53 Days

Hello and Happy Halloween! Hope you had a wonderful day and evening! :) We had a great time chasing a very excited pirate around the neighborhood. And I ate a LOT of food. I mean. Lots.

Well, it’s about that time folks. It’s now November…uhhh, well it will be when most of you read this…so I’m allowed to say the “Christmas” word. I’ve actually been talking and thinking about it for a good month now, but November 1st gives me the go ahead to hide it no longer!

I’m freeeee!!

I’m a Christmas fareeek, so bear with me. And yes, I know a little holiday called Thanksgiving comes first, but I’m thankful every day, so I don’t get as excited about that one. :)

This time of year I’m always thinking about the countdown -- I love checking out all of the advent ideas out there. Because many of us love to DIY, I thought I’d share a few of my favorites (old and new) now so you’ll have plenty of time to get crafty. (OR pull out the bank card and order one – I feel ya.)

Click the pics to see more about each one!

Pottery Barn never fails with the countdowns – this snowman advent is too cute!:

The price is not…but there’s gotta be some way to DIY this! I just can’t think of one right this second. My mind is a mush of Halloween candy. :)

This one is adorable and could be knocked off for sure:

Felt cut into stockings and glued on – love it!

This is an oldie but goodie, and SO doable. I searched for mini buckets last year to do this one and couldn’t find what I wanted (for cheap). I even asked the folks at Logan’s Roadhouse and they wouldn’t sell me some – boo!:

Anyone seen mini buckets at a good price?

I love this advent pillow at Ballard Designs:

And I know some of you crafty chicks could pull this one off! I on the other hand, am still working on the sewing a straight line thing.

I found this one at Meijer the other day:

It’s just a round metal sheet and there’s a magnetic glass piece that goes over the numbers and magnifies them. I think it was $10? Super cute!

I’m always blown away with the handmade ideas I see every year. I used cardboard boxes, paper and stickers from the craft store to make these years ago:

They have held up great! I used to fill each one with small toys or treats, but we need more itty bitty toys in this house like we need a poke in the eye.

So I loved these simple activity cards with holiday themes instead:

Sooo doing this! Along with a few treats and toys…just a few. ;)

I’ve found a few more ideas on Pinterest over the past few weeks – love these little felt envelopes!:

Oh, they are too precious!

These Christmas trees are something different, and would be SO easy (and cheap!):

Wouldn’t they be fun across a mantel, in all different sizes? They’d have to be up high in this house – little hands wouldn’t be able to resist peeking underneath. :)

This one is simple and lovely:

Just clothes pins glued to a board, decorated with a bit of ribbon. Clip the little treats up each day – too sweet! I may have to try this one.

But my favorite yet is this idea:

OH my…the cuteness!! This one WILL happen at our house. Just adorable. And it doesn’t involve treats or presents…just one-on-one crafting time with the kiddos for a few minutes a day. LOVE.

Do you have a favorite advent or Christmas countdown tradition? I’d love to hear! If you’ve blogged about about one, feel free to leave a link in your comment. And I promise not to mention the C-word again for at least 24 hours.

:)

Didn’t.

I didn’t take my comfy pants off for days till last night. (Not the same pair all that time, mind you. Eww.)

I didn’t put bows on the presents. Wrapped and done.

I didn’t even use many tags. (Just coded them by wrapping.)

We didn’t have a beautiful family picture for our Christmas cards – I ended up making a collage so all four of us would be represented.

I didn’t get out of bed before 9 a.m., ever (even on Christmas morning – our children ROCK.)

I didn’t make “real” cookies with cut outs or beautiful icing (and Santa still liked them just fine…he told me so.)

The Bub didn’t change out of his Christmas jammies for more than 24 hours, and that was just to change into new ones.

I didn’t cook anything on Christmas eve. (Pizza. Thank you.)

I didn’t take enough pictures – I was too busy being in the moment. (But I’ll probably regret it.)

I didn’t pick up the millions of itty bitty legos that have been underfoot for days. (Still haven’t. I kind of surrender.)

I didn’t make the bed once, even with tons of family here.

I didn’t take one piece of Christmas decor down. (But I’m feeling the itch.)

I didn’t mind one single bit when the whole family sat down and watched Despicable Me during Christmas dinner. I loved it – it was easy and fun and relaxed and US. (We love that movie!)

I didn’t break out into hives when the house was trashed for 36 hours straight.

