Christmas 2014 Recap

This year was our first Christmas in our own home as a married couple. We talked at length about how to combine our favorite holiday traditions and I really think we nailed it.

Christmas Eve we did some last minute shopping and then went to an open-house hosted by close family friends (his tradition). We then went to our church's Christmas Eve service (something my family always does, his family did when they were younger, and something we both wanted to be a tradition for our family). Then we came home and made some delicious home-made pizza (a food tradition from my side). His parents came by to eat with us and visit (a new tradition). Then we headed to our den for Christmas movie watching. Then came time for stockings. Our families both have strong Santa traditions and just because we don't have kids doesn't mean Santa won't visit our house. The trick was how to do it without seeing each other's stuff. We settled on laying out stockings on the separate sofas and just staring at the floor while you exited the room. It worked well enough and I know eventually keeping our stockings a surprise will be a lesser priority when we have kids.

The next morning our sweet puppies woke us at 7 for their normal morning needs. We got up, fed the dogs, I put a breakfast casserole (made the night before) in the oven, and we took our annual Christmas morning photo on the stairs.

We checked out our stockings, gave the dogs some of their Christmas treats, and headed upstairs. With just the two of us things move pretty quickly. We opened our gifts for each other, congratulated each other on only having 2 exchanges to make, and settled in with breakfast. For the record, my stocking had numerous kitchen utensils I wanted (for some reason I was down to ZERO rubber spatulas), a Columbia pullover, and a couple of gift cards. Coach's stocking had some food treats, a giant Mizzou freezer bag (love our soft-sided coolers in this house), and a Kindle Fire HD7 with case and stylus. Our gifts to each other were mostly clothes. Coach's big surprise was his drill set and mine was a new pair of Uggs.

Another movie and we were ready to head to Coach's parents house. It took some time during the movie to get all the gifts sorted and loaded up.

We headed out early because this year Coach was frying the turkey for Christmas lunch. So we had about an hour and a half to visit with his parents and just hang out (and eat) before the other families arrived. By noon all the kids and grandkids were in the house, we had a delicious turkey dinner, and started the present opening. After getting most of the little kids' gifts opened we took a short break (one needed to go down for a nap). Then it was round 2 for opening the adult gifts. It was a calm, relaxed day and I basked in knowing that I had married into a family that didn't run around to thousands of extended family celebrations on the holidays. I really enjoy just being with our immediate family and doing our thing on the holidays.

One thing I will need to change next year- pictures!!! Normally I'm the girl with the camera out the whole time and I dropped the ball all fall on this one. Time to get back in the swing of documenting every single moment! :)

How to Shop for Your Husband

While Your Husband's with You and You're Trying to Keep It a Secret for Pete's Sake!

So after being cooped up in the house for 2 days with a sick wife, by Black Friday Coach was ready to break free. Problem was, I had two specific things I wanted to go out and buy him for Christmas gifts. We do as many surprise gifts for each other as possible. I'm just not into the whole pick-it-out-myself-then-pretend-to-be-surprised-later gig. Originally my dad was going to take Nick out so Mom and I could hit the stores and accomplish the mission. Note that I said originally. Dad changed his mind and wasn't moving fast enough, Nick was not being left behind at the house, so all four of us head out together. Wonderful.

I cornered my dad and told him he had to get Nick pulled away some so I could get things purchased. Dad says "sure, no problem!" Well I don't know where he got the idea, but my normally best-secret-keeping-ever father was giving me like 2-minute windows of opportunity. After ditching this particular sweater on the floor 3 different times at Macy's I gave up. Time to move on.

So then of course, we're wandering around the not giant mall that's in SEMO and I'm constantly trying to figure in my head how to ditch the hubs and go back to get the sweater. It's not working. I'm at my breaking point and finally just declare to my husband "You won't get ANY presents for Christmas if you don't leave me alone to shop!" He got the picture then, though part of the surprise was still ruined in my opinion. So I manage to get back to Macy's, purchase the sweater, and only glare at the men once or twice for ruining my Christmas shenanigans.

Time for part 2. I needed to buy some tools at Sears. They had a drill set on sale for Black Friday, I had a $100 gift card from our refrigerator fiasco, it was meant to be. Coach hadn't even thought to ask for a new drill but a couple of off-hand comments by him let me know he would be delighted to get one. Here's how I planned to pull this off: The Sears parking lot is connected to TJ Maxx's lot. The men drop off the women at TJ Maxx then go off on their own to a more manly store. Like the hardware store across the street. Mom and I hike over to Sears, get the drill set, then hike back to TJ Maxx where we make a dumb purchase but ask for their biggest bag so we can hide that we went to Sears. Perfect plan right?!?

