Merry Christmas to you!

 

(What's that I see in that photo??  A lovely vintage dress and a tiny peek at the belt Santa brought me this Christmas?)

 I got exactly what I had been hoping for this year!  Do you know what this is?

It's my little Zumi 2.0 that my dear husband got for me.  So you can all expect to see some delightful vintage-looking videos soon!  I really wanted this little baby so that I can have a few videos of Dillon and I before we have any kids, before we are too settled, while we go out and about and do fun spontaneous things.  Wouldn't it be amazing to see video of your parents when they had just gotten married?  It's my goal, at least.    Now it's just learning to edit videos into amazing little movies like this lady.  Did you get just what you were hoping for?

Enjoy your last bits of holiday spirit!  And then wish me luck as I send in my graduate school application today! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We had a great time up north with my family, and then down south with Dillon's family. 

It's beginning to look...

 Well Christmas is almost here.  I've got a few pictures to share of some very adventurous cookie production.  I would have had some pictures of the fudge-making, but we were all too busy laughing, stirring, reducing the recipe by 1/2, and messing it up. 

My sister took most of these lovely shots of the process.

 

 

   

 

 So there it was.  Epic cookie making.

On a side note, my husband is immune to gift-opening temptations.  Yesterday, I wanted him to open one of the gifts I got for him, and he refused.  I was shaking it in front of him, wiggling his gift in front of his face, and he didn't budge.  That man must have had some serious RULES while growing up.  Here's a picture of it.

The man is pure self-control. 

Have you been tempted by any gifts sitting under your tree yet?

It's beginning to look...

 

Oh hello, Bing.  

 Meet Sufjan.

 What a great way to spend some time wrapping gifts:  listening to Bing or Sufjan's Christmas album.  I found the vinyl this summer at the salvation army, and hadn't even opened it until today. Honestly, I forgot about it a little bit.  Well I plugged him in today and think that this is the best shape I've ever found a vinyl album at a secondhand store.  It sounds great-- no scratches, no skipping.  Terrific. 

Doesn't it look festive with these gifts?  You all may think this is boring with the white paper, but I only use paper that I already have or have saved from Christmases past.  Also, I love how similar they all look.  And I hate using boxes; I much prefer to make squashy packages tied with string to make them look even squashier.  Only a few more gifts to finish and wrap!  Are you finished?

More It's beginning to look a lot like...

I wanted to make some snowflakes to hang on our wall, so I bought a huge piece of blue paper (since white wouldn't show up very well on our boring apartment walls) and cut some perfect squares.  A tip: if you do this, find very thin blue paper or very sharp scissors or else your fingers will be mad at you. 

Then, I taped them together in a bannerish manner, and my lovely tall husband helped me hang it up above our patio door.  Thanks hubby!  I like them---and got some of the best snowflakes I've ever made out of the deal!  You can find websites to help you with your creativity if you get stumped.  Fifteen snowflakes that I would have "designed" myself would probably all have come out the same.  Oh I love how Christmassy our apartment looks right now!

It's beginning to look...

I don't think I'm going to eat dinner tonight.  Instead, the whole pan of these little guys will work.  Pretzel and rolo in the oven for 2 minutes, then press a pecan on there.  Yum.  Like I said, I'm having them for dinner.  Thanks for the idea, Rachel!

It's beginning to look...

The Story of Our First Christmas Tree (in pictures...and some words, too)

It was a snowy Friday night and Saturday morning.  Despite the inches of white stuff, we were (I was) set on picking up our Christmas tree on Saturday.  Off to the tree farm we went...

 Where we found this little beauty.  We took the easy road and got a pre-cut tree.  Neener neener to all of you who were laying down in the snow with your saws.

 The tree farm guys took care of our free shaking, and we loaded her into our Buick.  We both wish we had a truck sometimes...

 And then brought her into our house.  Naturally this is Dillon trimming off some branches in our kitchen. 

 Next up, Dillon ate some pistachios among the mess.

 And we decorated.  This is my favorite antique ornament because of the mushroom.  What could be less Christmas-themed for an ornament?

You will see the final product someday.  Not yet though.  First I need to make a tree skirt to cover up the shower curtain we have underneath our tree.  It certainly makes it feel more Christmas-y in here.  That, and the constant Sufjan Steven's Christmas album that has been playing nonstop. 

Have you gotten your tree yet?

It's beginning to look... day 2

I crafted this little banner the other day, mostly because I had a 50% off coupon for a Martha product from Michaels and decided to get a pack of holiday(ish) paper.  I used a lid to make perfect circles.  Then, print off letters in a pretty font and cut them out to make stencils.  Use the stencil on the Martha paper, glue them together, add a little string, and VOILA!  the perfect Merry Christmas banner. 



Ok. It looks a little small in the picture against our boring white walls.  I think I need to find a way to hang up and display our Christmas cards somewhere on this wall.  Don't you think?


p.s DANG IT I just saw that I forgot the apostrophe in "it's" as well in my pretty picture.  Fail.

Its beginning to look a lot like...

 

Happy December!

I've decided to try my hand at posting as many Christmas themed posts as possible this month.  It should (in theory) be very possible as this is the first Christmas spent as a married couple, in our new home.  Lots to do and decorate and bake and make special.  

For this first edition of  "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas", Santa stopped by our house.  It was a special moment.  I had just put our homemade stockings up, using our fabulous new monogrammed mugs as weights, when the big guy popped over to leave something for Dillon.  He fumbled around for a few minutes, but finally managed to get the package to stay in that stocking.  With the help of some paperclips.  

 

What was it?  Naturally, it was a giant lottery ticket with scratch off things for each day in December.  Like an Advent calendar.  Except not nearly as Christianity-themed. 

P.S. YES, I KNOW "BEGINNING" IS SPELLED WRONG IN MY PICTURE.  Yes, I am a college graduate.  But I am not going to fix it because it way too darn long to figure out how to get that picture on here and I'm also going to go ahead and claim that the fumes from the heavy cleaning I did this morning were getting to me.  So just ignore it.  That's what I'm going to do.