{12 Dates of Christmas} :: Movie Night Out

{On the 8th date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...A Movie Night Out}

Date:  Movie Night Out

Cost:  $15 (Again, thank you Groupon!)

So with the craziness of being sick and taking a hospital visit, and with the busyness of Christmas upon us, several of our Christmas dates were/will have to be put on hold. We're still going to try and complete as many as we can, but we lost tickets for one of the dates, so we may not be able to catch up on all of them...so sad. Maybe next year. I will still list the dates here for ideas, even if we don't complete all of them.

Last night, we went to see The Hobbit. We have a theatre near us that has pretty cheap tickets, but it is pretty old, which means sticky floors, odd smells, and no stadium seating (haha- how spoiled have we become!) Anyway, I wanted to spring for the nicer theatre down the road, but when I came across a deal on Groupon to get a movie ticket for the Studio Movie Grill + a drink for $6 each, I couldn't pass it up! It's a brand new theatre, and it was kind of fun! We enjoyed the movie, and it was a fun date night after the craziness of the past week.

{12 Dates of Christmas} :: Starbucks & Christmas Lights

{On the 7th date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...A Starbucks & Christmas Lights Date}

Date:  Starbucks & Christmas Lights, McKinney

Cost:  $2.57 (thank you Starbucks discount!)

I absolutely LOVE driving around neighborhoods during Christmas time to see the lights. For this date, we grabbed a cup of coffee and drove around a few neighborhoods to see how McKinney decorates.

Sorry, no pictures for this one. McKinney keeps it pretty simple and classy. No crazy light shows anywhere ;)

{12 Dates of Christmas} :: A Stratego Date

{On the 6th date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...A Stratego Date}

Date:  Stratego Game Night, Home

Cost:  My pride Free

My husband loves this game. It's not my favorite; I'm just not very good at games like this. So I have to really be in a loving and giving mood to be able to play ;) But I know how much he enjoys the strategy behind it, so I gave it my best shot.

Preparing for battle...

 

Contemplating his strategy...

 

Defeated. As usual.

 

He was even not feeling 100% and still beat me. Oh well. I know he enjoys the game :)

 

{12 Dates of Christmas} :: Christmas Movie

{On the 5th date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...A Christmas Movie Day}

Date:  Christmas Movie Day, Home

Cost:  Free

Nothing says "welcome holidays" like the first screening of our most favorite Christmas movie. For this date, we had a quiet afternoon at home watching Elf.

I mean really...how can you NOT love this movie?? :)

{12 Dates of Christmas} :: Some Rink Time

{On the 4th date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...Some Rink Time}

Date:  Ice Skating, Dr Pepper Star Center McKinney

Cost:  $10 (thank you Groupon!)

Because Texas has mild winters (today was definitely 80 degrees outside), we have to do our winter ice skating indoors. I found a Groupon for the Dr Pepper Star center, so Mike and I headed out for an afternoon of ice skating! Neither Mike or I particularly love ice skating, but it was just a fun and different date activity.

I can't even remember the last time I went ice skating (high school maybe?), so it was definitely a date filled with our fair share of laughs :)

I am proud to say that we both managed to keep our balance and avoid falling on the ice. We may not do too much ice skating in the future...but it was a fun wintery-type experience haha :)

{12 Dates of Christmas} :: A Fireside Date

{On the 3rd date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...A Fireside Date}

Date:  A Fireside Date, Home

Cost:  Free

It's funny to me that in my last apartment I had both a garage and a fireplace. Now in our rent house, we have neither. Maybe someday ;) Anyway, Mike found a netflix movie that literally is just a camera set up in front of someone's fireplace. So we joke about our little makeshift fireplace...we turn on our little space heater and the netflix fireplace movie, and it's almost like the real thing. At least that's what we tell ourselves...

For this date, we made dinner together, and then spent the evening snuggled up by the Christmas tree and the fire. Simple. But perfect.

{12 Dates of Christmas} :: Deck the Halls

{On the 2nd date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...A Deck the Halls Date}

Date:  Deck the Halls, Home

Cost:  Free

This date was set aside for us to decorate our tree and get the house ready for the Christmas season. We would have done this anyway, but it was still fun to make a "date" of it.  We put on some Christmas music and got to decorating!

We bought a new tree and ornaments last year, so we just had to put everything out this year.

Getting out all of the ornaments (it was finally cooler outside and we had no electricity so our rent house can get pretty chilly!)

Pretty Christmas ornaments

Decorating the tree

Ta Da! :)

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love that our little rent house is ready for the season!

Gotta love Pinterest ;)

Welcome Christmas! Successful Date #2 :)

{12 Dates of Christmas} :: A Dickens of a Christmas

{On the 1st date of Christmas, my true love planned for me...A Dickens of a Christmas Date}

Date: A Dickens of a Christmas, Downtown McKinney

Cost: Free

Downtown McKinney hosts this holiday event every year. They have a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, seasonal music, food, horse-drawn carriage rides, and candlelight shopping on the square. The event itself is free, and it was a fun way to kick off the Christmas season in our hometown!

Since there literally was no one left in the office on Friday afternoon, I was able to get off {a little} early so that we could head out for the evening's festivities. I think McKinney's downtown area is pretty adorable, and I love that they transform the square to make it feel like you walked into a Charles Dickens novel.

We made it in time to get a good spot for the Christmas tree lighting. They had Christmas carols and a countdown!

We ran into some friends and were able to spend the evening with them.

We had a great time; we love fun things like this about our hometown! :)

{12 Dates of Christmas}

I have mentioned before that I am not the best gift-giver. I try really hard to think of something meaningful and oh-so-perfect for the person I want to celebrate. But it usually ends in 1 of 3 ways:

1. Super lame (our first Christmas together, he bought me an engagement ring; I bought him the diamond anniversary edition of Scrabble)
2. Super cheesy (remember Valentine's Day?)
3. Not super lame or super cheesy, but somewhat "eh." (I mean, he asked for that new Bible...)

And so my sweet (and wonderfully-thoughtful) gift-giver of a husband is doomed to a life of uneven gift giving. Sorry Babe. Not sure how you would categorize this one...I was going for creative and meaningful, but it might just border cheesy ;) 

I really wanted to do some fun holiday activities together, so I devised the {12 Dates of Christmas}.

I let him know ahead of time what the next few weeks will look like. Most of the dates are flexible, so we can pick and choose the best time for our dates. But some activities have a specific unmovable date, so I made sure he put those on his calendar. Each date comes with its own card explaining what he is in for :)

We're on a budget, so I had to get creative with these dates. With a little extra planning and hunting for deals, I didn't spend a penny over $100. For 12 dates, I'm pretty proud of myself about that :) And I'm sure there could have been other ways for me to save. You just have to get creative!

I will link each of our dates back at this post. So stay tuned for our fun Christmas dates...the first one is tonight! ;)

Date #1 :: A Dickens of a Christmas
Date #2 :: Deck the Halls
Date #3 :: A Fireside Date
Date #4 :: Some Rink Time
Date #5 :: Christmas Movie
Date #6 :: Stratego Game Night
Date #7 :: Starbucks & Christmas Lights
Date #8 :: Movie Night Out

**Dates 9-12 were put on hold, but here are the ideas I had planned for them!**

Date # 9 :: Engagement Anniversary
Christmas is always a reminder of our engagement, so the date was to watch our engagement video and play a round of Scrabble Diamond Anniversary Edition (we joke about how we both got each other diamonds that year)  :)

Date # 10 :: Sweet Treat Date
Christmas cookie baking together for the neighbors

Date #11 :: ICE! Tickets at the Gaylord Texan
We had to give these tickets away, which was really sad. But I hope the sweet couple who received them enjoyed them! 

Date #12 :: Fire Pit & S'mores
The plan was to sit out by the fire pit, roast some s'mores, and let Mike smoke his pipe without complaints! :)