Another amazing holiday season has come and gone. There was so much to be thankful for this holiday season that I wanted to make sure I captured all of our highlights in a post. As I created this post it was evident to me that family and friends are what make the holidays truly special. Thank you to all who were a part of making our holidays magical this year.
Christmas Decorations
When it comes to decorating for the holidays, Emily is both creative and focused on making sure that every square inch of the downstairs has some element of festiveness to it. Somehow each year we seem to acquire a few more holiday decorations, providing for some interesting opportunities to fit more stuff into the same space. With the excitement of visitors coming in December, we wanted to get a jump on decorating so we could spend the latter part of the month relaxing (which of course never happened). Below is our tree with presents from Wisconsin courtesy of Grandma Jean and Papa Don and the Toneys.
Jesse’s Annual Holiday Party
We got to spend an enjoyable and relaxing holiday evening attending my coworker Jesse’s annual holiday party. We secured a babysitter and agreed that a pre-party holiday drink at the beautifully decorated Ritz Carlton was a great way to start off our kid free night. We relaxed on their cozy couches, munched on some of their delicious snacks, and just enjoyed the silence and the season. We also took the opportunity to explore the resort and capture some images of their beautiful decorations.
After we properly captured the holiday essence of the Ritz we headed over to Jesse’s for some amazing food, great fun, and enjoyable conversation with many of my coworkers from Disney. Jesse always goes all out on the food and decorating, starting months in advance, and also plans some fun games that allow people to explore his house with over 80 decorated Christmas trees (including three in the swimming pool).
It wouldn’t be right to not mention Emily’s greatest social media achievement of 2015 which happened upon arriving back to the Hayes Ranch. Emily has been known to share a post or two on Facebook, but tonight she topped herself. As we were pulling into the driveway, Emily spotted an owl in the tree next to our driveway (a first). She snagged about a dozen shots of this night creature and posted it to Facebook. I believe the owl was her most liked post of 2015 (we must be pretty exciting people)! Such a fun night!
Hunter’s Field Trip to ICE!
Emily had the torture pleasure of chaperoning Hunter’s 3rd grade class on a field trip to the Gaylord Palms to experience ICE. ICE provides a fantastic opportunity to shell out over 25 bucks a head to deal with the misery that the folks in the Midwest deal will every year in the winter. Inside the attraction, the temperature is 9 degrees and surrounded by ice sculptures (impressive formations, but hard to appreciate when your eyelids are frozen open). It takes 60 minutes to prepare to walk through, getting all the gear on, and approximately nine minutes to actually walk through. Emily was glad she got to chaperone with her friend Megan, and Hunter got to hang out with his buddy Austin and other friends from school, so all-in-all it was a pretty awesome day.
Marie & Marian visit from Michigan
Our first visitors of December, Marie and Marian, arrived on the 11th. Marie and Emily were roommates as interns on the College Program and have been close friends ever since. We tried to pack in as much activity as we could for their long girls’ weekend in Florida, away from daddy and their new baby.
Saturday, Emily and Marie were able to hook up with their other roommate Andrea (K Cheese was oddly unavailable) for some fun with the kids at Keke’s for breakfast and fun at the park.
On Sunday, we visited the Magic Kingdom, and enjoyed a warm December day (weather prime for for our Michigan friends, bad for my cold snap wishing wife). We even got to connect with my cousin Dan, how wife Sara, and three of their kids. Thanks to Emily’s pre-planning, we got to experience a bunch of attractions that the kids really enjoyed like Buzz, Jingle Cruise, Peter Pan, and a bunch of others. I have to give a shout out to skipper Marco as he was the best Jingle/Jungle Cruise Skipper that we have had in quite some time.
Emily, who loves a good theme, purchased matching Christmas pajamas for everyone to enjoy a cozy night in after a long day walking at the Magic Kingdom. We had a fun photo shoot trying to capture a photo of these silly kids in front of the Christmas tree. Even the Elf on the Shelf knew Marian would be visiting and made some delicious cookies for the kids to enjoy (see slideshow)!
Girls’ Holiday Night at Epcot
Emily timed out her annual Disney holiday outing to coincide with Marie’s visit so she could be part of the festivities. Judging by the photos that were captured throughout the night, it looks like the ladies had quite the international adventure jingling around the world. Emily used her cussing crafting prowess to create these custom Mickey “Keep Calm and Jingle Around the World” shirts for all eight girls. Every year she adds a new element to their getup (jingle bell bracelets, light up Christmas light necklaces, and this year the shirts).
Sawyer’s Preschool Christmas Show
Emily and I were both able to attend Sawyer’s Christmas show at his preschool. Sawyer hit the stage as one of about 200 in the Christmas production, where he beautifully executed his role as “brown cow”. All of the kids were really cute and fun to watch. In any school performance, you have some kids at about a 2 of 10 on the engagement level of their performance, and then you have the other end of the spectrum with the kids auditioning for Broadway. Sawyer fell somewhere in the middle. The big excitement was performing next to his buddy Delaney (white cow).
