Our First Christmas Together - What We Did!

Feliz Navidad, comrades! Sarah has left to spend the evening (and tomorrow) at the parents' house (boo!) so I thought I'd write a post to let y'all know what we did today on our first Christmas together!

Looking a tad teary, but only because it was such a wonderful Christmas!

SO...

We woke up at like 9am - earlier than I wanted to considering we didn't go to bed until after 2am, but one of the things I love (but have to suffer through) about my darling Sarah is that on weekends, holidays, before trips, etc, she always wakes up really early because she is 'excited to spend time with me'. I'm excited to spend time with her too of course, and I think it's super cute, but I like my sleep!

Some of our Christmas decorations!

We opened our stockings, which Santa (read: Laura) filled with lots of sweets and even alcohol (I didn't know Santa had access to Baileys and Absolut!) and we tucked right in!

Then I cooked us a 'proper English breakfast' of eggs, sausages, baked beans, tomatoes, fried bread and potato waffles (the poor man's hash brown?) and we ate it while watching the Christmas episode of Mike & Molly (btw, who else loves that show? I think Melissa McCarthy is pretty much amazing in everything she has ever been in! Examples include but are not limited to Bridesmaids, Gilmore Girls, and Samantha Who? ! Anyway.)

Eating Christmas brekkie

When you've been in a relationship for almost three years and are starting a life together, you think you've asked all the big questions. You know all sorts of things about what your partner wants to do/be in the future, raising kids, etc, but I have one piece of advice for you: don't forget to ask one thing - how do they do their Christmas? It turns out, super excited Sarah likes to get up early and open all the presents quickly, but memory/photo/Christmas crazy me likes to taaaake my tiiiiiime and open presents slowly, not too early, because I like to capture everything on film, enjoy each present as it's opened, and I get a little sad after we are finished opening because I feel Christmas is over for another year. Yes, I know this paragraph has made me sound quite old and a bit nuts, but it's my favourite time of the year - I just want to really appreciate every moment!! So obviously we figured it out, but do us a favour - your first Christmas with the one you love, find out how they want to celebrate before the day!!

Our tree- so beautiful!

I am so lucky - I got so many great presents from Sarah and my family this year!! Sarah and I got each other 12 gifts (12 days of Christmas? you know!) and my family completely spoiled us both. Some of the (many) highlights we received are below:

Sarah and I bought ourselves a Wii and Guitar Hero Six - with two guitars!! So now we are completely obsessed with it!!

Um YESSSSS

My family got me a brand new amazing camera - just in time for our trip to Russia tomorrow! It's a gorgeous one with lots of different features and 16x zoom! OMG so excited to take photos of all our 2012 trips!!

And my family and I got Sarah a new laptop! She was so touched and thankful when she got it - so cute. My parents are amazing and so generous.

Sarah with her presents from the Smith fam!

My little brother got me the Michael Buble Christmas CD (which we've listened to all day!!) and a lovely card. I was really excited that his present arrived in time for Christmas!

I also got two of my favourite movies on DVD, two awesome lightup margarita glasses from Priscilla Queen of the Desert (my fav show!!), Photoshop and Microsoft Office, a cute fluffy hat perfect for Russia, and lots of other lovely presents!

I got Sarah some nice earrings, and a special teddy bear :) among lots of other things.

Aww Sarah and her new teddy bear

How awesome is this Christmas card I got for Sarah? I thought it was impressive and good luck that Clintons did 'girlfriend' cards, and the girls even look a bit like us! Score!!

Inside says 'How much I love you!! Merry Christmas'

We then ate lunch - a mix of candied yam, green bean casserole, and a bunch of little party foods (I didn't want to cook a full Christmas dinner because it would take so much time away from Sarah on our day!) and watched Love Actually (don't you adore that movie!?)

We spoke to my Mum at home (my Dad and brother are in Las Vegas - very random, but they went for a college football game (GO BOISE STATE!) and we... packed for Russia. And now Sarah is at home, and I'm writing, and drinking mulled wine.

It's safe to say it's been a pretty perfect Christmas!!

I hope you've had a great one (or are having a great one, if you are in the USA and it's not over yet) - what is your favourite part of Christmas day?


Lots of love, Laura (& Sarah, in spirit) xoxoxo