I'm Showin You My Christmas!

Alright ya'll, I'm linking up to Show You My Christmas! 

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! 

It was um, strange, around here. That's usually what happens when your dad decides to just not show up. You know. No big. Not like it was Christmas and he chose to spend it with his stupid girlfriend instead of his kids.

So, I spent a little of my Christmas backed up against the shower wall sobbing because yet again, things couldn't just be normal.

But then? Then? I soaked it up and decided that Christmas was what I made it. And I was going to make it a good one.

Okay, that's only half true ... I felt a lot better yesterday when it wasn't Christmas and it wasn't as big of a deal if people were assholes. 

And you know what else is awesome about Christmas?? The real meaning, Jesus' birth, can never be taken away from me. It's always there, it's always the same and it's always perfect. So, I kind of held on to that little thought all day.

Also, I got some pretty awesome gifts. And gifts always do a good job of cheering a girl up. 

I got a lot of really great things, most of which I picked out with a few surprises thrown in, but I'm just going to show you my two favorites. We still haven't opened with our dad so that could change things but I'm not quite sure when I'm going to want to do that, so it could be awhile. 

DRUMROLL .......

From Drew

From Momma

And of course a Christmas post wouldn't be complete without pictures from our day so here are just a few ... 

Another Favorite. I wanna be her.

My Loot.

I'm going to be sad to take down our Christmas decorations. I love the light. But I can't say I'll be sad to see Christmas go. I'm always excited to have it come and happy to scoot it out the door.

Now on to a fabulous 2012!!

Our Ever Changing Christmas Traditions

Happy Tuesday, Friends! I'm linking up with Becky & Aly to share my family's Christmas traditions! 

Ever since I've been blogging, I've talked about how our traditions have changed for the holidays. That's what happens when your Nana, the matriarch of your family, dies and your parents get divorced in the same year.

Our traditions were always set in stone and we knew what was going to happen every year without fail. We decorated throughout the month and did Christmas crafts and made cookies for the neighbors.

On Christmas Eve, we went to Nan's and there were always tons of beautiful presents under her tree. The presents were always topped with big, pretty bows and there was lots of food too. After we ate, we all headed to the family room to open presents one by one. My dad always held the trash bag for us, I know that. The last few years before Nan died, I managed to stay awake the whole time but you could say a tradition before that was for me to fall asleep.

After Christmas Eve at Nan's, we went home to put cookies out for Santa and sleep fast to wake up in the morning and race to the living room to see what he had left us. Later in the day, my mom's side of the family came over and so did Nan.

But, things are different now.

My dad has 2 siblings; my aunt is jewish and my uncle is agnostic. So Christmas really, was only celebrated because Nan was alive. We don't even see them on Christmas anymore. Or any other holiday, actually. 

Christmas Eve had turned into me going to Drew's grandma's house whom I adore & my mom and brother hanging out together. At Drew's grandma's, we always played Friend's Scene It until everyone got there, ate and then opened presents. It was pretty fun but still not my family. There's a difference. After going there, I'd go to church and sit with my mom and Drew would sit with his family. I do love Christmas Eve service! I'm still not sure what will happen this year with Drew's grandma's house. Tradition's Ever Changing! 

We're lucky that my dad still comes to our house on Christmas Day for us to give him his presents and him to see us open ours. The living room is usually filled with presents to distract me so it's easy to pretend that it doesn't bother me when he leaves right away to go to his girlfriend's Christmas Day celebration. 

My mom's family still comes over on Christmas Day, that part has remained the same.  We all eat a big, fun meal, sometimes play some games and always open presents. 

Oh, and I always get recruited to take tins of homemade cookies and fudge to our neighbors.

Christmas Day night sometimes ends with a trip to the movie theatre, that has been a new installment to the Christmas traditions. 

Either way, Christmas is always really hard for me. I'm kind of tearing up writing this. I mean, my mom does her best to make it fun and to keep some things the same, and I do the same for her now that my Granddad is in the nursing home and she is always sad he can't be with us on Christmas. But it just isn't the same. It will never be. And I haven't spent much time sad about it this year because I know it is what it is, but it still does come up and bite me sometimes like a Big Old Grinch. 

I really can't wait until I have a family of my own and get to start new traditions. I will have a lot of them because I think traditions and family are what really make the holidays special. 

If any of you have had changes like this in your holiday traditions, I'd love to know how you handled them and how you managed to still make the holidays full of fun! 

... and we hung the stockings with care ...

Well guys, I've been away from this little old blog for 3 days. But you already knew that because you missed me so much you were keeping track, right?

Knew it.

Anyway, it's been an eventful three days around here, that's why I haven't blogged. I don't believe in forcing myself to write because then the words just don't flow and nobody wan't to read anyway. So when I need a little break, I take it. I took one these last three days.

