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.  

Catching Up

Thank you all for your kind comments about Howard.  I love that people who never met him enjoyed his pictures and personality.  He really was a very special cat.

Since I didn’t blog at all in October or November, I’ll share some highlights to catch you up.

Our neighbors did tons of great Halloween decorations, including a miniature cemetery in their front yard.  There were “tombstones” for everyone on our section of the street.

Here’s mine:

Caroline is definitely our most temperamental cat and takes tortitude to a whole new level.

And here’s Nick’s:

We also did a neighborhood Halloween event on the last Sunday in October.  It was surprisingly warm that day, so we sat outside by one of the neighbor’s fire pits.  I made a huge batch of chili, and our neighbor Lori made jalapeno popper bread and desserts. 

Three of the adults (including Nick) and two of the older kids went to a haunted farm.  The other three adults (including me), one of the older kids who wasn’t feeling well, and the two younger kids stayed behind to watch Hocus Pocus. 

Everyone had a great time, and it worked out well that some people wanted to do the haunted farm while some of us weren’t into that kind of thing at all.  We’re talking about making it an annual thing. 

I’ve struggled some with getting into the holiday spirit since we lost Howard, but I knew I wouldn’t be happy skipping Thanksgiving, so we had our usual huge Thanksgiving.

Since our fridge is a little bit smaller than the old one, I had Thanksgiving food stashed in four different mini-fridges at work the week before.  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I took several things we wouldn’t need over the holiday weekend and left them at work to make sure we had room for all of the Thanksgiving stuff. 

I took the day before Thanksgiving off to do all of the baking.  I couldn’t fit all of the desserts and sweet potato bread on the table, so there are two pictures. 

As usual, Nick did a lot of cleaning.  I’m a very messy cook, so helping clean up when I do that much cooking is a massive job.  At one point, he was dashing into the kitchen with the vacuum or Swiffer every time I left it.  And one of the neighbor kids very sweetly came over and helped out with some food prep and cleaning on Wednesday night. 

The day before Thanksgiving is always my highest step count for the year!

We took Thanksgiving dinner to the hospice house for lunch.  As always, they were so kind and made me cry.  There’s a nurse we’ve seen for the past several years, and she hugged both of us and was just incredibly nice.

After we dropped the food off there, we went home and finished getting ready for our Thanksgiving dinner that evening.  I almost forgot to get any pictures of the food until someone else mentioned taking pictures, so I only got two not-so-great pictures of the food.  We had food and desserts on nearly every available surface.

We had a total of 14 people: all of the neighbors on our end of the street and some friends from Nick’s job.  Everyone ate, talked, and played games.  It was everything I love about Thanksgiving.  As usual, we had tons of leftovers, so no one had to cook for the next couple of days.  After everyone left, Nick and I were talking about how you can always tell whether or not it’s someone’s first Thanksgiving at our house by whether or not they bring storage containers for leftovers.  No one does the first time, but everyone does the next time. 

We also had an inflatable Thanksgiving decoration this year.  I bought him on sale after Thanksgiving last year.  His name is Gregory.  Good for you if you get the reference to the Doris Day movie, “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.”  I’m hoping to add more Thanksgiving decorations every year. 

Frankie absolutely loves the box that Gregory came in.

I’m not sure how he managed to stuff himself inside the box, but he happily hung out in it for hours at a time. 

So what about you?  How were your October and November?  And how were your fall holidays?