December was a very emotional month, full of equal parts joy and sadness. There was a lot of stuff going on that resulted in a lot of stress, upset, etc. in my world. So I felt a bit like I was balanced on a razor’s edge throughout the holidays. But, there was definitely a lot of good stuff in December.
Over the months leading up to the holidays, Eric and I spent some time doing some home improvement and a little bit of decorating. We really wanted to have some things “done” before we had guests over for our holiday party. One of the big things we did was buy two rugs. We bought one for the living room back in October, you may remember, and you can see it in the photo of our dessert table. At the beginning of December, our second rug arrived for the kitchen. It took us a long time to finally find something we loved, and as you can see Thutmose loves it too!
We also got snow near the beginning of the month, and ice with it, so we were cozied up in the house for several days waiting for it to thaw out so that the roads were passable. The ice storm put us a little behind in getting our tree, so we were rushing a bit to decorate this year. Once all the decorating was done though, I always realize how happy the site of a decorated tree lit up makes me. It’s amazing the transformation everything goes through at this time of year. Magical!
I worked on some Christmas projects – one was a mystery stitching piece that a part was released each Sunday from Thanksgiving through December 10th or so. It’s the little nativity scene you can see. I loved working on it, and most especially I loved that each Sunday I was able to focus on a related Bible verse and really think about the season. And I also bought the backing fabric for my Christmas quilt so that I could get it finished up. Those hot cocoa cups just did me in. So cute! One of the things I do love about my time off around the holidays is getting to work on some of my crafty projects while I’m home.
We had our dessert party as usual, which was lots of fun. Of course, I always love picking out recipes for treats I’m going to make so that each year it’s a little bit different. I loved the vintage look of our Christmas cards too (Target!). And Thut’s favorite napping spot was on the table with my Dickens Village. He was so happy there, and every time we would see him, we’d comment that he was scaring the villagers. So funny!
We took my niece to see the Trains at Northpark at the end of the month, our other annual tradition. It included lunch at Pie Five and that chicken pesto pizza is to die for!
I also started and finished the last book in the Beautiful series on one decadent Saturday morning, had my very first macaron, and treated myself to a facial. Such fun! So, as I said, there were definitely some great moments of joy and peace during the last month of 2013.
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