It is Christmas!

I have not written in forever, but I blame the sudden influx of holiday necessities.  Cleaning, wrapping presents, baking, cooking...way too much to do and never enough time.  Tim and I are hosting a Christmas Eve dinner for all the Airmen who are unable to go home for the holidays (a party which would never happen without the help of the spouses and Airmen contributing!), and I still have potatoes and carrots to peel, brownies to bake, carpets to clean...I am happily overwhelmed.

I really just wanted to take a short moment to gloat (yes, gloat) over my fortune of being able to spend my first married Christmas with my Timmy.  It is rare for military families to have holidays together, and while I am sure that there will definitely be missed birthdays/anniversaries/holidays down the road, I am constantly amazed at the fact that we get to spend our first year together.  I am homesick and miss my family dearly, but I would not trade this opportunity for the world.  So here are a couple pictures of our first Christmas as husband and wife:

And of course, the poor man's solution to keeping your tree from being messed with.  It still didn't work...multiple presents and ornaments were eaten.

The tree will finally be in its rightful place on the floor tomorrow to open up space for food, but I doubt it will be able to stay there for long.  And the presents you see under the tree...they are empty.  Timmy and I are horrible at keeping presents around unopened, so we actually had our Christmas two days after Thanksgiving.  The luxury of being an adult :).  

Well, I am off.  My beef stew takes forever to prepare, and must be in the crock pot by 9 tomorrow morning.  A very Merry Christmas from the Browndersons, and a Happy New Year!