decorations. I loved the cute little gingerbread man, snowman, Christmas tree and a Christmas ornament. Grandson Preston and Lawson enjoyed this part of the pie making. The cut-outs looked cute on the pecan and pumpkin pies we made for Christmas dinner.
The part of our family living in town enjoyed Christmas dinner with us. They were the same groups we were with for church and dinner out on Christmas Eve. A couple of days later two other sets of our children arrived for a visit.
In the below photo we see grandson Will telling us a story from his recent travels to Japan.
After dinner the grandsons gathered around the Christmas tree with Mamaw and Papaw. Ryan, Chase, Dillon, John Scott, Will, Preston and my Christmas tree ornament helper Lawson. These boys are so much fun!
Santa brought grandson Will these sneakers seen in the below photo and you can see him wearing them in the above photo.... I was swept back in time when I looked at these familiar looking sneakers. My brother wore this same type of black, high-top shoes back when we were kids (a long time ago.)
Finally getting time to take the Christmas tree down. Collecting all the ornaments together ... A friend makes a wooden ornament for us each Christmas! It is now quite a collection. Love these! If you would like to see more of his wooden artwork you can click on a previous post link below:
You can see each one of the ornaments was designed with
a different type of wood and a different shape.
a different type of wood and a different shape.
Our friend's woodwork art is amazing.
I mentioned earlier grandson Will was entertaining everyone at dinner with stories from his recent trip to Japan ... It is a really long story, but will make it short: A Sorority Sister of his mom's saw Will in a family Christmas photo sent to her. She is friends with the modeling agency IMG. She showed them the photo and an interview was arranged in Atlanta. They signed him and he has since gone to New York, London and just returned from Japan for assignments.
The below photo shows a billboard in Japan showing one of the photo shoots for a clothing company in Japan. Without my glasses I thought it was just one photo of Will with a couple of other people, but looking closer they are all Will in different outfits. This billboard was on display as part of the New Year celebration in Tokyo. Lots of fun!
Thank you for taking the time to stop by Sweet Southern Days for visits during 2016. We begin the New Year with blank pages and I hope to fill some of those pages with photos of some of the amazing beauty around us in this coming new year.
I hope you had a Merry Christmas and sincerely wish you many blessings, much joy, and a most wonderful and special Happy New Year!
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