I ♥ Christmas and everything about it. I get SO excited to be able to listen to Christmas music pretty much non-stop. I think Lee is going to reach saturation levels far faster than I ever will. I'm lucky he's such a good sport. Even when he has to listen to my incredibly loud and off pitch singing. Now, that's true love. :)

We rolled into town from Thanksgiving mid-day on Monday and by the time we went to bed Monday night we had purchased and set up our very first Christmas tree, pulled out all the Christmas decor and made homemade gingerbread dough. The Christmas prep continued on Tuesday as we decorated the tree and rolled and cut the dough into gingerbread Christmas trees, men and house shapes. We had forgotten what a time intensive project that is and unless we become super heros down the road -- we may resort to graham crackers in the future.

All this prep was more than worth it for all the fun we had on Wednesday night with Joy and Collin. Our night kicked off with Lee's homemade pizza (SOOO good) and then onto gingerbread house construction and d ecorating (all the while listening to and of course singing Xmas music). Collin and Joy were in charge of the goodies to decorate with and they excelled at that job. Collin continued to knock our socks off with his decorating creativity. We're talking Doublemint gum shingles, marshmallow snowmen on skis, Starburst chimney with marshmallow smoke, and a sidewalk straight from Candyland. There were a few moments I had house envy... but then we pulled through. We went with Starburst shingles, candy cane & Doublemint gum windows and shutters, red hot and M&M walkway and coconut snow. I still think they might have been more creative than us -- but Joy says ours is "classy". (if a gingerbread house can be classy). And of course I ♥ the 3D Christmas trees and gingerbread men. Joy's was the cutest with her belt, collar and pants outfit. But I came through with providing googly eyes for our people! (I guess being a Nursery teacher does come in handy sometimes).

We took a break mid-way through to appreciate some of Lee's finer ice cream. There is an ice cream shop in the city called Bi-Rite. They make one of Joy and Collin's favorite, Riconnella's. It's a cinnamon based icecream with pieces of Snickerdoodles in it. Well, Lee made some with his famous snickerdoodles and it put Bi-Rite to shame. It was incredible. He also had whipped up a batch of Xmas Jo-Jo ice cream as a special surprise for Joy (Trader Joe's Oreo's with candy cane flecks in the cream!). T he boy is amazing and definitely caters to our every sweet desire.

The final products were pretty amazing and we certainly had a lot of fun. Thank you Joy and Collin for making the trip down and playing with us. Let's do it again next year.....

And of course the evening was very well documented. To see it all - go to our gallery.