Post Holiday Wrap Up

This morning I awoke to sun streaming through my bedroom blinds and realized that Jon had slipped off to work without waking anyone. So I called him a couple of hours later and was surprised to hear how happy he was that I'd called. I played with his phone a bit over the weekend and linked my photo with my name so it pops up when I call. He said he'd love it even more if I flashed a bit more cleavage (but don't tell him I told you...).

I sat down at my computer with the last of my mom's delicious cream cheese, lime jello, marshmallow, banana and pineapple salad (probably NOT the one you're thinking of. The cream cheese is in little chunks and mixed with partially jelled jello so that's chunky too) Yum Yum Yum. I've now spent a couple of hours catching up on all of the blog posts from the past week or so, and I discovered a fireplace that I am in LOVE with...

http://modvintagelife.blogspot.com/2010/02/anatomy-of-fireplace.html

I'm not in love with the pink couch and chair, but the blue of that fireplace took my breath away. So I spent the next hour reading about her $7500 treasure (bit more than my budget can handle right now) and looking for tile books at my county library. Let's just see what design ideas I can come up with this week...

Shortly after I figured out that the holiday came and went, and my camera never left its spot on the kitchen counter. Seriously - not a single holiday photo. Gack...

I got to talk to my stepdad about the quilt I made him for Christmas (I was thinking that perhaps I love it more than he did, but that's not necessarily the case...) and to my dear friend, April. I've let too much time pass since I had a good conversation with April, and now I'm missing her so much more. Never fear - I get to spend a weekend with her and all our boys in January!

My home office is a bit of a disaster area - wrapping flotsam here and there. Stuff piled on the dresser, couch, and corner that I don't know where else to put. The broken bunk bed ladder from a wrestling match gone awry is leaning against the closet door, and under that are some vacuum attachments, more wrapping scraps, and the crud that got dumped out of the boys' backpacks the day they came home from school last week.

I'm now officially a teleworker, and I need to box up my cubicle and bring all of that home. I'm dreading trying to find a spot for it in here! Jonny - those shelves would be very helpful right about now. If I do the more cleavage photo will you get it done soon???

Good thing I've got a few days to get things whipped into shape.

Christmas Breakfast

We have a lovely tradition with our next door neighbors where we eat Christmas breakfast together. It's something I did when I grew up. We traded hosting with the Harrises for years, and I love that Jon and I have been able to renew this.

My dear neighbor, Debbie, has the exact same Christmas dishes that I do - and Target sold them YEARS ago. I love that we both fell in love with those silly plates the same year and then didn't discover our similar taste until we moved in next door to each other.

Last year we had pancakes at Deb's house, so this year it's my turn. I usually make a bread casserole that I put together on Christmas Eve day and plop in the oven when we wake up to open presents. Oila! Presents are open, and breakfast is ready. A couple of years ago I found a recipe similar to mine that you do in a crockpot. Yah - won't be trying that again. The eggs just can't take overnight heat plus the time it takes to open gifts. It was a little over done.

This year I'm hoping to make some kind of french toast. I know there's a recipe for pre-assembly that you bake while you open, but can I find it now? NO! I'm craving buttermilk syrup, and it doesn't go so well with egg casserole. I don't want to be standing in front of a griddle. I just want to play and enjoy company. Is that such a bad thing?

How about you - what do you eat for Christmas breakfast?

Are We There Yet?

So - have you reached the point that you realize that if you don't get everything done, the holiday will still happen without it all?

I'm quickly arriving. Just this morning I realized that the big day is two weeks away, and my village still isn't up. My very favorite nativity is still boxed up on the floor in front of the dry sink where I love to set it up most years. You know what? I just may not mess with it.

All 3 trees are out. The garland and wreaths are in place. There are already 5 nativities in my front room. Does it really need more?

I think it might be all right if the china cabinet that I bought specifically to display my village sits empty until 2011. (I took out all the usual display stuff when I boxed up Thanksgiving decor).

I have all of the components of my Christmas cards ready to go, but the surge to get them put together just isn't happening.

I also realized that all of the adorable items I was going to assemble for gifts for my book club are still unassembled. Nice. Book club meets in 39 minutes. Dang.

But really? I'm so ready to just sit back and watch holiday movies, drive around looking at holiday lights, and drink hot cocoa with my guys. I may still find it in me to make some toffee and peanut brittle. Oh and some Mexican wedding cookies (aka Russian tea cakes) and cinnamon rolls - got a couple of weeks to fit all that in.

Yep - I'm thinking I'm ready to just ssssssssssssllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooowwwwwwwww down. A couple of really cool quilt books showed up in my "hold" cache at the library yesterday. They're about modern quilts, which is something I haven't bought into until recently. So I'm very anxious to look through those books.

You?

Advent-itis

Have you seen all the hubbub about advent calendars in the blogosphere? Well,  I'm adding my own to that.

Last night while reading bedtime stories to Griff he asked about our Advent calendar. He wanted to know why we added an ornament to the tree every night. How does that help count down to Christmas? Seriously, dear reader. He has a point. No worries though. He made a paper chain at school and will be removing a link every day. Oh the anticipation!

Boy oh boy did I go overboard on my advent a few years ago - not the number of calendars but the type of things I stuffed in the drawers. Took me a couple month's worth of planning and I ended up hating it and not putting it out the next year.


My boys noticed. OH MAN DID THEY NOTICE, and I had to make some changes to my advent philosophy.
 
