Merry Christmas, y'all!

Happy everything internet! Whatever it is you celebrate (or don't), I hope it is a good one. Enjoy your day with family, your day of rest, or your day of getting that time and a half. Whatever you're doing and wherever you are, I wish you nothing but all kinds of wonderful things!

Decemberlife

Why yes, that is the Twilight Saga next to the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy. Sometimes I'm a silly girl, don't judge.

Sheesh! December is always busy but dang, this year it seems extra crazy. I've been slightly absent from the blog because life you guys. Life. 

I have recently become the big boss lady at work, got that General Manager status y'all! Brendon just finished up his semester yesterday, so I have my husband back for a few weeks! It had been study city up in the Hogan residence you guys. Study study study, with little movie breaks (somehow we fit in the new Batman trilogy).

But as crazy as life is and no matter how much I wish it would slow down sometimes, it is still so good. This holiday season has been full of all kinds of goodness already. It's a bit sad that it is almost over (6 days till Christmas? Get out!), but at the same time I will be glad for things to slow down and life to resume its normal pace of craziness instead of running constantly in craziness overdrive.

So I leave you with two little creatures who have no concept of holiday (or any sort of) busyness or stress. Two creatures who think that we put up the Christmas tree just for them, and that the presents underneath are an obstacle course.

As usual, Sophie refuses to show her face. But I'll fill you in on what she was doing; chewing on a present. 

I had to leave a path for Greg, he refuses to go around the tree. Sorry family if your presents are a bit smooshed. Our cats are anything but skinny.

And this has nothing to do with anything, but amidst my blogging absence I made this and it was delicious:

And yes, that is yet another Smitten Kitchen recipe. I told you that book was life changing.

Monster tree

Internet, meet our tree. The biggest tree we've ever had! We found it at the good old Home Depot, for FIFTEEN DOLLARS. Fifteen, y'all. It was so tall we had to chop off part of the top so it would fit under our ceiling. It is a huge tree. And I love it.

Unfortunately we've always had small trees, so we were a little short when it came to trimming the thing. I had to get a couple more strands of lights, making a whopping six strands total lighting that bad boy up. And we had to beef up our ornament stash a bit. And of course, I spied an opportunity to get crafty and BOOM, Christmas craft night at the Hogan's.

I went to ye olde Lobby of Hobbies and found us a bunch of cheapo plastic "stained glass" and wooden ornaments to paint while we rocked out to some Christmas jams. My happy place.

It's so fun watching Brendon do creative things because he thinks so differently than I do. We are polar opposites when it comes to all that right brain/left brain nonsense, so it was fun to watch him chose colors and paint. And I know he sat through it all just to make me happy. I have a good husband.

Obviously, painting my reindeer that turned into a moose, and looking super stoked about it. After painting our ornaments we added them to the tree so it didn't look so sparse. I love our little collection of ornaments. Most of them are handmade, but we also have some fun ones that were gifts and souvenirs from trips we've taken. The handmade ones are my favorite. They just have so much character! Like Brendon's happy little truck, you can't beat that:

 

It's so nice to have a tree in your home. Especially when it is gigantic. It smells lovely, it looks lovely, and it makes me feel lovely. And I got to decorate it with little memories with my favorite human.

Nights with Brendon are my favorite. There are not enough of them. And because of that, I'll leave you with a sappy picture to make you puke:

Oh Christmas tree!

One of my favorite things in the whole world is putting up the Christmas tree. I look forward to it all year long. And this year, we got a real tree! The cats (Sophie) had previously destroyed two fake trees so I convinced Brendon that this year a real tree was the way to go. Growing up we always had real trees, some of them pretty, giant, majestic trees (Mom, remember that one that fell on me like twice??), so I was waaaay excited to pick out our first real tree. We went out Friday night and found this baby at Home Depot. At first I kinda thought it looked like a short little cactus tree and I wasn't feeling it. I wanted one of the super tall extra expensive fancy trees, but Brendon threw some rationale at me and we compromised. And I'm so glad because I really do love this tree! It's perfect for us!

Mr. H hanging ornaments like a pro, I've taught him well.

I seriously live for this kind of stuff! I was so excited! And the tree smells so good! But unfortunately it made my hands and arms break out into little red bumps. My mom said it was the sap, my skin is such a wuss.

We have a very random assortment of ornaments that we have accumulated over the years. This is Brendon and my SEVENTH Christmas together (but our first as a married couple!!), although we didn't start putting up our own tree until about 5 years ago. We hand made a bunch of ornaments that year (spray painting pine cones and those sticky balls gold is extra cute and easy and they are still looking great!) and we started collecting Hallmark ornaments. We started in 2007, we pick out one every year, usually one featuring cats. We've also picked up other random ornaments while traveling and who knows where else. But on a real tree our collection looks a little sparse and spread out. I think it's time to start making some more. I feel a Christmas project comin' on!

Self timer photos with your camera stacked on random objects are awkward. As I said in my last post, we need a tripod.

Unfortunately, Sophie is just as interested in the real tree as she was with the fakes, hence why there are no ornaments on the bottom branches. But she hasn't tried to climb it yet so we'll cross our fingers. Because she's huge and she'd take that poor tree down quickly. Oh and that creepy Santa tree topper? Totally got that at the dollar store back in 07 along with that felt tree skirt that is way too small. We try to keep it classy. You might not see our little tree in Martha Stewart's magazine, but I love it all the same. It's got character. And it's just as weird as we are.