Happy Christmas

Christmast just passed and it makes me a little sad it won't be coming around for a whole other year! Especially since it finally decided to snow, haha.

We started it right by hanging with the fam and taking a tour of Christmas lit houses, not the most successful thing. still, it was so fun to pretend to be super enthusiastic about the barely lit homes but it ended with hot chocolate and donuts.

I just love seeing our homes decorated for Christmas since we didn't even decorate one bit at our place!

There have been countless things we have done,
our families have spoiled us and we have been out and about which has been so fun for us.

1. watched unbroken
2. saw lots of happy babes opening their presents
3. ate so much food
4. and probably a million more things i wish i could remember

for now we are enjoying more family time and more food before school starts

My favorite part about christmas this year was doing our white envelope. A tradition that mario grew up with is a white envelope (i get confused and call white elephant.derp) hung in their christmas tree and his family reads the story in it every christmas. This white envelope contains the best part of their holiday season. Inside the envelope is a way they are going to serve those around them that year. Since this was our first christmas as a married couple, we decided to continue the tradition in our family.

About three years ago Mario and I did this when we were dating, we chose a family that needed some extra help with Christmas gifts and we bought their entire family gift. We went all out, which was so fun, and doorbell ditched their house Christmas eve.

This year we decided to serve someone by giving the gift of empowerment to someone. We did this through kiva.org, an organization that gives loans for people to start businesses and therefore become self reliant. I came across this organization through reading Half the Sky. In my opinion, allowing someone to become self reliant and hopefully passing that attitude down to their children is the best way to relieve poverty. We chose a man from Nigeria who needed help with his crops. All of the married kids did something and are continuing the legacy of the white envelope.

I am so excited to continue this tradition. So glad we have a family who has some deep and meaningful traditions.