This is my first blog post of 2018. The first of, what I hope, will be many. One of my resolutions was to post more frequently on here and to build a bigger following. Yesterday I bought myself a new mug for my blogging days (which are now scheduled on my calendar), and we all know the power of a new mug!
The holiday season is over now, and it’s back to regular life. I got all of the Christmas decorations put away and sent to storage earlier in the week, Rex is back to work, and today is Maddie’s last day of Christmas break before school starts again on Monday, so she has some friends coming over this afternoon to celebrate and I am trying to get back into a regular house keeping schedule again. Thankfully I was lucky enough to get a Roomba for Christmas so my vacuuming is all taken care of!
Our house is for sale so I’m also trying to get things sent to storage so the house is less cluttered. I am just itching to get moved and get started on the renos at the new house. We’re going to try to do as much as we can with as little money as we can and I will be documenting the whole process so that will be exciting and will make for easy writing, I’m sure, as it’s what I’m passionate about the most!
Life should be very different for us in the new house. We will have lots of acreage and I am hoping to get enough animals to make us self sufficient. That’s my 10 year goal. To use our land to be as self sufficient as possible. I have these grand dreams of being a homesteader so we’ll see what the reality turns out like!
Fingers crossed everything goes according to plan (I should know better than that by now!) the next Christmas will be spent at the River House. I am so excited about moving, so excited about renovating, but mostly, I am so excited about the first Christmas spent there. With any luck there will be multiple trees, many 1000 lights, and many many memories made.
My obvious love of Christmas means that I love anything holiday related. And to me, nothing says Holidays like gingerbread. I love the smell of gingerbread, I love the way the spices dance on your tongue, I love that they are so fun to decorate and personalize. But I’ve never been a big fan of the hard brittle gingerbread cookies.
You know the ones.
The ones they make gingerbread houses out of. The ones that are so hard that being left out in the open air for 30 days doesn’t affect their texture at all. The ones that I’m sure are responsible for many fractured teeth at this time of year. They still have that same spicy sweet taste, but I just can’t stand a crunchy cookie. I like my cookies soft and chewy.
So when I stumbled across this recipe for soft chewy gingerbread cookies that held their shape I was instantly in love.
We decorated a plate of cookies for Maddie’s teacher Mr. Gray! Teachers love sugar!
I followed the recipe so I won’t bore you with those details. I will however let you in on a little tip…..when you pour the molasses into your mixer, make sure it’s not running and the paddle is lifted. Voice of experience over here! I just left it running when I poured the molasses in and it got wrapped around the paddle attachment and ended up being a GIANT mess to clean up!
Also I needed to add most of an extra egg as my batter was really crumbly and didn’t hold together. I didn’t realize how crumbly it was until after it was rested in the fridge but I added the egg right before I rolled it out and they worked out just fine!
This recipe makes LOTS of cookies but they freeze really well. If you’re going to freeze them, freeze them plain, with no icing as the icing tends to crack and fall off when frozen. I just took cookies out of the freezer as we needed them, let them thaw for a couple of hours then iced them and they were good to go!
Well, I need to get my butt to the gym, I haven’t missed a workout all year I’m not about to start now 😉
I hope you all had a fabulous holiday season with your families!
I thought during this post I would lead you in a little tour around our house this Christmas. I like to change it up year to year so it’s nice to have photos to look back on and see my style evolve. This will most likely be our last Christmas in this house which makes these photos even more special. I have loved this little house but I am so excited for our future. So excited at the thought of renovating what we affectionately call “The River House”, so excited to have some land (shhhh……don’t tell my animal-hater husband but I think there will be some extra animals in our future. That’s what you get for marrying a farm-girl-vet-tech!), and so excited to expand my garden.
Despite the small size of this house I still somehow manage to cram a lot of Christmas decorations into every little corner, every little nook, every possible spot I can. The last couple of years I have leaned more towards red for all of my decorating. I think red is so festive, and looks great against the neutral backdrop of the interior of our home.
The tree
My mom has this perfect tree. All of her decorations are gold. Her lights on the tree are clear. It looks beautiful and perfect. I have dreams of having a tree like that some day. But I have a husband who likes lots of color and an 8 year old who brings home decorations from school. So for now we have an eclectic tree. I have managed to keep it to mostly silver and red with lots of homemade decorations thrown in for a personal touch. When we have more space I am hoping for multiple trees in the house, all different themes and colours.
The ambience
Pay no attention to my poor sick 8 year old in the background! The flu has been nasty this year!