Wednesday night there was a Butler basketball game at home. My sweet roommate, Ashley, let my dad & I sit in her family's front row seats for the game. He & I don't hang out very often and when we do we usually just go out to eat so the basketball game was a nice change and we had so much fun!

Take One

Take Two

We were sitting so close that one of the Butler players landed in my lap when he couldn't stop running on the court & jumped over the people sitting on the court to avoid injury. It was a pretty scary experience if I do say so myself. Plus, my jeans were all sweaty afterwards where he had landed on me. Sick. 

Thanksgiving was fabulous and I really did feel overwhelmingly blessed as cliche as it sounds. All of our family came to our house & my mom cooked a massive meal.

After my family left, I went over to visit my best friend, Megan, & her baby. It's so fun for me to see Megan, who I grew up with, be a momma. She's great at it. It was a good way to top off the day, being thankful for friends & family.

Yesterday was for workouts, naps and left-over eating. Oh, and my mom came home from an oil change at the car dealer ship with a brand new red Tahoe. It's gorgeous. We're naming her Ruby, maybe. 

Last night, we put up the Christmas decorations. Scratch that. I put up the Christmas decorations. We have 5 HUGE totes of Christmas decorations so it took my mom & I to get those down. She put the tree up too, but after that? She bounced. I kind of liked putting up everything myself though because I only put out about half of those five boxes to reduce clutter. Because clutter? Stresses me out. Big time.

Momma.

 My new ornament for this year.

Mom's new ornament ... she loves squirrels. Like makes everyone come look when there's one outside on the telephone line.

Another new one this year. Just a hint: all the ornaments I pick have lots of glitter on them. 

He's not new but what's not to love about that sweet snowman face?

Glitter!

Finite!

We read these cloth Christmas books a lot when I was little. Now they just sit under the tree until our kids come along and want to read them.

From underneath the tree.

I just love this.

I moved some things around but anyway, it looked like this at one point.

So here I sit, in a fully decorated house that isn't too cluttered and in which each Christmas decoration has its own spot. 

Each year, I think I get more sentimental. As if that's even possible. Just running past lit houses while the sun was going down last night made my heart so full and happy knowing, hoping, there were happy families inside. 

I can't wait for all the memories this Christmas season has to offer and I remain thankful for the memories I have this far.

Go ahead, Pin it.

It's no big shock that Christmas is my favorite holiday of all. It's just so bright, cheery & happy. Consequently, I like bright cheery things to be all around the house all the time this time of year. When I saw Ashley Paige tweet about an ornament wreath she made, I instantly fell in love.

And? It just so happened my mom & I were making a trip to Hobby Lobby for wrapping paper and wired ribbon today. Normal wrapping paper and bows don't fly in this house. No siree. It's all about the fancy stuff here. Remember last year?

So anyway, I had kind of forgotten about the wreath but luckily, mom stopped in the floral stuff & I remembered. I saw a little topiary foam form and decided to do my own take on the ornament wreath ... an ornament tree!

The Supplies:

- topiary form

- terra-cotta pot

- green moss

- gold spray paint

- medium size green ornaments

- small gold ornaments

- green wired ribbon

- hot glue gun

This is what it looked like when I started ... the forms in terra-cotta pots ... and this is when I thought I was going to make two. Ha!

Don't be fooled, this takes a good little while and a LOT of ornaments. A lot more ornaments than I thought it would take, that's for sure.

Step 1: Paint the pots and wooden sticks with spray paint.

I didn't actually paint the pots while the topiary forms were in there, I put them in afterwards. I think that works best.

Step 2: Start gluing on the ornaments.

I'm gonna be honest, it was a little intimidating at first & I didn't know how it would turn out, but have faith. It does. I tried to mix mine up between shiny green, matte green, sparkly gold & the other gold but obviously, you can do whatever you think looks best.

After only a few burns & an entire Butler game, I had used all the ornaments I had. I'll have to go back tomorrow to completely finish but I thought it still looked good enough to post. Mind you, I bought all those ornaments thinking it would cover both topiaries and they didn't even fully cover one. It takes a lot!

I added a few more gold ornaments I found after I finished in places where I thought it needed them. I feel like that could probably be a never ending thing. At some point, you just have to be satisfied.

Step 3, 4 & 5: Put rocks in the bottom of the pot to add stability, tie on a bow & throw in some moss.

I love, love, love how this turned out!! It's definitely bright & cheery like I wanted it to be.

I'd love to be able to make & sell these but it cost me at least $40 to make it so I doubt it would even be worth it.

Oh well, it's worth it to me!! 

If you make or have made something like this and blog about it, leave me a comment with a link. I'd love to see your creation!