Christmas Picture Outtakes

This first picture is the picture we used for our Christmas cards this year. Of COURSE Maple was in it!

This post would be a little boring if I only shared that one decent picture.  I thought it would be MORE fun to share some of the outtakes from that night!!  We had over 100 pictures from this Christmas picture attempt to choose from, but here are some of the best ones narrowed down:

"Get this thing off my head!!"

 "My sofa over there looks more comfortable than this.."

"Okay momma, last one. You can go put the camera away now."

 

"What is the best way to get down from here..?"

 

"I'm going to make a run for it!"

"SEE YA!"

 

"Okay, I'll keep hugging deddy some more." 

"Can you really believe what these people put me through?"

Pendleton Christmas

We had the Pendleton Christmas the weekend after Christmas, because everyone is always so busy running from one house to another, etc.  Plus, this way we definitely have more time to spend together!

We usually do finger foods and appetizers rather than a sit down meal, so we can snack all evening and socialize!  

At Thanksgiving, it was decided to have a tacky sweater contest...which turned into tacky outfits!  (I even had to text Aimee ahead of time to see if a t-shirt could qualify instead of a sweater, haha.)  There was everything from classic Christmas sweaters, to "I'm just going to glue this here, and glue that there...yep, that looks good" shirts (oh yeah, that was mine, ha), to planned out sweaters and outfits (Abby's and Alison's, obviously!), to Alexander and Victoria's creative ideas: crazy cat lady, and The Day After Christmas!  It was so fun to see what everyone would wear.  Everyone voted on their favorites and the winner won scratch off tickets!!

We also do a crazy gift exchange, which is always really entertaining!  

Hope you enjoy these pictures of the evening's festivities!

I made Memaw's cheeseball! It was so delicious!

Matt cuddling with the Sant'Anna's new puppy, Roxy! She's such an adorable little thing!

Alison and Alex.

Alison looks like she stepped out of Whoville!

Alison and Xel

Love these next two of Alison, Victoria and Alexander!

You guys, my shoes had a little bit of heel to them. I'm positive Alexander will be taller than me the next time I see him!!

Lots of yummy food!

Jacquelyn and Declan

Abby passing out gifts

Probably the best picture of the evening!

Alexander had one of those little magic puzzles that we was working so hard to figure out!

That's the smile of someone who is proud of themself for figuring it out!

Now, he has to figure out how to put it back together!

Declan reading to me

Alison was the winner of our tacky shirt/outfit contest.  

Everyone couldn't wait to find out how much she won!

Lots of gifts!

No idea what's going on here...

Papa got cash....and immediately put it in his pocket! haha

Papa got a huge box of presents! 

Aimee was really exicted about something! 

My Aunt Diane made a photo book for Papa of all his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids..everyone enjoyed looking at it!

Our Christmas Decorations

Sunday was a month since the craziness of Christmas Day!  The whole day goes by in a whirlwind, that I wish it could somehow be spread out!

Now that you have put all of your Christmas decorations away and maybe set out some snowman decorations (or have a snow tree like my mom!), do you want to see some pictures of our Christmas decorations?

I wish I were kidding.

But I'm not.

It's sad how long it has taken me to finally put this whole post together, but I do hope you enjoy them!  Every year, I take pictures of all of the Christmas decorations I have, but each year, I could seriously spend hours doing so!  This is a big combination of pictures taken throughout the Christmas season.  Some were taken before Christmas (as you'll notice we still have gifts under the tree), and some were taken just as we were taking them all down.

This is "my" tree.  This is, I believe, the second tree I got growing up (which explains the crookedness of it.....it also leans, haha.)  It has all of the ornaments on it that I made in pre-school and elementary school, and church, all of the Hallmark ornaments I picked out when I was little, hand painted ornaments by mom....tons of stuff!  This is my "growing up Mallory tree" I guess you would say.  Unfortunately, this pathetic looking tree has bit the dust, and as soon as I take the lights off (yes, this tree is still up..but ONLY with the lights on...), we will say farewell to this poor tree. There is already a replacement, though! ;)

Love our little snowman light Aunt Sherrie made :)

These next two pictures were taken before Christmas..

I took these pictures at the end of December/beginning of January.  You can see how much our tree apparently went through, but looking at the star that probably would've fallen off very soon! haha

I always put out all of my Christmas books! Everything from ones I used to read when I was little, all the way to my Miller & Rhoads Santaland book!  (Signed, by the way ;)

 

Sorry this next one's so dark.

On the left is a picture of me outside the Christmas store in Downtown Disney.

On the right is our picture with Santa in either 2007 or 2008....I'm leaning towards 2007, but I can't remember!

Aunt Sherrie bought Maple this cute rug :)

And, what's a blog post without a couple pictures of my baby?

This is one of my favorite Christmas decorations! I love the silver, shimmery tree, with the brightly colored ornaments!

 

In the frame below is one of our Christmas pictures from 2009!

I also really love the tree in our bedroom!

(Ignore my balled up, falling apart tacky Christmas shirt from the Pendleton Christmas, haha.)

 

There's a king and queen in this picture...

(Sorry, lame, but I couldn't resist, haha)

 

I love burning these two candles at the same time! So Christmasy!

 

I have a Christmas tree and glitter problem.  I don't know how Matt deals with it.

 

And, perhaps, my favorite Santaland picture of all time!

 

And, hope I don't disappoint you, but I still have a few more Christmas posts up my sleeve. ha! If I tried to put everything into one post, I'm pretty sure I would break my computer (it froze up enough as it is just getting this post up!).