I have read lots of articles recently about how bad scented candles are for you but I haven’t been able to give them up yet. I LOVE a good scented candle. Bath and Body Works is my jam and when their candles go on sale I stock up. This last 3 wick candle that I bought has only lasted me 3 days. Perks of being home! For me, scent sets the scene for everything. I have seasonal scents for the entire year, and I can’t burn a fruity candle at Christmas time, it just feels wrong. If I’m not going to be home for the day, or in and out, I will turn one or two of my Scentsy warmers on. At this time of year I am all about Simply Vanilla, Sugar Cookie, or Very Snowy Spruce. I know there are some people out there that can’t tolerate scents (my sister in law being one of them) but for me, it’s everything.
The goodies
I always try and keep some things in the house for when unexpected guests stop by (and they are ALWAYS welcome!). This year I have a hot chocolate station set up and I have some goodies in the microwave (my mom always used the microwave as a large baking storage container so I do it too, people think I’m strange but it works!) and I always try and keep some cookie dough in the freezer so I can quickly whip up a batch of cookies. Along with some cute festive mugs I think this hot chocolate area is adorable! It will definitely be a repeat next Christmas!
The tour
I’m just going to post some random photos from around our home and share with you what our holiday house looks like! Hope you enjoy!
Our hot chocolate station all set up and ready for visitors!Davids Tea’s 24 Days of Tea is by far my favorite Christmas decoration at the moment, it may not be the prettiest thing we have out but it’s the one that gives me the gift of a cup of tea every morning, so that makes it the best one!
Maddie’s advent calendar filled with Shopkins has been a huge hit this year!Even the bathroom vanity is getting in on the Christmas action! (The Santa bell doesn’t really fit in here but he didn’t have anywhere else to go, so he’s hanging here!)I made this a few years ago to hang the Christmas cards that we receive on and I love it!I always have seasonal pillows, it’s one of the easiest ways to change up the living room. That hardest part is finding somewhere to store them for the rest of the year!Last year I made these giant tags to hang on our front door instead of a traditional wreath and I love them! So fun and so unique!We even have Christmas dishes!
And you can always count on Snowflake to make a mess! She’s always around here somewhere!
I like to consider myself the Queen of Christmas. Christmas is my jam. Every year I think I couldn’t possibly get any more “into” it but every year I do. For me, it’s all consuming. But in a good way.
I used to put the tree up and decorate on the last weekend of November, then it was the week before that, then the weekend before, and this year, the tree went up November 19th. It gets earlier and earlier every year. And I’m ok with that, thankfully so is my family. Rex also loves Christmas, he doesn’t get super into the indoor decorating and rarely helps us with the tree, but the outdoor lights are where he shines (pun intended). If I didn’t know better I would swear he was part Clark Griswold when it comes to decorating the house and yard. The more lights, the more colour, the better. I’m pretty sure one of these years our house will actually be visible from space.
So as the self-appointed Queen of Christmas I thought I should share some tips for making the season easier! Most of the tips I am going to share with you are what I do, there are a few that I don’t but they are great tips anyway.
Wrapping paper:
My first tip is to give each member of your family their own colour or style of wrapping paper. We have 3 children between us; Â 2 adult children (21 and 23) and an 8 year old. The adult children both have spouses which means there are 7 of us that have presents under the tree. And 7 of us that still get a stocking to open on Christmas. I mean, seriously, I would give up the “big” presents before I would give up the stockings. It’s my favorite part. I always wrap everything that goes in the stockings. My mom always did, and I will never stop doing it. Half of the fun of Christmas is the actual unwrapping part. Which means I have a lot of wrapping to do in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and a LOT of little wrapped presents. So I make it easier on myself and give everyone their own wrapping paper. I never need to label anything and when the kids come over they have no idea who’s gifts are who’s until I hand them their stockings. I feel like it makes it more fun. I also like to try to pick wrapping paper that fits their personalities a bit. This year some of them aren’t even Christmas themed. This year we have Dr. Seuss, Minnie Mouse, Frosty the Snowman, Frozen, Unicorns, a red Ho Ho Ho one and a white with red snowflakes.
Stock Up:
Stock up during the year on basics when they go on sale. For instance, Bath and Body Works easily makes my Top 10 list for favorite stores to shop. They always have wicked deals on if you’re not looking for something specific. This last week when I was there the hand soaps were 5 for $25 or 10 for $35. Clearly I needed 10 (insert my husbands eye roll here…). They make fantastic stocking stuffers and who doesn’t love a great smelling foaming hand soap??? Good thing none of my kids read this blog or they would know they’re all getting hand soap in their stockings! You’re welcome. It’s times like this that I feel like Oprah; You get a hand soap, You get a hand soap, You get a hand soap, Everyone gets a hand soap!! Stores like this are also good for stocking up on body washes and lotions, 3 wick candles (which are my FAVORITE!), and hand sanitizers. All of which are really really good at filling stockings relatively inexpensively. Plus it’s another one of those gifts were everyone gets the same thing but they’re all different smells and they can trade if they want to! Those kind of gifts are the best ones. A few years ago we bought packages of Hot Wheels cars for everyone. I think there were 20 cars in each package and the kids spent a good hour trading cars back and forth with each other until they were satisfied with their “garage”. So fun to watch!
Sticky Situation:
Next up are my tape tips. I’m not super fussy about brand, to me, tape is tape. If it comes off the dispenser easily and sticks 2 pieces of paper together, I’m good. That being said, a few years back I stumbled across the Scotch brand Pop Up tape dispenser. O. M. G. That thing is a life changer. It has a little elastic band thing on the back so it sits on your hand and it dispenses these perfect little pieces of tape. Only problem this year is I didn’t realize I was out of refills until this morning and there is no one nearby that sells them. So Amazon to the rescue once again. But they won’t be here for a week. So I’m stuck going old school. Wrapping presents requires the full use of both hands so unless you have an elf to cut pieces of tape for you as you need them you should probably just prepare ahead and line the edge of your work surface with precut pieces. I find this the easiest way when I’m wrapping by myself (which is honestly how I prefer it. Nobody to judge my bad singing…)
My little tape army! Having a cup of coffee nearby at all times helps a lot too!
Playing Fair:
I like to make sure that all of the kids have the same number of presents to open and that they are all even when it comes to $$ spent on them. My parents did a great job of doing that when we were growing up and it’s something I feel very strongly about. We don’t love any one of our children more than another, so we always do our best to make it fair. That being said, we have such fabulous children, I don’t think any of them would even notice, let alone say anything, if something wasn’t totally even. Because I wrap so early and I have such a terrible memory, I often forget what each of the shiny little packages are so I keep a little notebook next to me when I’m wrapping and write down everything that I have wrapped for each child. It’s easy to see who I still need to pick up a thing or two for and it’s easy for me to figure out what package is what if I need to. The real trick here is keeping it somewhere that prying little eyes can’t see it, luckily only 1 of our children still lives at home so I can pretty much hide it anywhere higher than 5ft and she can’t reach it.
Budgeting:
If you’re on a tight budget (seriously though? Are there people who don’t have to watch every $?) one of the best tips I saw was to stash some money away each month through the year. $50 a month gives you $600 in December to spend on xmas presents. If you can’t be trusted not to dip into it, purchase a gift card each month and use them to buy presents (or give the gift cards). Prepaid Visa cards are accepted pretty much everywhere, even online, so it makes it a whole lot easier to buy presents when you can space it out over the year. It just requires a little forethought. This is one of the those tips that I see and I think “Wow that’s a great idea, I’m totally going to do this”. Then don’t. But seriously. This year I am going to do this.
We can’t all be Martha Stewart:
I feel like I have mentioned before how much I love Martha Stewart. Love might not be the appropriate word. Idolize seems more adequate. There is nothing that woman can’t do. Have you ever watched Martha and Snoop Doggs cooking show? It’s gold. Pure gold. I try to channel that woman every single day of my life. She inspires me to garnish every meal, find home decor in my back yard, and always keep my insider trading information to myself. But seriously. I can’t tell you how many times I have been called Martha Stewart in my 36 years on this planet. Honestly, I get called it a lot. It’s one of my favorite nicknames. But when it comes to wrapping stocking stuffers I no longer feel the need to “Martha” them up. Yep, I just used her name as a verb. I used to fret about how each little item was wrapped but I don’t anymore. Not once in the last 36 years has anyone ever commented on my wrapping skills, good or bad. So why am I stressing about it? Nobody notices if the corners aren’t folded exactly right. Nobody. Once you realize that and accept it, it feels very freeing. Like a huge weight has been lifted from your shoulders. Or is that just me taking this whole Christmas thing too seriously?
This is one of those less-Martha-Stewart-type wrap jobs and do I care? Not even a little bit!
Somehow this turned into a really long post. Sorry about that. In case you haven’t realized it yet, I love to ramble, especially when I’m talking about something near and dear to my heart. As it’s only November 28th, I’m sure I will have a whole lot more tips about Christmas for you so this will probably turn into a 2 part mini series.
Look at how cute they look when they’re wrapped and together. And I know who they all belong to! And I also know that Martha Stewart was NOT here.
Before I post I’ll leave you with some quick tips that require no explanation:
-buy Christmas cards after December 25th for the following year when they are dirt cheap. Stash them with your xmas decorations
– same with decorations. I rarely buy full price decor, I just wait till it’s on clearance and use it the following year
-keep cookie dough in the freezer, or even baked cookies usually freeze well in case of unexpected company
-be sure to be well stocked for coffees, teas, and hot cocoas during this season of visitors
-don’t throw scraps of paper away, you never know when you need a small piece to wrap a Chapstick
-remember: it’s thoughtful to wrap a toothbrush and put it in a stocking, it’s a dirtbag move to wrap a toothbrush and put it under the tree