Let's back up a bit. I have a chest advent. It has doors that swing open to reveal 24 drawers of varying sizes. My SIL, Chris, gave this to me one year when she & Mike had me & Jon. As if the chest wasn't a gift in itself, they filled the drawers with miscellaneous items such as candy, small additions to my Christmas Village (I still include that tricycle every year), and numbers that corresponded to larger packages in a separate box. Some of the larger gifts included cake mix, frosting and candles (Jon's b-day is in December), a 12x12 paper keeper, movie passes, a duck call etc. They completely spoiled us!
 

 
I wanted to continue this fine feature, but it stressed me out more than any other part of my holiday festivities. So after not getting it out that one year, I picked up a set of small ornaments at Big Lots and placed one in each drawer. The boys get to put an ornament on a small tree every day.
 
 

 
Last year we figured out that the location of the chest was not good for anxious little boys who pull it over and drop all the drawers on the floor, shattering those ornaments on the tile. But don't worry - it was just what we needed to help us all jump out of bed that morning... So - I've picked up some even cheaper ornaments from Dollar Tree (not a glass one in the bunch!).
 
The advent chest and tree weren't out when the boys left for school this morning, but guess what they're coming home to this afternoon!
 
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
 
 

 
I just discovered another reason that I <3 <3 <3 quilting.... See how that shelf is kind of bowed under the weight of the chest? Well, I took the shelf out and couldn't open the doors because of the lip at the bottom of the bookshelf. So I grabbed one of those small phone books that show up on my front step every other month or so (I have a stack of them in my hall closet because they come in handy for cases such as this), topped it with a fabric scrap (I'm SO in love with the project that it's a scrap from) and oila!
 
 

Much better. It looks cozier. I didn't think that fabric was Christmasy - more Indian blanketish. But it's perfect!

See?!

A Tree Here... A Tree There...

That last post had me thinking about all of the decorating I get to do in the next week or so. I don't always like the decorating process, but I <3 how it looks when it's done.

Today I'm going to talk about the Christmas tree. I do 3 trees (I used to think that was SO overkill, but now I LOVE it!).

One of them is a nativity tree. It's in the front room - or as my friend, B, called it last weekend - the "Grown-Up Room". All of the ornaments have something to do with the nativity. I try to add one to it each year. It makes me very upset how many retailers do not carry nativity ornaments. Last year I couldn't find a single one at Shopko. This year I've looked at Shopko, Smith's Marketplace, and Target. Guess what? NO NATIVITY!!! Shame on you retailers! It's a good thing that I have another trick up my sleeve... This tree has white lights, champagne-colored balls, and strings of pearls. It's where my newly completed tree skirt will be residing from this year forward.

The tree in the kitchen has my collection of Hallmark Nostalgic Houses and Shops. I stopped collecting these a couple of years ago because I have every single ornament and most of the special edition ornaments for the first 25 years of the series. I love the detail on these, but come on! There's only so much commitment I can give to tree decorations... This tree is one of those alpine trees that is prelit. Jon and I have found that it's fairly easy to leave all of the ornaments on this every year, wrap it in tall plastic bags, and carefully carry it to the basement. It's one of the first things I get out each year because it's so easy to just plug it in and have the instant gratification of one of my trees being finished.

The year we moved into our house I was anti-Christmas decor (we moved in the first weekend in December). My mother took pity on her grandsons and brought us the alpine tree. I don't think I've told her how grateful I am that she did that - I really would have gone without, but it's not always about just me...

The third tree is down in the family room - AKA the pit. It's a tree that has all of my annual ornaments (at least the ones before I started the Nostalgic Houses), the ornaments that the boys and Jon get each year, and the ornaments that the boys make. If we get a real tree, this is where it goes. If we borrow one from Jon's parents (like we did in this photo), then it fills the space. (One of these years I'm going to let go of the guilt and just get over feeling that I need to have a real tree. I think it will be much simpler). Anyway - the pit tree gets colored lights. Jon does the lights and then the boys hang the ornaments. I don't even intervene with the ornament hanging process. I just turn on the music, cook dinner, and watch them all at work. The pit tree is the one where Santa leaves the goods.

So - Do you have a real tree or a fake one? Do you have more than one? Where are they and how do you decorate them?

How Do You Wrap?

Miranda asked a question about what my wrapping will look like this year (OK she didn't specifically as ME, but play along...), and I started to leave the following as a comment response. It was getting a bit verbose, so I decided to turn it into a post of my own...

My mother's wrapping made Christmas morning look like a scene right out of The Nutcracker. Her bows are BEAUTIFUL!!! She says the trick is using solid color wrapping paper, and she's right. Everything goes better when you use solid colors.

I used to try to duplicate, but then I had boy children and a hubby who grew up with presents wrapped in that green and white stiped dot matrix printer paper (his dad worked for IBM).

One year I wrapped everything in brown paper and tied it all up with rafia... That was our last Christmas in Logan, and I also madeour tree ornaments out of cinnamon sticks, dried oranges, and jute. My tree skirt was a couple of yards of burlap. It was very pretty, but Jon said he was going to take the tree to the elk refuge when we were finished. Did not go well from there.

Now each boy has his own color of wrapping paper. That way I don't have to put tags on anything. They get a gift with their stockings that tells them what their wrap is, and the chaos ensues.

Sometimes I'll fancy wrap stuff that's going to folks outside of my house. Depends how early I get it wrapped and who it's going to. There is just something about an incredibly wrapped package that makes me happy to give the gift.