Holiday ::. Just add greenery (repost)

Wow, it doesn't matter how prepared I think I am (ie... i pinned a LOT of stuff), the holidays just get away from me. I JUST ordered my Christmas cards... yes, there are 9 days left until Christmas and I just now ordered them. They're be New Years Eve cards!

I've been flying by the seat of my pants on meals too... I really need to figure out a meal plan one of these days. Anyway, I didn't want TOO long to go by without a post.. so I'm going to repost a tip from 2 years ago...

Just add Greenery! Go run by a place that sells trees - Home Depot, Lowes... actual tree lot if you are so lucky to live by one, and see if you can get some clippings/branches that they trim off of the trees they sell. They may charge you, but I usually get them for free.

So this was our mantle at our old house (yes, I'm strapped for time and am not going to be taking new pictures yet!). Pretty. Simple.

BUT, just add some live greenery and look what a difference it makes...

Here was our full mantle... there's not a lot of Christmas stuff up, but with the greenery it looks super festive. Plus, it smells awesome and then after the holidays you can burn the greenery in a fireplace or fire pit. Win-win. 

Holiday Fun ::. You've Been Snowed On

My girls had SO much fun Boo-ing our neighbors back at Halloween, so when this "You've Been Snowed On" neighbor thing from Tatertots and Jello came to my attention, I knew we had to start it on our street.

I ran to the dollar store and picked up a few things:
Red & green disco-like ball necklaces
Holiday erasers
Gummy Rudolph noses

Then I printed out the pdf from Tatertots and Jello to make it easier for the neighbors and threw in some yarn "snow balls" that I was making for my daughter's Kindergarten class, threw them in a lunch sack and we were ready to go.

The girls had an absolute ball sneaking over to our neighbors houses after it got dark and dropping off their goodies.

Christmas Book Advent Calendar

On top of our usual Advent Calendar, which by the way I had growing up and it was my FAVORITE thing to do every morning during Christmas, I have decided to add one more fun "calendar" to our holiday season. All it took was one quick walmart trip and a night of tv watching time to prepare. I had decided to do the "Christmas Book" Advent calendar that I saw all over pinterest. To make things even better... I already had 22 Christmas books (yes... crazy!), so I only had to go buy 2 new ones to make this work, thus the quick walmart trip. Score!

My favorite Advent Calendar growing up

So I wrapped all my books and then on Thanksgiving, after the big meal and naps, we set it up. I don't know about your family,  but with my 3 girls, I can foresee a nightly fight on which book gets chosen, so I decided on a different approach to figuring out which book is read on which night.

I wrote numbers 1-24 on labels and then divided the labels between each of my 3 girls. Then the girls taped their given numbers to whichever books they wanted (they obviously didn't have a number). That way each girl feels they got a say as to which book is read on which night and I avoided the nightly fight! Score 1 for mom!

Putting day numbers on the books

 By the way, Mr. Elf Elf (until the girls decide on a better name than last years decision), arrived this morning showing the girls which book was first on the list.

Decorating the Tree

I know I've written on Christmas tree decorating before, but I just love doing it. Granted, it took me a little longer in the season to complete the decorating of our tree... but still... we are done (finally!)

I love decorating primarily because of the ornaments; they bring back memories of people, places, events, and more and countless times during the decorating process a smile is brought to my face simply from an ornament.

Our first Christmas | First Christmas Church

        Our year with Disney passes | My grandma's handpainted ornaments

Our trip to the Keys | Clemson Tigers, of course!

Baby's 1st Christmas | Our Canada Babymoon     

In our new house I am finally able to put our tree in front of a front facing window so that it can be seen from the outdoors (like ours was growing up!). I do have a bit of advice for other "front facing window tree putter-uppers"... if your tree is seen from the road, actually decorate the back of your tree.
Case in point, the girls and I were on a walk the other day to see the lights and we came across one such example: The lights on the tree were on, they just didn't go all the way around the tree so that I could see them. Such a waste of a "front facing window" tree location.

You might be a Christmas fan if...