Sure, until Dad decides he wants to go to TJ Maxx too. Insert groans of frustration here. So now we're wandering around TJ Maxx buying pointless stuff because Mom and I have to act like we really wanted to go there. (And I'm being rude, I really did get some nice new Christmas decorations for our house plus Mom got me a new pair of fleece-lined leggings). We get back to the car and I finally just say, OK- I need to go to Sears. For the first time all day Dad got helpful and said he needed more jerky seasoning and how about he and Nick run up to SAM's Club to get some. Score! Mom and I hustle inside of Sears, get the drill and have the clerk triple bag it so you can just barely make out the yellow DeWalt box inside. At this point though I'm convinced Nick knows he's getting at least tools and that he'll see the darn yellow box at some point in the travel process. Not to mention that I have never once shopped for anything for myself at Sears in the entirety of our relationship so he surely knows I'm buying him tools. So I'm still not really happy about the situation but oh well.

By then I was tired, we went home, I napped again before dinner, and we ended the day at our favorite local hibachi restaurant. Love me some Shogun!!

(Just so you know, Coach claims to have been completely surprised by the drills and had no idea. He might still be bluffing but I'll take it since he was so happy to receive them).

Growing Pains

For 8 years I lived in apartments smaller than the size of my classroom (I have a large classroom). Now, courtesy of marriage to Coach, I live in a 3-bedroom, 2.5 bath home with a living room, basement family room, guest room, guest bath, mantel, the works! So now all of a sudden my 2 Rubbermaid tubs of decor is not enough.

I've slowly been aquirimg more for each season and creating a tub for each season but it's a slow process. I was dismayed to find that my Christmas decor barely decorated the tree. So I bought more, and managed to decorate the stairs. So I bought more, and managed to decorate a shelf. A. Shelf. 

So needless to say my dreams of themes and coordinating decor have gone out the window. I tried, but I don't know have enough stuff to make it come together. I'll highlight it all soon (I'm still tweaking things) but in the meantime this is my happy place. Comfy chair, cozy blanket, twinkling tree. (And Big Bang Theory on TV). 

Tis the Season!

The holidays are well upon us. Thanksgiving has come and gone and we're a mere 3 weeks away from Christmas! My oh my how time flies when you're older and planning a wedding and have friends and family and things to do!! :) It's a wonderful place to be.

So my mother was always the chic woman with enough vision and control to make sure the family presents were wrapped in coordinating paper to match the tree they were placed under. If you wrapped your presents in a non-coordinating scheme they were very sweetly and prettily stacked in a different area of the room. The "pretty" tree remained picture-perfect however (we had a "fun" tree in another part of the house that held all the kids ornaments and was where we spent the most time). It's a small tradition that's stayed with me, even during the years of no tree.

This year I do not have a tree. Coach and I are traveling a lot this season (3 of the 5 weekends before Christmas were out of town). Not to mention my apartment is too small for a tree and I really don't want to lug all my decorations to his house. Not until we've done a proper sorting and moving over of things and everything will have a place. So no tree this year. But I still have a wrapping scheme. Coach is a little over(under?)whelmed that he also has to wrap according to the scheme. This way everyone knows which gifts are from us!

This year I chose white, tan, and gold. I've got white paper with gold swirls, plain brown craft paper, and gold foil paper. Then the ribbon is either white or gold or a combo depending on the paper. I'm still debating on tags but I may do the letterpress again this year. It worked pretty well last year and added a ritzy sort of touch to things.

Here is a sort of inspiration photo. I'll provide pictures of the finished product once I actually get things wrapped :)

Painted Ornaments

I saw this on Pinterest last year and impulsively decided to try it out when Hobby Lobby had the ornaments and paint on sale at the same time. I'll update this post this weekend with more photos and detailed explanations but here's the gist.

I bought plain glass ornaments (got the wrong shape though) and drizzled craft paint inside (plain old craft paint). I did some experimentation to get as close to my desired effect as possible. Combinations of adding water and shaking it like a Polaroid picture were used. At first I was really happy with them, then they dried and I was much less happy. The paint cracked in spots when it dried and I don't like the way it looks. So I will try again and hopefully be more successful.

*Also, the gold paint dried much flatter than desired. This girl wants everything to sparkle!