in case you didn't see...

I know I used this as a guest post for Christina, but I figured for documenting sake I'd post this on my blog as well :) She asked me some great questions about Christmas and our traditions and it might be fun to show our kids these answers someday. Or it might not. I guess we'll see sometime far, far into the future ;)

How long have you & your man been a couple?

We've been married 3 1/2 years but have been together through 4 holiday seasons.

How do you go about visiting all the friends & family around the holidays?

My parents and my in laws live in different towns so we just do every other holiday. This year was Thanksgiving with my parents and Christmas with Eric's :)
 

How long before Thanksgiving & Christmas do you set up decorations? 

I pull out my Halloween decorations October 1 (I don't want them up any sooner, I try to hang on to summer as long as possible, haha) and November 1, I take down Halloween and put out the rest of my fall decor. I've waited until December 1 to put up Christmas BUT this year I'm decorating as soon as Thanksgiving is finished, regardless of the fight my Grinch (aka Husband) will put up ;)
 

If you can remember, what was the very first tradition you two started?

 Because Eric and I have been alternating between our families for the holidays, we haven't had much of a chance to start our own traditions. I'm really looking forward to the day when we start celebrating Christmas in our home, with our children, and having our own special traditions.

Some traditions my family has that we plan to carry into our little family will be reading the Bible story of the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas Eve night. Another tradition I love is that we would go out to eat for breakfast Christmas Eve morning. This tradition was started because my dad needed to get the family out of the home so that my mom's Christmas gift could be delivered, so he took us out for breakfast! The next year my brother's and I were expecting Christmas Eve breakfast... so it turned into a tradition :) And the last tradition I plan to carry over is to have our big, special Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. I do NOT like spending my time in the kitchen, so Christmas day I want to be relaxing and playing with everyone else instead of cooking the dinner. Instead we munch on snacks and left overs all day long!

The tradition that Eric and I HAVE started is we buy matchy shirts and wear them on Christmas Eve. I love the idea of pj's, but to be honest, we don't wear pj's (haha) so we figured we'd get more use out of shirts. I think this will be really fun/challenging to do when we have kids!

our matchy shirts
 

When do you do all of your gift shopping for Christmas and what sorts of things do you gift your significant other?

Every year I have the goal to buy Christmas gifts through out the year... but of course that never happens. I start scrambling in November :)

Eric and I do stockings for each other which has been really fun to do each year! (Some years we also do gifts, other years we skip them to buy something big. This year it will be a computer!) I always buy gifts geared specifically for him, that can't be used on me. We share enough already, right? I get him a movie (one that HE wants, that I would not buy any other time of the year, haha), a gift card (Cabella's, iTunes, etc) roll of quarters (I hate it when he wastes money on car washes, but he loves to wash his truck) cologne (ok, so I do benefit from this one, haha), and anything else I can think of that is just.for.him. 

If you guys have any ideas of gifts you get for your men.... PLEASE share :)

P.S. I participated in an ornament swap (I know, so many swaps in one week. I was really trying to get into the Christmas spirit when I signed up for these, haha.)
 
I was paired up with the darling Ana and she sent me this beautiful ornament. The colors match my tree decor perfectly!

 Thank you Ana! I love it :)