And then I still didn’t clean it after 36 hours – I just left and went shopping. :)

My husband and I didn’t exchange gifts – because being debt free is going to be our gift to each other and our family. (SOON.)

 

Every year, I have all of these visions of what our holidays will be in my head -- usually there’s a soft glow around everyone, birds are singing (somewhere) and I look 15 pounds thinner…it’s a great vision. In my head. :)

And those visions pretty much never happen. It’s never perfect. I never accomplish all that want to. Every year I say, I’ll make a list of those things I want to get done and make sure to do them. And every year life gets in the way.

A whole lot of “didn’t” happens.

And every year I realize how very OK with that I am. Our holidays don’t end up our like my visions -- they always turn out so much better. So sweet. So close. So much family. So much big, fat, LOVE.

I hope your holiday was all you (didn’t) envision and so, so, so much more. :)

 

I’ll be back tomorrow with an update on my office redo!

Merry Christmas to you and yours…

Hello all! We are prepping for the big day around here, and there’s SO much to do, but I LOVE IT.

I wanted to take a minute to thank you all so very, very much for your support and love this year. I have the BEST readers out there. (I really do.)

To wrap up the holiday posts, I thought I’d do a recap in pictures. A few shots I haven’t shown you yet, and some are of my favorites from this year’s Christmas posts.

Enjoy the lights, glitter and cheer. :)

(Click pics to get to posts.)

Merry Christmas from my family to yours…

I hope you have lovely, magical holiday!

A few of my favorite things…

Hello! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! We are almost done shopping…but still not one gift wrapped. We LOVE the thrill of last minute. I guess. :)

Tis the season for FUN stuff – I don’t know about you, but I’m a total and complete sucker for anything Christmas-themed or related. If it has snowflakes, I’m hooked. Peppermint swirls, forgetaboutit. Glitter? Gah. I give up.

It’s the one time of the year I give into the stuff – because I have NO self control. And yes, I know STUFF has zero to do with the real meaning of the season, so it’s important to keep it in check.

But I love it, and it’s my blog, so I’m going to share some of my very favorites of this season with YOU. Or more specifically, I’m going to GIVE some of my favorites to one of you. :)

It’s my way of saying Merry Christmas, thank you, I don’t know what I’d do without you, paying it forward, smooches…all that.

So let’s get on to the good stuff, shall we?

If you saw my dining room post, you know I’m quite enamored with Walmart’s ornaments this year. I can’t stand it, they are so stinking cute. So I picked up a couple of the pretty trees:

Glittery goodness!

Pretty much every single night this time of year, I enjoy a big, fat mug of hot chocolate. So I got a (cute!) big, fat mug for you to enjoy some hot chocolate as well:

And while I was at it, I remember that I’m a bit obsessed with the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate from Starbucks. If you have not had it, please, I beg of you…GO NOW. Or as soon as humanly possible. Starbucks is not paying me to say this, but I wish they were.

OH my. It’s so stinkin’ good. So I got a $5 gift card so you can enjoy one and a half of your own Salted Caramel Hot Chocolates:

And then I remembered another hot chocolate I love, and that’s when I add a candy cane Hershey’s kiss to it and let it melt inside. Uhhh…YUM. I told you about these kisses here and I still love them now. And I’m not even a peppermint kind of girl really – but they are YUM:

This has turned into a hot chocolate post. Moving on…

The folks at Waverly sent me some of their beeeeautiful new holiday party-ware to try out. They have some really pretty plates, napkins and even cups, and I’m IN LOVE with all of it:

We haven’t hosted any holiday parties this year, so I’m going have hubby pry them out of my hands and so I can give them to you. Yes, I know it may be a bit late for you to use them this season too, but maybe next year? Honestly, I kind of think they could be used any time of the year – aren’t they beautiful?

And finally, my very favorite part. I know this one won’t be a big deal to some of you, but I LOVE THIS THING. I found a gift wrap storage thingamabob at True Value a couple of weeks ago:

And for all that is good…I finally found something that WORKS. For years I’ve had a few rolls in a long, thin storage bin, but it’s too short to hold most of our wrapping. Then last year I got one of those storage jobbies that stands up, but the wrapping was still too long.

I swear to you, I even considered taking my miter saw to them, to make them fit. I kid you not.

