Happy Holidays!

From our family to yours.

And no, Max is not that gigantic.  He’s only 12 pounds!  He is just not very photogenic.

Don’t you judge him.

I am happy today, because of this.

Credit: AP

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A Holiday Wrapping Tip

Don’t know what to do with all those Christmas Cards every year? Reuse them as present tags!

For example, here is a lovely card I received.

And here is how I destroyed it and turned it into a present tag.

I think the card sender would understand, right?

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Christmas Movies

Do you want to guess how many Christmas movies I’ve already watched this year?

Well, it’s December 18th, 7 days until Christmas. And I’ve already watched 10 Christmas movies. And I still have at least 2 left on my viewing list. Movies I’ve watched (and loved) so far include:

“If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that love actually is all around.”

“Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to. Don’t you see? It’s not just Kris that’s on trial, it’s everything he stands for. It’s kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles.”

“God bless us, everyone!”

“We’ll follow the old man wherever he wants to go!”

“Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s leaving. Nobody’s walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We’re all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on, and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he’s gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.”

“For years Aunt Clara had labored under the delusion that not only was I perpetually 2 years old, but also, a girl.”

“You see George, you’ve really had a wonderful life. Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away?”

“Santa!”

“Peter always asked me when I fell in love with Jack. I told him it was while you were sleeping.”

“It just needed a little love”

Do you have any favorites that I left off the list?

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In the Christmas Mood

I put up all of our Christmas decorations inside a couple of weeks ago, while Matt decorated the outside.

This picture was taken before the snow came along, so it is pretty outdated.  We currently have about a foot of snow sitting in our front yard.  Also, I know this picture is dark, but eh.  I’m not exactly a photography expert.

We already had most of the lights, the garland, and the wreath in our possession. So the total cost for outdoor decorating was about $10. It’s very simple, but we think it fits the house pretty well.

Some of our neighbors really go all out. One neighbor a few houses down has approximately 20 of those blow up lawn ornament things, and some of them actually play music. It’s outrageous. If I didn’t think she would pull out a gun and shoot at me, I would probably go take a picture. This is the same lady that yelled at us for allowing our dog to pee on her grass while on a walk.

Another neighbor has probably the strangest decoration I’ve ever seen. He put a mannequin on a ladder, and it looks like he is hanging a strand of lights above the garage. I mean, what is the point of that? It just looks creepy.

For the inside decorating, we are mostly using hand-me-downs. The only decoration I have purchased since Matt and I have been together is some ornaments, which I put in bowls and vases around the house for decoration. Our tree is very traditional. We started out with a real tree, but have since switched to fake. I burn pine-scented candles, okay? Get over it.

Our parents gave us our old “name” ornaments, and you can bet they all hang on our tree now.

My first ornament:

And Matt’s:

Funny side-note: I spent all this time taking pictures of my ornament and another ornament that said “1980”, thinking that was Matt’s first ornament. I showed him the picture and he says, “But I was born in 1981. HA. Fail. I don’t even know why I have a 1980 ornament. We weren’t even born yet.

Anyway, for those of you who believe in fate, let me tell you this cute little story.

Matt and I discovered that we both have the exact same ornament, and they were given to us in the exact same year. Approximately 3 years before we even met!


It’s a Christmas Miracle!

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Christmas Came Early

The day after Thanksgiving, Matt and I went out and bought one of these bad boys.

I called it his early Christmas present.

Last year, our area got about 53 inches of snow.  The year before that?  79 inches.  And the average is only 38 inches.  The bottom line is, it snows a lot here.  And yes, we have a relatively short driveway, but we also live on a corner.  So that doubles the amount of sidewalk we have to shovel.  I took this picture one day last year because it snowed about 13 inches and my firm actually closed the office.  It took us almost the entire day to shovel.

I think this year will be so much easier. For Matt.

I braved the lawnmower, but I will not even consider touching the snowblower.

But you didn’t think I would be outdone, did you? I mean, Matt gets an awesome present like a snowblower, so I get something too, right?

Yesterday, I brought this home.

His name is Max. And he is my Christmas present.

And we are all very happy now.

Even Alfie.

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DIY Ornament Wreath

My front door is officially decorated for Christmas, and it looks kind of awesome.

This project was super easy.  Here is the lowdown.

First, buy some cheap ornaments, of all sizes (make sure you get some little ones to fill in the spaces), in your preferred colors.  I bought about 80 ornaments for a total of $21.50 at the Dollar General. 

Next, get yourself a hot glue gun and glue on the tops of the ornaments.  This is time consuming, but it’s an important step because those suckers will pop right off the second you string them onto the wreath.  Luckily for me, the tops of my small ornaments were welded together so no gluing required.  The larger ornaments did require glue.

Next, grab a wire hanger.  I actually used a white wire hanger because I figured it would be easier to bend.  Untwist the the top and reshape the hanger so it forms a big circle.  String the ornaments onto the hanger.  Just start bunching them up, big and small, until they start filling in the holes.

(One thing to note – I wish I would have given this a better “decorating eye” while I was stringing the ornaments on.  Once it was complete, I noticed that some of the larger ornaments aren’t spaced very well and it kind of ruins the whole circle shape.)

This is the hard part.  Very gently bring the ends of the hanger back together, and re-twist the top.  If you strung on too many ornaments, some of them might crack together.

Now, just tie or glue on a bow, and your masterpiece is complete!  You can either hang the hanger right onto your door hook, or use another ribbon to hang it.  I used a ribbon because it needed to hang down a little lower to flatten out.

I adapted (aka stole) this idea from Eddie Ross.

So, who else is going to try this out?

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