Christmas in Columbus

After our little trip to PA to visit our new baby nephew Connor, we headed to Columbus to spend some time with my family. Unfortunately, I needed put in some hours at work, so Wednesday and Thursday I worked from my company's office in Columbus during the day. The evenings were much more fun with time spent visiting family, going out to eat and even finishing up some last minute shopping. Columbus has great restaurants and shopping, so those are 2 of my favorite things to do when we are in town. Also, while we were in town my mom made me an appointment to get a manicure and pedicure. I LOVE my pretty fingers and toes.

On Christmas Eve we had dinner J. Liu's which is a super yummy restaurant and it was my first time going there. Jason Liu, the owner was there walking around to tables and greeting everyone, which I thought was cool, especially since it was Christmas Eve. It began snowing while we were eating. After dinner we went to the candlelight Christmas Eve service at the church I grew up in. I love singing Silent Night in the glow of candles on Christmas Eve. It stopped snowing while we were in church but it snowed enough to recover the ground. Then we drove around my parents neighborhood and looked at Christmas lights. We finished up the evening with me, Derek and my parents reading Christmas books in the family room. I read the Berenstein Bears Christmas Tree, my dad read How the Grinch stole Christmas, and my mom read Twas the Night Before Christmas. Then my parents went to bed and Derek and I stayed up. I read Eloise at Christmas Time to him. Its one of my favorites, but a little long and my parents didn't have it in them to stay up for it. I fell asleep on the couch while Derek watched the Christmas Story. He woke me up when it was over and we went to bed.

We slept in a little on Christmas morning. When I woke up I saw a handmade Christmas card on my dresser. Derek made it for me while I was sleeping through the movie. Then we went downstairs and opened up presents with my parents. We got lots of fun gifts including a super soft and fuzzy north face jacket, a pair of red Toms, some pretty new pajamas, jeans sweaters and a new fancy pants camera! I am so excited to learnn how to use it and takes lots of pretty pictures. (I had some of the cutest subjects to test the new camera out on at Christmas with Derek's family, but you'll have to wait for those in another post - this one is getting pretty long.)

After opening up our gifts we ate some breakfast and then got the house ready for Christmas with my extended family, who all showed up at 12:30. We exchanged gifts, (I got more clothes and lots of other things I asked for :) and ate yummy Christmas lunch/dinner together. I love that all of my extended family lives so close and we are able to get everyone together for the holidays. I wish that I got to see them more often, but was happy that we were all able to be together on Christmas.  After some quality family time we packed up and headed down to Northern Kentucky to celebrate Christmas again!