But they don’t have to be sacrificed now! This thing is the BOMB. It’s long enough, and holds a bunch of rolls. And instead of the wrapping rolling off our tower of Christmas bins every. time. I walk by – now they are all contained, and that makes me SO happy!

So I went back and got one for you too, because I can’t be the only one with this problem. Am I? Crickets.

It really is the little things. Candy cane kisses and a tall gift wrap tube, and I’m a happy Chick.  :)

Soooo, I’m giving all of these goodies away to one of you! I wish I could give something to every single one of you, I really, really do. I just hope you know how much I’ve appreciated your sweet comments, emails and support throughout this year.

To enter, leave a comment here. Tell us your favorite part/thing/food of the season. I’ll only have this giveaway open through Monday at midnight, so I can get this all mailed off to the lucky one on Tuesday.

For now, I’m off to write 75 Christmas cards:

I’m just hoping everyone gets them before Christmas. :)

Have a wonderful Monday!!

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Thank you to my sponsor!:

The Christmas stairs

So, remember that little bitty project I took on early this year? The one I wanted to tackle late last year, mostly because I couldn’t wait to see it all dressed up for Christmas?

That “little” project was taking the carpet off our stairs – and I may have mentioned it 149 times or so. :)

Our house has been decorated for Christmas for a couple weeks now, but because I had been waiting all year to see our stairs at Christmas, I saved that for the end.

But then I got a little lazy (OK, a LOT lazy), and didn’t want to unravel all of our lighted greenery I usually use. Knowing my luck this year, I’m pretty sure half the lights are going to be out anyway. That’s how I roll. (Apparently.)

So I had something else in mind, and I love how it turned out! I started with sprigs of greenery – I’m in LOVE with the beautiful greenery I’ve found at Big Lots this year and last, but they were completely out of it. Instead, I found this lovely little tree:

Isn’t it fantastic?? :) He’s just a little sad. But I loved his branches, so I just cut the pieces off and twisted a few together:

I had some small red ornaments I wanted to throw in, but I couldn’t find my floral wire anywhere (GAH), so I used some picture wire from True Value that I grabbed for another project:

And it worked great! I just cut little pieces off and strung a few ornaments on:

I nestled them in into the greenery pieces and called that part DONE.

Ever since I saw my friend Melissa’s precious mason jars, I knew I had to do something similar. I LOVE using these jars – I’ve collected quite a few at Goodwill over the years. I just needed ONE more for the stairs, and it took a few trips into the GW (we’re tight, so it’s “GW”), but I finally found it. :)

Melissa used Epsom salts, which looked absolutely lovely. I already had some faux snow, so I just used that. I had to buy one more bag, but they’re a great deal for $1.99 at Target:

A little goes a LONG way. Love that stuff – be sure to watch for it after the holidays and grab it up for half off! (You can see how I used this fluffy goodness in our dining room too.)

I just filled my jars, then plopped an LED tea light into the snow.

It’s so sweet and simple:

And you know what? I love it so much, I don’t miss the garland at all! I adore those glowing jars – and of course I only use Ball jars, as a double thump to the chest to my alma mater, Ball State U.  ;)

And yes, I couldn’t resist keeping a couple of our mice from the fall stairs up there. Stink Eye Sis gave me some major stink for keeping them up so long, but I L.O.V.E. them.

I Christmasified the mice a bit:

    

Are you kidding me? Adorable. Aren’t there Christmas mice? Or am I making that up in my head and a wild attempt to explain my Halloween mice on my Christmas stairs?

Whatever. I think they are the cauuutest!!:

I was done, but then walked by a pile of sparkly snowflake ornaments I had in a pile to go the basement.

I thought a punch of red would be fun on the picture wall, so I used mounting squares from True Value (those little jobbies are how I attach my mice to the risers too) and attached them to the backs:

I just placed them here and there in the frames on the wall:

They add the perfect sparkly pop!

And yet again, I’m so glad I ripped that carpet off the stairs:

I can’t believe the difference from last year – the night shot before the ripping of the carpet:

And now:

Wow, the new camera sure doesn’t hurt. :)

And after all that, we’re left with a really cute Charlie Brown Christmas tree:

Or something. :)

I think that’s the last of the Christmas decor around here – but I do have a couple more things I want to show you. You know…inspiration for next year.  ;)

Are you done shopping? I’m half way there…and not ONE gift is wrapped. Wish me luck.

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Thank you to my sponsor!: