We Had a Very Laid-Back Christmas

Christmas this year was very laid back, which was nice.  We left on Saturday to go to my sister’s (Gabby) and her girlfriend (Amy) house.  It was mostly just the four of us.  Amy’s brother, Jason, came over on Christmas Day.  It was the first time we met him, and he was very nice.  He’s a pet person, too. 

We left a little later than we originally planned to on Saturday morning.  Our friends Cathey and John have been dealing with a lot.  He has Alzheimer’s and recently went into a care facility.  Unfortunately, he was in the hospital with COVID and pneumonia over Christmas.  Cathey was exposed, so was in quarantine.  We stopped to get Cathey some flowers and a little grocery store care package (orange juice, Christmas cupcakes, hot chocolate mix, tea, and some canned soup) and dropped it all off on her porch.  The good news is that John recovered well from COVID and pneumonia, and Cathey didn’t get sick.

Despite leaving a little later than we planned, traffic on the way to Gabby and Amy’s wasn’t bad.  We took a different route this year due to road construction, and it was a good choice. 

Gabby likes to cook as much as I do, so we had tons of food.  She made a chocolate and strawberry cake for Nick’s birthday on Christmas Eve.  She also made cookies, several different kinds of soup, pistachio cake, and cheese grits.  We ate well!  I forgot to take any food pictures, though. 

We got to pet six of their eight cats.  Their cat Severus slept with us two of the three nights we were there.  Doesn’t he look like such a distinguished gentleman in this picture? 

Severus is a relatively calm cat, so they’re able to put hats on them.  I think he’s adorable in his hat.

Here’s a picture of Binx enjoying the couch I crocheted.

This is Kreacher.  He’s normally a little stand-offish with us, but we both got to pet him quite a bit on this trip.

The four of us agreed early this year that we wouldn’t do birthday or Christmas presents for each other this year.  We’ve all been dealing with pets having a lot of health issues, which has been expensive and stressful.  So, we decided it would be much easier if we all skipped presents for each other this year.  It definitely helped with the laid-back vibe. We did watch Arthur Christmas as usual.  It’s just such a happy movie. 

Nick and I were talking about it on the drive there.  We both like that some years there are so many presents, some years we skip them entirely, and some years are somewhere in between.  I’m not sure that any of those would be great every year, but I like that we get to do them all, depending on the year.  I guess that’s one good thing about growing up not celebrating any holidays; I’m not locked into a lot of traditions.

Speaking of traditions, though, I did get to fulfill a life-long wish.  I loved Barbies when I was a kid.  They were my absolute favorite toys, and I especially loved the ones in the fancy ballgowns.  I always wanted the holiday Barbies but was never allowed to have them since they were for the holidays.  I didn’t know the ornaments existed, but I absolutely loved the gowns the holiday Barbies had and was always disappointed that I couldn’t have one.  I kind of forgot about the holiday Barbies by the time I grew up and started celebrating Christmas. 

Amy was never into Barbies, but her great-aunt gave her a holiday Barbie ornament every year until she passed away in the early 2000s.  The ornaments are special to Amy because they came from her great-aunt.  This is also Amy’s busy time of year at work, so she never got around to putting the Barbie ornaments up.  They had a little tree in the living room that was going to be the Barbie tree.

The Barbie ornaments still weren’t up by Christmas Eve, but Amy knew that Jason would be happy to see them when he came over on Christmas.  So Gabby and Amy decided that I could be in charge of the Barbie tree.  I had so much fun!  As Gabby put it, I was in the corner with the little Christmas tree, living my best life with lots of Barbie ornaments.  I kind of feel like I did get a Christmas present.

Isn’t the Barbie tree cute? 

Here are a few of the ones I really liked.

I ordered the 2023 Holiday Barbie ornament that night.  I’m planning to get the Barbie ornament every year now.

Our wonderful neighbors took care of the cats for us while we were gone.  It’s so nice that they take care of them because they don’t just feed them and give them their medicine.  They spend time petting them and playing with them, and they always send us pictures. 

Caroline

Charlie

Frankie

How was your Christmas?  Were there lots of activities, or was this a more laid-back year for you? 

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

I’ve loved that so many bloggers have been sharing their Christmas and holiday trees and decorations this week, so I thought I would join in.

Let’s start outside and work our way in.

First up is our inflatable sloth in a Christmas sweater.  Nick loves sloths, so we’ve added some sloths to our Christmas decorations.  This one is named Stuart.  Apparently, not everyone immediately recognizes Stuart as a sloth.  When I posted his picture on Facebook, my aunt messaged me asking if we really had a drunk raccoon inflatable.  No drunk raccoons here.

I know inflatables can be somewhat polarizing; people seem to love them or hate them, with no middle ground.  I love them.  I think they’re fun and cheery. 

Next up is the Christmas flag.

Then, the wreaths, matching wreaths on the front door and carport door.

Inside the house, we have the Christmas tree with lots of ornaments. 

The house we were renting when we bought the tree had a huge living room, so it’s a little big for our much smaller living room here.  I really don’t care.  It’s the only Christmas tree I’ve ever had, and I love it.

