Snow Day

I get as excited now about snow days as I when I was a kid.  (And thanks to my mom, I even have the appropriate attire for them, as seen above.)  Nearly everything in the city was shut down today, (including canceling final exams at UW!), and the news showed the roads as virtually empty, yet treacherous.  

I took advantage of the day to start work on some wedding centerpieces for Tyson's cousin, whose wedding takes place a week from Saturday.  Most of the work will need to be done the day before, but I was able to create some cute heart tags.  I also had time to clean out the refrigerator, start packing for going home on Saturday, and catch up on some Top Chef.

I tried to take some pictures through our window, but it was hard with all of the glaring whiteness.  It was a little easier as it got darker.  The Christmas lights on our deck look pretty, buried under all of the snow.

It was kind of nice to have an extra day to hunker down, especially since I was able to get a few things done before leaving Saturday for our Christmas travels.  And to sleep in a bit and relax.  And to be able to make a chocolate mug cake for hubby and I to share.  Unfortunately, having this extra day is going to make it even more difficult to venture out into this winter-y wonderland tomorrow...

A (Couple) of my Favorite Things

I took a couple of evenings this week to do some of my favorite Christmas activities-sending out Christmas cards and wrapping presents.  This year I used a Living Social deal for my Christmas cards.  They came shipped so cute in an adorable little box, and a note saying that they enclosed two extra cards and envelopes, in case I was still adding to my Christmas card list, which I thought was a nice touch.  I also like that you can personalize the back of the card, as well as the front, and manipulate the colors, font, and text.  The address stickers I love, which were leftover from last year, and I used them to seal the back of the envelope.

Christmas presents consist of kraft paper tied with different types of red and green ribbon.  The kraft paper gives everything a uniform look, and the ribbon makes it festive.  I also bought gold washi tape, which glams it up a bit. It doesn't stick as nice to the kraft paper as I'd like (I actually had to secure the folds with clear gift-wrapping tape first), but I still enjoy the overall effect.  Most wrapping paper, especially at Christmas time, is too garish and busy for my taste, and I'm happy with the simplicity of this year's gifts.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

Since yesterday was December 1st, that meant I could officially break out Christmas decorations and music.  It also meant that hubby thought it would be a GREAT idea to wake me up yesterday morning by blaring Christmas music in my ear.  This did not start my day off in a jolly way.  However, by evening, I was so freaking festive it was ridiculous.

Mugs filled with hot drinks are essential for setting the appropriate Christmas decorating mood (hot chocolate + marshmallows for Tyson, coffee with real cream for me).

Tyson doesn't look like he's having that much fun but I think he secretly is.  How could you not be with that glowing ball of light behind you?  He's my designated Open-and/or-Unwrap-All-the-Ornaments-and-Put-a-Hook-on-Them-and-Then-Put-Everything-Back-in-the-Container-Just-Like-You-Found-It Boy.  Everyone needs one of those at Christmas decorating time.

You can't tell from the picture, but I am wearing a top absolutely blinged out in sequins.  Clearly festive.

I come down hard on the side of fake in the real vs. fake Christmas tree debate.  I know that people who prefer real trees go crazy on the experience of going to pick one out and they smell so good and yadda, yadda, yadda, but I just don't think you can beat a fake tree.  One that looks like it has just a dusting of sparkling snow on it.  And that has lights already on it, saving you at least an hour of tinkering-with-the-lights time.  And it doesn't need it's water levels maintained since there isn't any.  Honestly, there's enough to think about at this time of year instead of worrying about watering a tree indoors.  How silly.  I love our tree.

I also loved our Thanksgiving sign so much that I couldn't resist making another one today.  The shelf looked so lonely without one, but now it is festive and happy again.  Merry, even.

Post-Thanksgiving

Wedding china and silverware have been inaugurated.  Thanksgiving dinner has been eaten, and then eaten again, and then broken down into leftovers, which have also been eaten.  Family has been here and gone.  China and a few decorations await being put away, to make room for new.  

It's crazy how much thought and planning go into these single days, and then suddenly they are over.  I almost like the planning and the thinking and the dreaming part more than the actual holidays themselves.  Now looking towards Christmas, it's not even the day itself that I'm really excited for, at least not yet.  I'm excited for the wrapping, and the envelope addressing, and the tree put-upping, and the Christmas music listening, and the peppermint mocha drinking.  But not yet.  December 1st is the date for beginning my own personal Christmas season, but not before.  (Ok, I may indulge in a peppermint mocha or two in the meantime...)  I don't see the need to rush out and decorate in red and green and Nativities and candy-cane stripes and start listening to the fa-la-la-ing right away the day after Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving deserves it's own time and space, and I like the idea of taking a break between the two, even if it's just for a week.  There's too much pressure otherwise.  I like to step back and take a breath and do some of this dreaming and planning in my head, without having to actually dive into it all right away.  

Today I took a break to do some cooking and baking, not because it was necessary, but just because I wanted to.  Breakfast was pumpkin pancakes and sausages.  I accidentally thinned the batter out by adding too much milk, but I really enjoyed the end result.  The pancakes were almost crepe-like, thin and light without being too bulky.  

Then I moved on to cranberry crumble bars and banana bread (not shown).  I used homemade cranberry sauce from Thursday to form the middle layer of these bars...I'm not a big fan of cranberries on their own, but in these bars, they are delicious.  I look forward to eating them for breakfast all week.  And for dessert.  And maybe for a snack in-between.  Ok, so maybe they won't last all week.  I impulsively sprinkled some nutmeg and cinnamon on top before baking, which gave them some nice color and a smidgen of extra flavor.

Here's to one last week of the Thankgiving "season", before diving into the next one.

Thanksgiving Readiness

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love that it's a celebration of fall, and food, and family, and there are no presents to worry about (except my brother-in-law's birthday gift, but that's okay), and the food, and the fall, and the leaves, and the colors, and the food...and it's awesome.

Tyson and I are hosting Thanksgiving this year with his family, so I've been menu planning, decorating, china washing (okay, drying, Hubby did the washing), and grocery shopping.  It's been fantastic.  

Our wedding china and silverware is all ready and waiting, prepped for it's inaugural use.  It's also currently taking up the majority of space on our dining table...waiting for me to get up the energy to find a proper spot in our kitchen cabinets.

The designer in me had to take a trial-run of the place settings the other night.  Clearly, the $4.99 roll of burlap that was an impulse-buy from Michael's has come to good use.

The napkin rolls have sparkly letters with each person's initials on them, too (kind of hard to see in this image).  The final napkins have a leaf attached to them, and you can see the initial better.  I live for this kind of stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving sign.  Hello again, sparkly letters and string.  Yes, the sparkles were an impulse-buy, too.  

I made this simple leaf garden with a perfect template from here.  I simply cut out the leaves from the template, and outlined them with metallic markers.  These are also the leaves that will be added to the rolled napkins. It's hard to tell from the image, but I printed the leaves and the Thanksgiving banner on sparkly paper left over from our wedding invitations and stationary, which looks makes them a little more elegant.

I love how everything looks.  The best part is that it looks like I tried really hard to get everything to coordinate, when really I was just working with a really small budget.  Meager budgets = more streamlined design.  It's like impossible to go overboard when you're trying to spend $15.00 or less.