Emily helps Ian decorate at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
Emily and Ian have been friends for years since they worked together at Disney. Ian and his parents Ellen and Jan were staying at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge for the holidays, so Emily prepared some fun “Christmasafari Jingle Jungle Snack Mix” and met Ian at the resort with the boys for some decorating and fun (oh wait, I think they stopped at Starbucks first… shock). Ellen even brought some gifts for Emily and the boys, even though this was their first time actually meeting in person. They have developed quite a Facebook friendship and Emily was very excited to finally meet her in person.
Drew & Fran Visit From North Carolina
Our second set of visitors arrived on Saturday, December 19th, when Drew and Fran drove from Holly Springs, NC, to Orlando in record time. As always, the holidays are so much more fun when family comes to town, and it was great sharing the week with Drew and Fran. We enjoyed lots of delicious food, both at home and at some of our favorite local restaurants like Toasted. We were even lucky enough to be able to see a rocket launch from Nasa right out of our back porch! Emily enjoyed spending some QT grocery shopping with Fran and of course, visiting the home planet (aka Starbucks) with her brother.
Emily’s brother and sister-in-law Glen & Diane, and their four kids were also in Orlando celebrating Taylor’s birthday at Disney, so they headed over to the house one afternoon, and we got to enjoy some great conversation and dinner from Nona Blue. We got to hear about Alex’s first year in college and all of the fun that the family had during their stay at Disney. It was great having the entire Griffin family together during the holidays!
The culinary highlight of the week was achieved by Fran and Emily as they were inspired to make peppermint dark chocolate macarons (okay, Fran forced Emily’s hand by buying almond flour, but I digress). Despite how notoriously difficult macarons are to get right, especially their first time out, the effort that went in was worth every bite, as they were quite the hit with the entire family. I think the chefs were quite proud of their accomplishment, as well they should have been.
A new tradition that we started in 2014 was to head to Ihop for brunch on Christmas Eve. Not only did it help pass the time for the kids but it also provided a tasty way to add on even more calories to our holiday diet. Drew and Fran were game for joining us on our fancy culinary adventure. We were not convinced that our waitress didn’t go home for a nap at some point during our dining experience, or that Ihop really knows what gluten free means, but it was still enjoyable.
And of course the pinnacle of Christmas Eve was the opening of the gifts. Hunter and Sawyer could barely contain their excitement as we put the finishing touches on the hors d’ oeuvres, got into our pajamas, and divided the mountain of gifts into piles for each of us. The boys patiently (???) waited as we each took turns opening gifts to see what everyone got. The theme of the year for the boys was dinosaurs as the opening of most gifts was accompanied by a dinosaur roar.
As the night was coming to an end for the boys we baked homemade (Pillsbury) cookies for Santa, set out a plate of treats for the big guy and his reindeer, and put the boys down for a short winter’s nap. The adults stayed up into the wee hours of the night opening gifts and and sharing stories. We wrapped up about 1 am to ensure Santa had enough time to make his visit.
Christmas Day
We were jostled awake at 6 am to find two excited boys standing at the foot of our bed wondering why we weren’t as awake and excited as they were to see what Santa brought. We dragged ourselves out of bed working on 4 hours of sleep to see what the jolly old elf left. We spent the better part of the day opening and playing with toys, and the boys had a blast. Emily and Fran made a great breakfast casserole to enjoy, and for dinner Emily cooked a pork tenderloin and lots of sides, even though she could barely keep her eyes open. It was great having family in town to share in the fun and festivities throughout the entire holiday week.
A Few More Events to Close Out 2015
We bid farewell to Drew and Fran as they hit the road early on December 27th to make it back to North Carolina. Later that evening we had the Hietpas clan from Wisconsin over to the house for swimming, brats (bratwurst, not bratty kids), and to watch the Packers get trounced by the Arizona Cardinals. The kids had fun swimming, and we enjoyed catching up with Erik and Jamie, who came down to enjoy the 88 degree winter we were experiencing. We also got to catch up with them later in the week when we joined them for a hibachi dinner at the Mikado Japanese Steakhouse at the Marriott World Center (see slideshow).
After all of the holiday activities we decided that we would ring in the new year with just our family, playing board games in our pajamas. Emily got a pair of Moscow Mule mugs for Christmas that were just asking to be taken for a test drive, and New Year’s Eve was just the time to do it. Emily bought all the fixins earlier in the week, so we were ready to party. It was a great way to end 2015 just hanging out, us and the boys.
Thank you again to all of our friends and family who took time out of their busy holiday schedules to share their time with us. Please enjoy more of our holiday photos below.
Holiday Photo Highlights 2015