As I was taking out my Christmas decorations the other day (in all 12 bins, plus some non-binned stuff) I re-realized what I've known for ever. I'm a HUGE Christmas fan.

First of all, I have like 12 bins of Christmas decorations, clothes, etc, not counting stuff that doesn't fit into bins and some wreaths. I LOVE the Christmas holiday.

There are many ways that show how much of a Christmas fan I am, but one of the first things that stuck out was when I was in my kitchen switching out some of my everyday stuff for Christmas stuff.

So to finish my post title Jeff Foxworthy style...

You might be a Christmas fan if... You have more Christmas mugs than everyday mugs.

17 Christmas mugs > 9 non-Christmas mugs

Fun new Christmas (or NYE) tradition!

So my brother surprised the family with the following as a fun new Christmas tradition this year... but I think it would be a great NYE tradition as well!



src

On Christmas eve after dinner, he brought out a box of Floating Sky Lanterns and half a dozen permanent markers and presented each couple with their own lantern (the kids all shared one as well). We were given the instruction to write down our wishes/hopes/goals for the upcoming year on them.



Uncle Andy helping the girls with their list

 The kids list included a trip to Disney, the beach, visiting cousins, Busch Gardens, and other fun excursions. The couples' lists had some more "grown up" hopes and dreams on them. The first item on our list was a NEW HOUSE! PS... we have had an offer on this one house for A WHOLE YEAR. Granted we have looked at other houses in the meanwhile, this house seems to have come full circle so we are hoping with everything we have that this house goes through... and soon! Hubby wanted some more solid expansion plans for his business, and I just wanted to have more date nights and family date events.

Once all the lists were completed, we headed down to the dock to light them off.

How it works is you swing the lantern around (carefully) to get a little bit of air in it and then you light the wick at the bottom and wait until it inflates.

Once you begin to feel the lantern "pull" then you are ready to let it fly and you just let go.

It was a really neat and fun family thing to do!

Waiting on baby... and crossing off some Christmas to-dos

Here we are... on the last day of my due date range (Dec 6-8)... and NO baby! It's so funny how babies come on their own terms. My 1st was 1 days early and my 2nd was 4 days early. C'mon rugrat, lets go... I've got Christmas to recover for!

Although, my original due date was the 12th... so I think my doc just goofed in updating my due date.

WHILE we've been waiting, we've been running around running errands and knocking some items off of our Christmas To-Do list. We have:

Mailed Christmas letters to Santa at Macy's

Gotten all festive and taken pictures with Santa (and around the yard)

And Decorated some cookies (I have to admit, I am such a perfectionist when it comes to my Christmas cookies I have a hard time letting the girls help... this way they can get as creative [Read: messy] as they want!)

One of these days #3 will make her appearance!

Decorating? Just add greenery!

Ok, as I am STILL waiting for baby to arrive (ok, ok, I'm not even at my due date yet but both other girls were early, so I'm impatient!), I am finishing up some decorating and I wanted to share another small tip!

This year is different; we are in limbo with moving (although we got an update yesterday) so a lot of our stuff is in boxes from when we thought we were FOR SURE moving, so I don't have my usual stuff out. So I was a little worried that my mantle wouldn't look right for Christmas.

Also, we took down our HUGE wall unit where I put my Christmas village and various other Christmas decor is no longer available. AND since we didn't take all of our Christmas decorations down from the attic I am missing some of my prized decorations, bleh. 

That said, here is our mantle (PS, this is the picture from the "Stocking Hanging tip" post). I have a mixture of red and gold glass balls in a globe vase, some red candles, and shiny gold reindeer.

Not too shabby. Actually, somewhat festive.

BUT, just add some live greenery and look what a difference it makes...

 

Here is our full mantle, I don't have a lot of Christmas stuff up, but with the greenery it looks super festive. Plus, it smells awesome and then after the holidays we get to burn the trimmings in the fire place. Win-win. 

 

 

I used the trimmings from our live tree, but you can either go buy some trimmings from places that sell trees OR run by lowes and go through the dumpster by their trees (I did that last year to get some extra trimmings).

