Christmas Eve with the Family

Amy and I are enjoying our time home for the holidays

We are a bunch of daddy's girls :)

My precious grandparents

Striking a pose...trying to be fabulous

Love my sisters

Hanging with my cousin Tiffany at my grandma's house

Christmas with the Jeffers

I love the traditions of the holiday season and one of my favorite traditions is our annual "Jeffers Christmas". Caron and Michael were the first friends that I made when I moved to Tennessee and they are like my family. They welcomed me into their Christmas traditions 5 years ago and it's still going strong. Our traditions includes eating dinner, opening gifts and then watching the gifts :) I'm always in charge of bringing the desserts and this year I made our favorite, funfetti cupcakes! Here are some pics from the evening's festivities:

Caron and I

Michael and Tam with their Christmas gifts that we get to watch

Me, Caron and Margaret (Tam's fiance)

Me just hanging with Chewy

Margaret, Tam, Caron and Michael

I'm trying...

to get into the holiday spirit but it's definitely been a challenge this year. I believe that it's been due mostly in part to an insanely busy and fully consuming work schedule which has demanded of me a fair share of travel and bringing work home almost every night. I believe this combination has somewhat robbed me of my normal enthusiastic outlook on this time of year. I believe this is the first time ever that I have NOT put up a Christmas tree or decorated the house. And I do realize for those that know me well...it's shocking!

All hope is not lost...I have been saturating myself with a lot of Christmas music lately and I think it's actually improving my mood. I have mailed out my first round of Christmas packages to friends, began working on Christmas cards, wrapping presents, took care of all my December birthdays ( i have like 6 close friends/family that have December bdays) and even took time to bake a dessert for a Christmas party that I went to on Friday night. Impressive for someone who feels like she is a borderline Scrooge this year.

Blah Blah Blah

I seem to have caught a case of the blahs...which is really unfortunate given this wonderful time of year. I've always loved the Christmas season for so many reasons but this year...at the moment anyways...I have seemed to lost my "joy". There are a couple factors that I feel have robbed this joy but I won't bore you to tears with my whoas. I just know that I have about 15 days to snap out of it and get it together before heading home for the holidays. Here's hoping...


I will leave you with a couple pics from our Sunday School Class Christmas party. Let the holiday parties begin...

Me and my friend Katie

We always do a Gift Exchange/Yankee Swap and Amy traded out her gift for a thousand piece puzzle of a map of Santa Barbara that just happened to come in this handy dandy suitcase.

My friend Patrick won the craziest Christmas Tie contest...his tree tie even had working lights (thanks to the clever battery pack that fit in his front pocket)

Terah, Katie and Amy = Group Hug

Highlights from November

Since I've been MIA in the blogging world, I thought it would just be easier to just share some highlights from November.

1. Work has been insane and I have made multiple trips to Parsons (West TN) and to Unicoi (East TN) for multiple events.


2. Took a spontaneous weekend-road trip to hang with Florida Friends


3. Got Bronchitis and spent about a week on antibiotics.
4. Was able to make almost every Monday night TR2 Running Group.
5. Went to midnight showing of "New Moon" with my friends Amy, Tammy and Julie.
6. Cleaned my room thoroughly and brought the rest of my winter sweaters and such out of storage including changing to flannel sheets.
7. Went back to Indiana for Thanksgiving with the family.
8. Ran a Thanksgiving Day 5k with my dad and thanks to the cold conditions posted a 30:30 finish time.
9. Started Christmas shopping.