Since before I was born, my parents have gone to Valley View Farms to pick out Christmas ornaments, so it’s been tradition for well over thirty years! We usually celebrate Mom’s birthday and do Valley View, with our Christmas dinner another day, but between all of our schedules and different things going on this season, we decided to do everything at once, and it worked out great! Karlie and Jesse (my brother and SIL) offered to host this year and it was such a nice change! I can’t wait to share more about that, but first… Valley View. :)
Tyler and I drove down with Mom and Dad, and Jess met us there… Tradition is that we keep our eyes closed until we walk in, and then, “gasp!”, we open them and oo and aww at all the lights once we’ve stepped in the doorway! Hehe.. we are so cheesy but - it’s tradition!
After picking out our ornaments, we headed back home to let Baxter out, who was waiting for us at my parents’ house, and head over to Karlie and Jesse’s! We were excited and loaded up our cars with presents and drove on over to such a warm, cozy home with wonderous things waiting for us!
Karlie prepared the most amazing charcuterie spread for us, and had their spare room blocked off as a surprise for us to see after appetizers and cocktails… Mom always says, when anything my dad cooks is a little spicy, “oo Bob, that’s zingy!” so Karlie wrote that next to the spicy sausage, hehe…
She and Jess let me into the room to take a few pics, and I didn’t expect to see this but they’d set up the most beautiful dining room tablescape with decorations in every corner… The details were so festive, cozy, and perfectly reminiscent of my Nana’s dining room with the wooden chairs, low lighting, and little Christmas tree set up on the food table. It made me misty! It was so sweet and encompassed so much love and hard work and effort… We were all so thankful! It was definitely one of my favorite highlights of Christmas this year…
We sat down to dinner together to enjoy a delicious Holiday Ham, Scalloped Potatoes, Roasted Carrots, Garlic + Thyme Green Beans, and a delicious Fruit Salad! Afterwards, Karlie revealed a stunning Yule Log cake she made for us for dessert, with Marsarpone Cheese filling and a Chocolate Ganache… It was rich, chocolatey, and divine! Happy Birthday to Mom!
Then it was time to move onto presents… Everyone was so abundant and generous this year and it was so sweet and fun to laugh and enjoy one another as we opened out gifts! :) We got Jess this hilarious antler ring toss game so that was a silly little moment… And I painted our home on a plate for Mom this year which was special too. :)
We love the chance to be together and celebrate our traditions… From the handmade stockings from Nana from when we were babies, that are still filled with gifts every year, to our Valley View trip, and everything in between… It’s all special and magical in its own way…
I’m so grateful for our sweet family and hope we have many more Christmases together like this one, to cherish in our hearts.