A New Orleans Christmas

T-48 hours until Christmas.  I don't know about you, but I'm working on cramming as much Christmas into 2 days as possible.  Back-to-back Christmas movies with Christmas music in the background and eggnog until I barf.  I'm even wearing my Christmas socks.  This is serious business.

So I thought I would wrap up the season with some New Orleans cheer!  Here are a few highlights from December.

Kirb met some new, fancy friends after the Santa Paws costume contest and second line.  Yes.  Kirby participated in a second line. 

Thanksgiving Recap

With the crazy few weeks we've had, I never got a chance to talk about Thanksgiving.  It's a bit late, but here's a recap.

We flew up to Minneapolis to spend a couple of days with the family in Red Wing.  

Thanksgiving Day itself started like this...

Gingerbread Hizzouse

The worst part about making a gingerbread house is that I want to barf afterward.  Because I eat half the candy and icing as I make it. Obviously.  This year was no different.

The last time I made a gingerbread house, I made the house from scratch.  Gingerbread isn't that difficult to make, but it takes so much time to do all the mixing, baking, shaping, and cutting, I'm pretty much over it by the time it's ready for decorating.  Patience is not a virtue of mine.

Enter gingerbread house kit a la Walmart.  Don't judge me.  I did make some alterations.

Holiday Project: Anthropologie-Inspired Felt Leaf Wreath

It's my first holiday project of the year, folks!  I wish I could've started all these projects sooner... I'm trying to cram them all into these last couple of weeks!  With the move mid-November and leaving town for Thanksgiving though, here we are.

Actually, over Thanksgiving in Minneapolis was where I spotted my inspiration for this wreath.  While perusing my faaaavorite store, Anthropologie (I live off of gift cards from the fam- you know who you are!), I immediately took a liking to this felt leaf wreath.

Anthropologie

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (AKA: Let's Decorate the Crap Outta this Place)

Did you appreciate that shockingly long title?

In true Arvin fashion, we're obsessively diving into the holiday season.  Recent evening activities have included watching Christmas movies, baking cookies, watching Christmas movies, gingerbread house-decorating, and oh... watching Christmas movies.  Over the years, we've managed to collect all the holiday classics (and some not-so-classic), and we've already watched them all at least once this season.  So obviously the house is lit, playing holiday tunes, smelling like cinnamon and pine, and decked out in Santa and reindeer gear... and has been for a couple of weeks.  Let's go on a tour, shall we?  Never mind that I still haven't shared images of a lot of the house (notice that the first official tour post was missing a couple of bedrooms, bathrooms, and a back yard?)- we'll get to that once the Christmas festivities have passed.  There's just too much fun stuff to share in the meantime!

This is actually the first year I've bought nearly no new decorations- one to be exact.  I have more than enough purchases and DIY projects from the past couple of years to trim the whole house!  I'm making a vow to limit my Christmas decor purchases and only allow myself to add more homemade items from this point on.  The handmade projects are the most fun, anyway.  There are a couple Christmas crafts on the docket currently... coming soon!  For now, here's the casa feeling extra festive!

Fresh garland is from the neighborhood plant shop, Harold's.  The funny little elf is from our Thanksgiving visit to Red Wing, Minnesota (post in the making, by the way).  Also, mounting that mirror is on our to-do list.  It's been there for 3 weeks.  Hmm.  Someday.

Parlor Bar Mini-Project

I talked about putting together a mini bar in our rental for the entire 6 months we lived there.  Aaaand never did.  So when I had the same idea for our house, I jumped on it right away to avoid another who-knows-how-long of procrastinating (it was actually already completed when I posted the first pictures of the house last week- you may have caught a glimpse of it).  While our new kitchen is much bigger than our last, since the cabinets aren't as tall we end up with only slightly more cabinet space overall.  I knew another area to store bar-ware would be really helpful.

It took me about .3 seconds to scout out the best locale.  I picked up two small shelves for around $25 total at Lowe's, then grabbed some wine glass holders for less than $5 each.  The screws that came with the wine glass holders worked fine for attaching them to the shelves.  Once the shelves were up, I grabbed some more gear to complete the look... including the tray I made over a couple of months ago and a Goodwill lamp I spruced up back in Indy.