Christmas in Carolina

This holiday I couldn't fly or travel anywhere because of my big preggo belly! So Kevin and I had our own quiet little Christmas together in North Carolina. Our first Christmas just the two of us! It was so nice and relaxing! 

Here's our classic Christmas Eve pajamas pic.

We had a lot of fun starting traditions for our family this season.

This fall I was feeling crafty and made a felt advent calendar for our future little ones. I really liked this pattern because it keeps the focus on Christ! Mary and Joseph move along the path to Bethlehem and on Christmas, there's a tiny baby Jesus to put in the manger. It was really easy and I think it turned out cute! I followed the tutorial at The Craft Patch to make it.

We've started doing our own version of the 12 Days of Christmas where each of the twelve days leading up to Christmas we open a little envelope that has an activity for us to do! We watched Christmas movies, decorated cookies and delivered them to our friends & neighbors, and went Christmas shopping. Here are some of the other festive things we did this year-

Made gingerbread houses! (Kevin's was actually "Santa's Factory")

We visited a neat lights display in Pilot Mountain. It was adorable! This couple sets up thousands of lights displays on a couple of acres of land and you can walk around with a cozy hot cocoa! So fun!

We tried our hand at making homemade eggnog! We'll have to work on perfecting our technique over the years, but it was pretty delicious!

I love this time of year and how it helps us remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and his life. I really know that we can have happiness and purpose in our life because of Him. I have so much peace in my life because of His sacrifice for us and how it gives us the hope to become better than we are now. He is the most important gift of Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year! We are excited and waiting for our baby to join us any day now. Sending our love from North Carolina!

(Our cute Christmas card was designed by the lovely Becca @ Hadley Designs!)