Linking up: Our Delightful Home , Sarahndipities, Keeping it Simple

Stocking Hanging Tip

So as I am starting to decorate for Christmas... and as I wait for our little one to arrive (T- 6 days.... Any. Day. Now), I decided to share a little tip I use for hanging my stockings.

Here we are, a few of our stockings are hung up straight from storage...

In my opinion, they look wrinkled, flat, and well... really empty (minus the far left, it's already "fixed")! I know, I know, Santa doesn't fill the stockings until Christmas, BUT I think these stockings hang kind of blah.

So, what I do to fix this is to simply stuff some crumpled news paper or tissue paper in the stocking to make it look full...

See, much better, fuller, and not less wrinkled...

Voila! I simple, easy fix for flat, blah, pre-stuffed stockings.

Linking up: CRAFT , Our Delightful Home , Sarahndipities , Keeping it Simple
 

{party appetizer} Sausage Caprese Skewers

I LOVE LOVE these skewers for parties! They are SUPER easy and I have been making them for a while.

SAUSAGE (optional) Caprese Skewers

INGREDIENTS
Skewers
Cherry tomatoes
mozzarella balls  (in water)
Summer sausage (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Skewer cherry tomatoes, mozzarella balls, and the optional sausage in whatever order suits you.
Can be made the day before.
Drizzle with balsamic dressing (I actually ran out of balsamic dressing so I also used some balsamic vinegar too) just before serving.

---

This is how I served them my first year:
I cut the tomato in half, skewered half, then the mozzarella ball, then the other half of the tomato.

The next year I added the summer sausage (yum!)

Theese even work perfectly for a LUAU!

Enjoy!!

Linking up: Blue Cricket Design, Someday Crafts, Vintage Gwen, 
Bacon Time,

Faith Trust and Pixie Dust,
Ladybird Ln,
Tatertots and Jello, Lamb Around, Lolly Jane Boutique,
Nifty Thrifty THings, CRAFT, 
Marvelously Messy
Making the World Cuter
Keeping it Simple,
Creating my way to success
Sarahndipities 
Shwin and Shwin,
Elizabeth and Co, Homework, Not Just a Housewife, Chef in Training, A Bowl full of Lemons

{Party tip} Don't let guests hit their head on that light fixture

I don't know if you are like me or not, but when I have a party, I tend to move my furniture all around in order to give people as much room as possible to hang out. Primarily, we move our kitchen table to the wall between our two sets of french doors and we put all the food on it. This is all fine and dandy except we have a light fixture hanging above our table, and when the table is gone (and drinks are involved) people tend to whack their heads.

Case in point: Our 2nd Annual Cocktail Party.
Table is moved so there is space, BUT no one can stand there anyway because the light fixture is too low. Bad form!

2nd Annual Cocktail Party
Circa 2007

What you really want to should do is just temporarily raise the light fixture, right?


Well all you need is an "s-hook" found everywhere really for a dollar maybe; walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, heck... the grocery store probably carries them too.

S Hook

What you do is stand on a ladder (or sturdy chair if you don't feel like dragging one in from the garage) and attached one side of the hook to the loop right above the light fixture.

 Next, hook the other side of the S-hook to the top loop (or however high you want to go to get the fixture out of the way). Use your other hand to help lift the light fixture up in case, while you are struggling to lift the fixture up, it slips off. No, I'm not speaking from experience, but it could happen.

 And Voila! Your light fixture is out of the way.

See, even my tall friends were safe from whacking their heads!

Hope this tip helps you (and your party-goers)!

Linking up: Twin Dragonfly Designs, Blue Cricket Design, Sew Much Ado,
Rae Gun Ramblings, Handyman Crafty Woman, Vintage Gwen, Someday Crafts, Turtles Life for Me,  Momnivores Dilema, Gluesticks, It's a Keeper, Between U & Me, The Crafty Blog Stalker,  Crafty Mom Share , CRAFT, LadyBird Ln, Bacon time, Delicate Construction, Naptime crafters, Fingerprints on the Fridge

Featured: