Merry Christmas - and thank you, for one of our greatest gifts!

We want to wish you and your family the merriest of Christmases this year - and we want to thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. 

We cannot be more thankful for you, our readers and friends, because thanks to you we have had some of the most incredible opportunities this year and learnt so much. The blog has grown in ways we never could have imagined and every single day we are thankful for how incredible Southern In-Law readers. 

Your emails, messages and comments have made us smile, laugh, cry and jump around in excitement. We cannot thank you enough for reading the blog and supporting us - whether you've been reading from the beginning or just for a few days. 

Southern In-Law has given us the opportunity to make so many incredible friends, right around the world. It's also given us the opportunity to help so many people and that's what we love the most. 

This time last year, Jesse and I were in the same country only temporarily. You've been with us from our engagement to the heartache of saying goodbye, through the visa process twice, waited to see the very first pictures from our wedding day, teared up right along with us through our wedding video and we cannot wait to continue our journey and sharing it with you all. 

SIL is so much more than a blog, it's a major part of our life - and we have so many incredible things in store for the next year. 

This year, we're thankful for you and the gift you've given us - the ability to achieve some of our dreams that we never imagined we'd get to achieve. Next year, I'm devoting more time to Southern In-Law and achieving even more of those dreams. It's a risk, but a risk I'm willing to take because this blog and you guys make my heart so incredibly happy. To know that this blog, this tiny little place on the Internet where I spend so much time blabbing away, can help even one person is amazing, but from the emails and comments we've received this year, we know it's more than one person - and that's something I am totally flabbergasted by but so proud of. 

This year, I want you to enjoy your Christmas wholeheartedly, enjoy the delicious foods you only eat once a year without thinking twice, take notice of the happiness of those around you and think about the real reason we're celebrating. This is a healthy living blog, and for us, healthy living is about balance and also about happiness. Tomorrow when we're enjoying Christmas pudding and custard with our family, we hope you'll be enjoying your own Christmas traditions with your family.   

This year, we'll be enjoying a quiet Christmas with our immediate family in Sydney and will be Skyping our family in the US. 

This Christmas, we are thanking God for so so so much - for His love and the gift of his son who died to save us, for our incredible family, for you our friends and readers, for this blog, for our church family, for our health and happiness, for the skills and knowledge we have developed over the year, for the careers we have and love and of course eachother and our first year as husband and wife.

We are so lucky and we really, truly hope and pray that you also take a moment this Christmas to think of all that you're thankful for - even if times are tough, look for the little light of hope that always shines. Remember that there is no darkness that can outshine light, regardless of how small that light is.

But we'd love to know, 

What are you thankful for this year? 

What are your Christmas plans?