How does it work? Courtney posed the invite a few weeks ago on her blog, check it out - she has a pretty awesome blog. Basically, I did my Christmas thing all month long and took pictures along the way to share with all of you. Anything from decorations, recipes, gift wrap and everyday holiday nonsense can be shared.
I love to snoop around blogs and check out what other people are up to in the privacy of their own homes, to this sounded right up my alley. So, here's a little look into my Christmas world this year!
Deck the Halls
This year decorating was a bit understated at my house, you can't really have your house covered head to toe in snowman trinkets when it's on the market to sell. So I pulled out a few small things and left the bulk of the decorations in their boxes.
I put candles in the front windows in lieu of Christmas lights covering the bushes in the front yard. These candles are amazing by the way, no cords and turn on when it get's dark outside - oh, the joy of solar power!
At house number 2 (Jake's), we ramped up the decorating a bit.
We had plans to cut down a christmas tree, rather than pick one out from Lowe's but when we rolled up to Hozak's Christmas Tree Farm - the 'cut your own tree' section - we were intimated. There were lumber jack looking guys carrying trees on their backs and all of the families were definitely regulars. They had gloves, boots, rope, bungie cords and saws. All of which we own, but none of which we thought to bring. So, we did a quick swing through the parking lot and right back out... luckily the farm has a section where you can pick out a tree, much more our speed this year. We got a 7' fraser fir and they tied it to the roof of the car for us. We also left with some holly branches, pine branches, pine wreath and I asked for some tree stumps left over from other people's trees.
 |
| Jake at the farm (note: Jake is on the right) |
The wreath promptly died, so I need to get another one and hang it on the outside of the storm door, a good tip to know before your $30 wreath turns brown and shrivels up.
Jake and I differ on our decorating styles, but we have a collection of ornaments from every city we have been to over the past few years and have those on the tree this year. We plan to collect ornaments everywhere we travel together, it's fun hunting down ornaments that remind of us of our trip.
 |
| ornament we bought when visiting my brother in the Navy |
 |
| childhood ornaments |
 |
Cards
One of my favorite holiday treats is cards, this time of year I love going to the mailbox to see how many cards we got that day! They are all so special in their own way, it's like opening up a gift every day for the entire month of December. Picture cards are my favorite, seeing pictures of kids and families that we don't see very often is so fun!
I hung the cards on the bannister so we can look at them for the next few weeks.
 |
We sent our first card together this year, I created it on minted. A stationary website I cannot get enough of recently. I used a photo from our engagement shoot and kept it simple. For as long as I can remember I have sent handwritten Christmas cards, after this year I may never handwrite them again. I know it takes a bit of the personalization out of them but for bulk mailing this is the way to go!
Wrapping
Similar to the past 2 years I used craft paper to wrap most of my gifts. I just love the simplicity of this paper and it can easily be dressed up with ribbon, bows, stamps and glitter. Yes, glitter! I have the Martha Stewart glitter set and I use it every chance I get.
For our families I stuck with craft paper and white, silver and tinsel ribbons all stamped with the initials or name of the person receiving the gift. I wrapped gifts for friends and my grandparents in simple pattern paper. My grandfather would not understand the craft paper thing, I'm almost positive he would think I was giving him a frozen pork shoulder wrapped in brown paper. We gave a few magazine subscriptions this year so I made cards to give, since you can't physically open a subscription.
Jake and I decided to scale it back this year, we have a wedding coming up and if you don't already know they are ridiculously expensive! We had a few rules, under a certain $ amount and gifts that fall into the following categories - want, need, wear, read and feed.
I typically don't have issues thinking of gift ideas but this is a great way to narrow down the ideas and save you from buying things last minute that have no meaning to the person receiving the gift. I used craft paper, neon green bakers twine and glitter - so simple and easy.
 |
| the glitter makes up for my terrible penmanship, kinda? |
Party Time
This year, like last, both my office and Jake's office Holiday parties fell on the same day. We decided to go to his because it was at the Carnegie Museum and I was not allowed to bring a guest to mine. We had a blast eating and eating. It was nice to get all dolled up and spend a night out together. His department has another holiday party this year and so does mine ... shocking but they are on the same day again! Jake's boss and his boss's wife (who I love) have a party every year and it's a great time. They have a gift exchange and it gets hysterical.
My friend from work, who also happens to be my boss, had a gingerbread house party. Such a great idea - I was totally a kid and made a crazy looking house with a pool! She had pre-made the houses (the hard part!) and we all picked from tons of candy and created our own masterpiece. Jake and I ate so much candy, we crashed hard from our sugar high when we got home.
Last year Jake and I spent an entire day baking cookies - well, me baking and Jake cleaning up after me and running the mixer. This year we picked 4 recipes and kept it to an evening of making the dough and an hour or so baking the next day. This year is a bit crazier and as much as I wanted to make more, 4 is enough!
We landed on peanut butter oatmeal, cream cheese pistachio, butter sugar and cornmeal lime stars. I found the recipes in a magazine and have to say the simple sugar cookies with sprinkles are the best.
Just when I began to think I made all of my holiday goodies and did not even use chocolate (what?!) I picked the next two recipes for a dinner at a friends house and our annual AE Visual department Holiday potluck lunch.
brownie bite santa hats
I altered a recipe I found here and used a buttercream frosting I found here. I am definitely not opposed to taking a recipe and using a few bought items, rather than making it all from scratch. Rather than making the brownie bites I found little bags of brownie bites at the grocery store, what could be easier!
carmel chocolate cashew pretzel popcorn clusters
I made up the name, and it's beyond delicious. I used this recipe and this recipe, two because the second one I failed miserably at. Something happened with the carmel part, it was looking good and all of the sudden it turned into a pile of ... I don't even know, the carmel dried out and the pot basically looked like I had filled it with sand. Sooooo I pulled up the backup recipe I saved and actually had all the ingredients on hand. The recipe was so easy and only used the microwave. With a little help from Jake handling the super hot carmel I poured the carmel over the dry ingredients, melted some chocolate to drizzle over top and that was it - really easy gift idea!
There are still a few days to go until Christmas, so there's still plenty of time for more holiday decorations and holiday foods! Time to get the creative thoughts revved up again, I am looking forward to seeing what all of you have been up to.
Thanks for sharing! I love how your cards are on the banister....And I totally didn't think about the fact that you can't go all out with the decorating when your house is for sale. Good thing you have a spare home to work with! :)
ReplyDelete