Showing posts with label Wreath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wreath. Show all posts

Traditions: A Wreath, Gingerbread & Socks 

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 -
Traditions. Everyone has them. This past weekend, hubs and I celebrated three different traditions. But this time around, there was something interesting about these traditions.  Let me begins with socks.

Tradition 1 - Socks. Hubs steals my socks. My white gym socks that is. To the point that I have no more. Let's ignore the fact that I didn't notice until I started to visit the gym again. Yes, I went on hiatus. A very long hiatus. But that isn't the point here. Day eight, warm & toasty, brought hubs the gift of socks. He has 16 new pairs of socks, so there is no reason for him to steal mine anymore. This is a tradition that I didn't even know that we had until I started to write this post. I always give him socks during his advent calendar. Why? Because he always needs them. This year, we both needed them. That is what happens when your husband steals your socks.

Tradition 2 - Wreath. With warm and toasty toes, he was ready for the next day. Day nine was trimming the door, aka making our annual wreath. We gathered the materials and got sappy while putting it together. With needles everywhere, lots of greens and floral wire, our sappy hands made the best wreath we've ever made. I absolutely adore it! And if you look closely, you'll see Nala saying hello!

Tradition 3 - Gingerbread House. Hubs and I are competitive people. Christmas season isn't excluded from this spirit as our tradition of competing gingerbread houses takes center stage. We always decorate our own side of the house and whoever decorates it the 'best' wins. The prize is nothing more than the self pride of winning. This year, I thought I would switch it up and throw out a variation. Day ten, gingerbread hunt, was an alternative to building. This alternate was a hunt for gingerbread houses in the Arts District (if you live in the area and are interested, research it here). However, hubs wanted to stick to building. Then he threw in his own variation - he wanted to bake rather than buying a kit.

As he said that, I immediately panicked. Little did he know that day eleven was holiday treats meaning we would be baking cookies for the Packer victory (yup, I'm optimistic - and now I know I can tell the future! 13-0 - GO PACK GO!). With that, I clued him in and we decided to combine the two days. We bought some candy to decorate each respective home and got to baking.


As you can see, the icing didn't necessarily want to hold the gingerbread in place. My house of shambles didn't even make it to a photos. What you see here is what is left of hubs masterpiece. I might add, this is a friendly competition between the two of us that we do every year. Since hubs made 'stained glass windows' with sugar and his actually stood much longer then mine, he did win this year. I say by default, but he'd argue he would have won no matter what.

This is all we have left of the gingerbread cookies. They are tasty - we snacked on them throughout the Packer victory on Sunday afternoon.

What are your holiday traditions? Do you ever change them up?

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Day 2 - Christmas Decor 

Friday, December 3, 2010 -
Scheduling the 25 Days of Christmas for hubs can sometimes be a challenge.  Why?  Several reasons:
  • Hubs (or myself) may not "feel" like doing the activity that specific day
  • Weather may not always cooperate
  • Spontaneous plans can interrupt the schedule
This is expected, but as a planner, I always have a back-up plan.  There is always room for flexibility, after all, they are planned just so we have fun (or get things accomplished while feeling holiday cheer!)  On day two, it happened.  The theme of the day was "Holiday Decor," specifically aimed at the Ahrens' tradition of creating our own wreath to hang on the door.  Our second holiday together, hubs surprised me by purchasing all of this greenery which we then molded into a fantastic wreath.  We've done it every year since, but last night, by the time we would have bought the greenery, had dinner and prepped everything, it would have been a little later than we would have liked.  So instead, we decorated the tree (which we were going to be doing anyway, we just focused our energy a little bit more) and decided to do the wreath another day.

I'm the kind of person who would love to have themed trees in every room (yes, I like to theme rooms for events as we recall.)  A Disney tree here, a red & green tree there - the possibilities are really endless.  Right now, I'm thankful to have not one, but two trees.  We started this 'one real tree, one artificial tree' concept when we moved to Carmel a few years ago.

On the main floor, we have the 'real' tree full representing our relationship and adventures throughout the years.  It includes ornaments from our travels (we always purchase a cook book and/or ornament when we travel) as well as ornaments that we give to each other for special occasions (which is mostly the holidays.)  Inspired by Fun & Fearless, I wanted to show you a few of my favorites:

 

Quick explanations: The Mickey/Minnie ears represent our wedding as we were introduced wearing our own hats, the Mickey ornaments were purchased during our Disney vacations (the Santa bearing Mouse ears was from our engagement trip and the other is from this past summer) and the Canadian bear is from the Granville Market in Vancouver during our anniversary vacation.  And of course hub's favorite:

Downstairs, the artificial tree has been switched up this year.  In the past, it was known as the 'blue tree.' Since I bought the Disney topper during the girls' vacation at WDW this past summer, I've shifted our red and green bow downstairs.  Thus, all those blue ornaments wouldn't really fit the scheme, so I expanded a bit.

Instead, ornaments I received growing up now hang.  Every Christmas my mother would give me an ornament, here are few of my favorites:
 

The house is bright with lights as the holiday cheer is surrounding us (especially with this chilly weather in the air.)  A busy weekend is ahead including today's activity for Day 3, tomorrow's activity and the End of Movember Gala (there is still time to donate!), and I'm off to Purdue on Sunday for a Sorority function before our Day 5 activity.  Busy busy!

Any big weekend plans?  How is your holiday decor coming along - are you in the holiday spirit?

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