Emily H. Kirkpatrick

Oh what a difference a year makes. A year ago we were heavy into the wedding planning phase and I was enjoying a nice long two month break from school (Thanks Samford for JanTerm). This year, reality hit hard with only a couple days off from work. Despite the dramatic change in meaning of the phrase "Christmas break," I could not have asked for a sweeter time. It was simply perfect.

Everything was lovely.

We celebrated Christmas Eve with a wonderful meal prepared by my rockstar-of-a-cook mom and a time of fellowship with Nathan's parents, Harvey and Karen, who joined us for the Christmas Eve service at Perimeter (which was incredible as always).

The weekend was full of joy.

Just a funny story from the weekend:

Growing up, my parents always gave my brother Adam and I some sort of board game for Christmas. As Nathan and I had been racking our brains for new traditions to start as a family we decided to start our own board game collection (buy one every Christmas). We picked the game Zero. Nathan and I packed Zero for the trip and were so excited to share the new game with my family. After a round of the game (which was a hit with all) my parents exchanged glances and just laughed while uttering the words-"should we tell them." Well, turns out that dad did tons of research and decided he and mom were going to give Adam, Nathan and I the game...Zero. It was quite a funny little story but ended well as we concluded each of us had good game-picking skills. Take our word for it and go get Zero, a fun twist on classic trivia games.

Our first Christmas as husband and wife could not have been more perfect. We are utterly blessed to have two families who love us unconditionally and give us so much support.

Weekend snapshots...