How quickly this year has passed! So quickly, in fact, that I haven’t even had a chance to upload our holiday photos until now. Here’s a quick recap from December and early January over the holidays…

We sent out our “thank you” cards from the wedding about a month after we got back from our honeymoon. (Yes, honeymoon and wedding photos still to come!) I’m really proud of the cards that we made! I basically designed every single thank-you card individually in Photoshop and we printed them off at Moo… so each person who came to our wedding got a different and unique photo collage card of the actual honeymoon gifts they gave us. We also made little mini cards with snapshots from the wedding. Everyone got a mini card of Allan and I, and most people got custom mini cards with themselves in the photos! I think they turned out great and were worth all the time we put into them!

Early December it was time for the annual “Erection Party”* aka annual ugly sweater Christmas party that one of my best friends @amyburrows puts on (*refers to erecting the Christmas tree). It’s always an amazing time and brings in friends from all around BC.

Dressing up as Christmas-y as possible is definitely encouraged.

Allan and I…

Annual group photo…. Grrrrrr!

Then it was off to our work Christmas parties for some drinking and dancing with our coworkers. Mine was at Canvas Lounge and Allan’s was at the Earls in Yaletown… just the same as every year, we have our Christmas parties on the same night which makes it tricky for booting around from one party to the other! We decided to dress up a little this year (Pronovias for me and Hugo Boss for Allan). I have some better pics of the dress from our honeymoon so I’ll make sure I post those up too.

Two more fun social events included my brother taking our whole family to the Nutcracker at Queen Elizabeth Theatre… it called for dressing up in a little fur (Halston Heritage) and a long dress (thanks to Liv for always helping me pick out dresses!). It was also really nice to have my parents out since they never get to go out! The holidays were also a great time to catch up with old friends from high school, in particular getting to see my girlfriends at Kim’s bachelorette!

Then before we knew it, it was already Christmas morning and Allan and I hosted our first ever Christmas morning breakfast at our place. It’s usually at my parents’ home but for the first year ever we decorated and were given a waffle maker as one of our wedding gifts… so it’s been full-steam ahead on throwing breakfast parties in our apartment. Christmas morning breakfast was extra special… we got double-smoked applewood bacon from Oyama on Granville Island and made three sauces: strawberry, blueberry and cinnamon apple from fresh fruit.

Christmas afternoon was spent at my parents’ home and the tree was overloaded this year with our cousins and their kids coming over too.

For stocking stuffers this year I gave out some of my favourite chocolates!

Allan and I also spent a little extra time this year wrapping up our presents extra fancy with papers/bows from Ikea and Paper-ya on Granville Island.

I love love LOVE the homemade cards from one of my friends Lindsay. She makes these cards by hand and the attention to detail is beautiful! My family really appreciated receiving these crafty cards this year!

Allan definitely cleaned up this year with new Bauer hockey skates, a complete Shun Japanese knife set and block, a Shaw Gateway & Portal, a new Bern helmet and a Canucks jersey! I got a new GoPro 2, an Alexander McQueen scarf, a gold necklace from my parents, wine glasses, and much needed new pink slippers!

Christmas dinner and dessert was amazing with tons of turkey, chicken, beef short ribs, tiramisu and some lovely wines. Allan and I also brought along a bottle of port from Portugal that we purchased on our honeymoon.

Here’s our family photo this year! I couldn’t resist wearing a sparkly sequined dress for Christmas. Family love!

Lastly, it was time for New Years. We headed to the Shangri-la this year for an awesome party with a VIP table! It was worth the splurge to have a place to sit down and we all really enjoyed all the champagne and appetizers made by MARKET. It was so fun to spend time with our best buds. Liv, I have some awesome photos of you that are far too hilarious to post

There was lots of dancing and fun to be had. I didn’t get our guys in the photos but they are there too!

The rest of our break we spent baking, cooking and just relaxing. We finished three video games (Assassin’s Creed, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Splinter Cell: Conviction) and I finished reading the entire Millenium series of books by Stieg Larsson “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) novels. I also recently finished the Hunger Game series so I’ve been doing a lot of reading!

Not to mention lots of snowboarding at Cypress, Mount Washington, and Apex Mountain…

All in all, a very good holiday break! Now it’s back to work…

How was your holiday break?

It sure is starting to look like Christmas here in Vancouver with a beautiful dusting of snow on the ground already. Like many of you, Christmas is my favourite holiday and it’s no secret that I love winter (although Fall is still my favourite season).

I’m so incredibly backed up on blog posts that I thought I’d give you a little mini preview of what is coming down the pipes on my blog this holiday season, complete with some seasonal photos!

VANCITYALLIE.COM HOLIDAY SEASON 2009 BLOG POST PREVIEW:

Many cooking and baking related blog posts (Christmas cookies hello!), especially as we get closer and closer to Christmas… including *gasp* a fateful attempt at making homemade croissants…

Winter wonderland photos of Vancouver and around our beautiful province…

A gear and gift guide for snowboarding just in time for last minute Christmas shopping… plus lots of snowboarding posts including our upcoming Sun Peaks and Mount Washington trips.

Family, friends, parties for Christmas and New Year’s related posts…

How Allan and I attempted making a 5-course fine dining meal for both our sets of parents when they met for the very first time…

And of course, our last blog post to highlight our time in Kicking Horse and Golden… plus the HD video of the trip!

Hope everyone is enjoying getting ready for Christmas and the holiday season! I know I am!