Nick loves sloths, so we added a sloth ornament this year.

We bought this ornament at an antique store when we were first looking for a house.

I’m a huge Friends fan, so we have some Friends ornaments. 

I put off buying a dumpster fire ornament until this year, but after a few dumpster fire years, I gave in and bought one.  It’s not year-specific, so it will work for any dumpster fire year.

Nick’s mom, Susan, gave me this book lover’s ornament last year.  I love it.

This one is self-explanatory.

Since we met on E-harmony, I was happy when I found this.

Nick gave me this butterfly ornament our first Christmas together.  It was also my first Christmas ornament.  It’s one of my favorites.

I love this cute little gingerbread house ornament.

Our friend Martha gave us this ornament the first Christmas after we were married. 

Our friend Alex gave us this one.  I call it the Thanksgiving ornament, so you know I like it.

The tree skirt has sloths.

Before we move on from the tree, 2023 isn’t the year Caroline stops climbing the Christmas tree.  

It’s a good thing she’s cute!

Moving on from the tree, we have a Winter Solstice candle this year.

And a Yule log candle holder.

One more winter candle holder.

I think this pink gingerbread house is adorable.  (The shelf isn’t dusty; I promise it’s glitter!)

I found this little winter house on Etsy and thought it was so cute.

Finally, we have the Christmas decoration my old coworker EJ gave me for Secret Santa several years ago.  The skiers move down the slope.  It was a great Secret Santa present.

I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a joy-filled time in whatever your chosen celebrations are.  

Throw Back Thursday - Frankie’s First Christmas

There’s just something about kittens and Christmas trees.  They don’t seem to be able to resist them. 

We got Frankie the weekend before Thanksgiving in 2009.  We put our Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving weekend, so he was fairly certain it was a special toy for him.

Fortunately, he was a tiny little guy at the time, and didn’t damage the tree. 

Do you have any kittens climbing your Christmas tree? 

My Husband Traded Me for a Christmas Tree

No, I’m not married to some brute from the Dark Ages who views women as property to be traded.  My husband, Nick, is a really, really nice guy; he just happens to be fond of very small cars and is not your typical guy when it comes to keeping the car clean.  He actually drives a two-door Honda Civic, which I (not so affectionately) refer to as the half car.  It’s also always full of various odds and ends related to the fire department, more papers than any office I’ve ever worked in, and what else I don’t really want to know.

We bought our first Christmas tree together on the first Thanksgiving after we were married.  I’d never had a Christmas tree, and I was determined to get as big a one as possible and join the folks who put them up the day after Thanksgiving.  Michael’s had a sale on artificial trees that year; the store opened at 6:00 Thanksgiving evening and the pre-lit trees were 50 percent off, and we even had a coupon to take more off.  We had to go!

We spent Thanksgiving Day with some very dear friends and left straight from their house for Michael’s.  I HAD to have my tree.  The store was about 45 minutes from the house we were renting at the time.  Nick had driven to our friends’ house, since I was balancing several desserts on my lap, so we were in the half-car, which neither of us thought much about.

We arrived at Michael’s and found the perfect tree for us.  It was 7.5 feet and pre-lit with white lights.  It was beautiful and I fell in love with it.  We decided it was probably a little big for our living room, but then decided that Christmas only comes once a year, so why not get the tree we loved.

We paid for the tree and headed out to the car, with a sales associate wheeling the (exceptionally heavy) tree on a cart.  As we approached the car I began to have serious doubts about getting the tree into the car.  My husband, optimistic person that he is, was sure we could get the tree, and the two of us, into the car, along with all of the other stuff that was already in the car.

The sales associate very quickly left us to our own devices.  I can’t say that I blame him.  We spent nearly an hour trying to get the tree into the car from different angles.  The only way to get the tree into the car was to move everything else to the trunk and shove the tree in through the passenger door and kind of tip it into the backseat.  I tried scrunching down in the backseat; I was perfectly willing to have a cramped ride home for the sake of the tree, but I couldn’t scrunch up small enough to get the tree far enough in to get the door closed.

We finally came to the realization that only one person would fit in the car with the tree. Nick actually wanted to return the tree!  I quickly talked him out of that and into the idea of one of us staying behind while one of us took the tree home and then came back for the other person.

In addition to the fact that I couldn’t lift the tree on my own, we were in an area I wasn’t very familiar with.  I also have the ability to get lost in a revolving door, so driving home by myself from a place I wasn’t familiar with, with a giant Christmas tree in the car, and then trying to get back to the shopping center didn’t seem like a good idea at all.  We finally decided that Nick would take the tree home and then come back for me. 

I spent that hour and half wandering around Michael’s, which is not a bad place to be stranded, and calling to wish friends and family a happy Thanksgiving.   Nick made it home in record time, shoved the tree in the house, and then came rushing back to get me.

It made for a pretty funny story when people asked how our first Thanksgiving was.  I don’t think anyone expected the answer to begin with “Oh, Nick left me at Michaels’” or “Nick traded me in for a Christmas tree”.  It’s still fun to tell the story whenever someone comes over during the holidays and comments on our tree.  It may have gotten me left behind at the store, but we have a great tree.