Holidays!

So I'm starting to get a little restless for the holidays to arrive. I am a December baby, after all, so there is just a natural joy that comes out of me the closer we get to Christmas. Holidays always delight me and tickle my fancy, at least until January 2nd when in a fit of rage I tear all the holiday decorations down, box them up, vacuum and sweep and mop and pretend like all that shit never even happened. Anyways, I'm excited this year for a lot of reasons.

Thanks to the godless pit of Pinterest, I found an easy although extremely time consuming DIY tree skirt that I am really eager to try. I just had to Google this and since I currently can't access Pinterest, that's what I found. Originally I had seen a red and white striped ruffled tree skit, but now I'm sort of going apeshit over that all white one in the first photo. WHAT SHALL I DO. First I have to buy a crappy tree skirt to cover, then I have to stand in front of fabrics for approximately 45 minutes going "But this one.. Okay, no this one. BUT WAIT."

Anyways, it's little things like this that get me, slowly but surely, 110% amped up for the holidays. I also want to make a pumpkin cheesecake to bring to my mom's for Thanksgiving (if she'll let me), and of course make my super fun holiday cookies that I can now make with my adorable daughter. Then there's the matter of how I want to decorate the house. Contemporary? Classic? I don't know! We recently painted the living room a pale, pale icy shade of blue, called Glistening Moonlight and it is sort of nudging me to do a more modern take on Christmas decorations. When I told Todd this, and that it makes me want to dump out all our current Christmas decorations, the fellow Spartan in him said HELL YES (we hate clutter and we hate storing a bunch of crap - the idea of tossing out three huge bins worth of shit excited him). But then, I love a traditional looking tree. It's warm and inviting and nostalgic.

But I have to choose something because we're doing another Christmas Eve open house this year. Last year it almost killed me because I stupidly decided to make it from 11am to 5pm and then serve a lamb dinner to our families. After everyone left at like 10:30pm I realized I was coming down with a sore throat and cold and I wanted to burn down the entire house. But THIS YEAR it's going to be shorter and I'm not cooking a single goddamn thing. Todd and I, plus a few friends, will enjoy dinner after everyone leaves, and dinner is going to be a couple of gourmet frozen lasagnas from Roma Imports, a restaurant/deli/mart that is only Tucson's most raddest Italian restaurant/deli/mart. I'll also be getting all the nibbles from there as well; antipastos, stuffed mushrooms, mini mozzarellas, roasted pepper slices, bread, etc. I'm excited because this year I will actually be sitting around and eating stuff and talking with  my loved ones instead of praying for death in the kitchen.

And then, perhaps most important of all, Alexandra will be old enough to see that something super cool is happening. We'll bake together, wrap daddy's presents together, decorate the tree, that she will just end up shredding, together, and best off all I get to spoil the stuffing out of her. I have SO many things I want to get her. We already got her a Little Tykes plastic picnic table set, but she adores it so much we have to bring it inside the house more often than just keep it outside, so I want to get her a little table and chairs set for her room. Tea parties are a new thing she loves, so little miss needs a home base to have these petite fetes. And I want to get her a little tricycle. And a bunch of Disney princess dolls. And maybe a dress up set for her so she can be Belle or Rapunzel or Aurora. And a huge wooden swingset and mini jungle gym for the backyard. And a pony. And a castle.

I'm so excited to share Christmas with my little love bug. It's going to be absolutely magical.