Annual Christmas Traditions at the *K's*

(You may be wondering what I put in Billy's drink to get him to pose like this with our sweet Rocky, but I swear, he's 80% sober and I actually caught this at the right time..)

There are certain traditions Billy and I do throughout the year that we really enjoy doing together. In the past year I've been married, I've found that it's really fun celebrating the little moments...so continue celebrating we will! Billy's favorite tradition so far is the one we did this past weekend. Every year I make my Mom's killer (meaning delish) lasagna recipe for the night we put up our Christmas tree and we watch Christmas movies all night long. I only make my mom's lasagne for this ONE night so that it's extra special, and Billy is always so excited to eat it because it's his favorite!

{for those of you who are wondering if I ate the lasagna since I'm a vegetarian, I did eat some. This March I will be a vegetarian for a year now, and I figured since I only make this recipe once a year, that I could just not skip it!}

After we scarfed down the lasagna, Billy gave the sweetest toast {that was completely unexpected} before we got started on putting up our Christmas tree. I won't get into all the mooshy gooshy details that you don't care about, but he thanked me for making the meal and told my Mom how much we miss her and how much we love her lasagna.

It was incredibly sweet.

...and just reminded me just how lucky I am to have him as my husband!

This year we decided to put our tree in our office in the front of our house, instead of in the family room. Our tree was given to us by my best friend Lindsay's parents and is really big. After one last minute trip to Tar-jay because we were ONE box short of white lights, the lights were on our tree and we were ready to start decorating. We stuck with a red, purple, and silver theme this year. You can barely see the purple in these pictures, but I promise it's there! My Dad gave me many ornaments from when I was younger and also some of my Mom's favorite ornaments to put on our tree, so I always have to add those as well.

These pics are taken with my iphone - 'scuse the blurryness..

view from our stairs

...and I love that you can see it in the mirror when standing on the steps :)

I really hope we can continue to decorate our tree together every year.

 Maybe this will change when we have kids and we are super busy, but I hope it stays for at least a couple more years!

Lastly.....

our other Christmas tradition is to exchange Christmas ornaments every year on Christmas morning. Here are the ornaments Billy has got me the past 2 years:

Our first home in 2009

Our 1st Christmas as *Mr and Mrs*

in 2010

After the tree was put up and we realized part of it is falling apart at the bottom, we just sat in the room and enjoyed the tree for a bit. Go on, call us dorks all you want. I know you're thinking it.... ;) 

but it was just so cute to see Rocky sit there & stare at it!

What Christmas traditions do you have?

I would love to hear some others so we can incorporate them next year!

I would typically share my Mom's lasagna recipe for Tasty Tuesdays, but this is one recipe I want to keep within our family aka my lips are sealed. Sorry guys.

Also, yesterday Blogger and I were fighting, and it didn't publish my Bloggers Do It Better post until hours later...so if you didn't see it, go check it out: here.

I talked about what happens when you get 18 bloggers together in one room! ;)