Christmas traditions: the new

I can't believe I've been living here for a year and a half!  We have started a few of our own traditions in our own little family, so I thought I'd share those with you since I already shared my childhood traditions.  

My roommates are the best; we have such a great time together, and decorating for Christmas isn't an exception.  We start as soon as we all return from Thanksgiving with our families.  Every year, over the past 3 Christmases [even before I started living here], I've helped decorate for Christmas.  And every year, our display grows.

2010

2011 [and yes, that's my cat on the roof with my roommate]

TA-DAH

 2012

close-up on a couple of my favorite guys in our yard

[And a daytime shot.  In our zoo, we have a golfing moose, some candles and presents, a polar bear, bumble, garfield, a snowman, some penguins, and an igloo.  We hope to have rudolph soon too!]

This is our Christmas inspiration.  This is my roommate Jeff's parents' house.  It's amazing!  We get lots of their hand-me-down lights and figures which is great.

In addition to decorating outside, we also have a Christmas tree.  Even though it is artificial [come on, we're all 20-something singles, we have to slack somewhere!], it does have some great ornaments.  This year, we also decorated our dining room.  

Here are a few of our indoor decorations from last year.  I love that advent wreath my parents bought me, I already hung it up for this year!

And what is a roommate-family Christmas without gifts?  Usually, the day after Christmas we have our own Christmas morning and exchange gifts.  I'm also in charge of the stockings and I love filling them. I just made new ones and hung them over the mantle.

I haven't decided if I'm going to post about gifts like I did last year and here and here.  Over the past year, my blog has grown a bit and because I've shared it on Facebook and Twitter, I'm not quite sure who has read/reads it on occasion and I don't want to ruin surprises!  Even if I decide not to post, you can check out the types of gift I give here.

And of course, we couldn't make all of our decorations happen [inside and out] without all of this: