It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Not only does it smell like Christmas, it most certainly is cold enough to feel a lot like Christmas, here in Texas!

 Exhibit A:

However, it is a very different feeling now! 'Different' because Christmas usually feels like family... it feels like hot meals with more than two people at the table... it feels like hanging ornaments on the tree, but having to crawl your way through family members to get to the tree... it feels like singing Christmas carols in the car... It feels like that "hustle and bustle".

Christmas for me is singing carols and singing at The Nutcracker with my sister, Jeanette, and our old choir friends. And going to Publix for Christmas-y foods and snacks. It's smelling the cinnamon fragrance fill the air. It's eating ice cream and drinking hot chocolate. It's sipping Starbucks with girl friends I've known since middle school! Christmas means I get to see my family all together again, even though I saw them just a week prior. It's singing at the Biltmore Estate.

My family - Christmas 2008

My sister and I singing at The Nutcracker at The Fox Theatre - 2008.

Singing at The Biltmore Estate with The Atlanta Youth Choir - I think it was 2008.

The cousins - Christmas 2011.

Last year, decorating with the Potter's.

2012 Christmas with the Potter's.

Well reality is, it doesn't look like those things and it doesn't feel like those things! Reality is, we are living in a new place and we are away from family and friends. This is just how it is for us, for now. It is one of the many small, but emotionally big, sacrifices we make because of military life. It's just something you don't really think about, until you think about! :P It's heartbreaking being away. But it's a blessing to have this opportunity to be here, in Texas! To be married and loving our lives. It's wonderful and we have the privilege of meeting many great people.

So, we are making our own feeling for the holidays...because we don't have family near and Texas is just different than Georgia, there's no getting around that. These days leading up to Christmas don't have that feeling, but I believe we'll get there one of these years. This year, we're just toughing it out until we are finally with family again. :)

Putting the topper on before the ornaments lol!

Daniel worked at the Tree Lighting ceremony for III Corp.

We went a little overboard on presents for our families!

So prettyyyyy!

Made our Wedding Invitation Christmas Ornament :)

Daniel does the cutest wrapping ever!!

Pictures in our ornaments we got last year! :)

Only a couple of our childhood ornaments we have on our tree!!

Shells from our honeymoon in an ornament - thank you Pinterest for the idea! :)

Playing a video game on our new 42" sitting by the Christmas tree ;)

To: The Potter's. From: The Potter's ;)

This year and probably the next, it looks, feels, and means different now! It's just us. Our tree is ours and only ours. Our friends are brand new (but great!). The smells and the views we see here are the "new" look, feel, and what-it-means of Christmas for us. So until we are reunited with family in Georgia, this is our Christmas, feel it or not ;)

Sooner or later...or never.

I began thinking lately that there are a list of things that Daniel and I have not yet done together.

Of course, there are the obvious things, like skydiving, or scuba-diving, or snorkeling...but I was thinking more on the little things...

Things like:

We've never gone out to a buffet together. (Update: we went to a sushi buffet with friends in town and it was so good!!)
I've never seen him in a suit. (He wore his uniform at our wedding, which is so much better than a suit, lets just be real ;) !)
We haven't gone to Sixflags together.

We haven't gone bowling... (Update: we went bowling with Daniel's brother Dale.)

We've never slid down a hallway in our socks.

We've never gone hunting.

We have not yet raised a dog together...or a child! Yet! ;)

We haven't been to the Georgia aquarium or the Atlanta zoo together...or any zoo, for that matter!

Or the Coca-cola factory!!

We've never been on a Ferris wheel.

We've never gone out for a Starbucks date.

We haven't gone riding together.

Or gone on a cruise!

Never been out of the country together...

We have never taken a day to go antiquing!

Never been mini golfing.

We've never kissed on New Year's at midnight.

We've never ordered in Chinese.

We have never kissed underwater - probably because I hate water! But that's not the point...

We've never watched the Harry Potter movies - haha, get it?! ;)

The list could keep going - we've only been married 9 months, after all! But this list will be fun to look back on, update to see what we can maybe cross off or add to it! :) and the list is not a "to-do" list or an agenda. None of it HAS to be done. Like I said, it's little things. It's part of the adventures and journeys of spending, and enjoying, your life with your best friend!! <3

These things may happen sooner or later... Or even never, and I'm perfectly fine with never. Because the fact is, I'm living happily ever after with the man of my dreams! I have the honor and privilege of growing up, and growing old, with the man God planned for me. We have adventures that I will always, and forever, cherish and they never have to include any of these activities or events. But if they do, that's just a bonus on this joyous track of life we call 'marriage'! :)