thoughts | happy christmastime

I'm typing on my beautiful new macbook.  How's that for a happy Christmas?!?

Christmas day is such a surreal and special day for my family.  I was actually awake before the kiddos, which is no small feat when you have 3 little ones under the age of 10.  I was groggy and laying in bed waiting to hear the sound of their elephant tiny feet two stories up.  I heard Cal first and my heart kinda squeezed.  Do you know that THAT is one of the happiest sounds in the world. I got out of bed to brush my teeth, and, I'm not ashamed to admit it, put some mascara on my pathetic eyelashes.  That was the first gift I gave to my family.
Family tradition states that we must get our stockings from the mantle and pile into Mom and Dad's room.  Then we tear through them, the stockings that is, not our parents.  After that, its back downstairs for coffee (hallelujah, amen!) and dad reading Luke's gospel account of Jesus's birth (Hallelujah, Amen!).

And then presents.

My favorite gift that I gave this year was actually found last minute on Christmas Eve at an antique store.  It was an old storage crate with "microscopes" stamped onto the side and wooden dividers inside.  It went to my brother Daniel.  It was so eclectic, and he's eclectic, I figured it'd work.  It did!

Christmas dinner was much lower in intensity than thanksgiving dinner.  We has approximately 20 less people at our table.  My grandparents woke up to 9 inches of snow and couldn't make the drive to see us.  Welcome to the north.  Dinner was still delicious, even if the turkey didn't get as toasty as usual.  I suggested using my creme brûlée torch to finish it off.
It brings a whole new meaning to the song "Bring a torch Jeannette Isabella".  Maybe their turkey wasn't crisping up properly either?  I took to calling my sister Jeanette Isabella for the rest of the afternoon.  Let me tell you, she loved that.

I made the Southern Living Christmas cover cake.  Red Velvet Cheesecake Layer Cake with White Chocolate Frosting and Stuff!!!  I was so proud.  The recipe came together well, I definitely recommend taking two days to make this cake, it's easy to bake, just time consuming.  The frosting gave me the hardest time, the white chocolate got too hard before I cold get it onto the layers.  I had to keep running my knife under hot water and re-melting the chocolate.  The final product was amazing!

Oh, and the surprise that we pulled off on Christmas Eve...

Dreams do come true.

quotable | donuts

| driving into town to finish Christmas shopping |

Gracie:  (pipes up from the backseat)
"Hey! That's the field where Dan went off the road, then he drove around and ate donuts."
Dan:  "Did donuts Gracie, I did donuts, I didn't eat them."
Gracie:  "Oh, right."

Oh the joys of fresh snow, and also six year old's with active imaginations.

photographed | merry christmas!

Merry Christmas!

thoughts | wonderful christmas

Christmas is tomorrow.

Just let that sink in for a moment.  The happiest day of the year and it's right here, in front of us.  I love anticipation.  Knowing what's coming, the surreal feeling that some thing's coming and the waiting.  As long as I don't have to wait too long!  

We're Christmas nuts over here.  My family tends to overdo the entire month of December.  With no apologies.  We just love Christmas!  My baby sister Gracie is keeping the official count ("How many more days?").  I told Calvin I bought him underwear, Gracie added "Yeah, Plain. White. Underwear!" just to be mean.  Kids can be so cruel.  He was excited anyway, the little guy just loves a present!

I've been to three Christmas parties in the last week, the fourth one I wasn't able to make due to the weather.  I've almost finished my shopping.  Why are men so hard to buy for?  The girls were so easy, but brothers are an extreme level of difficult.  And I feel that gift cards are the easy way out for sibling gifts.  I mean, these are the people that have to put up with me and my shenanigans for the other 364 days of the year, they deserve more than a plastic card with a reindeer printed on it. 

I'm helping my parents pull off a huge surprise tonight for the kiddos (and also the "adultos").  Sorry, I can't speak freely here, as my only two readers on this blog are my 9 year old sister Lydia and my best friend (also, sister) Brooke.  That would ruin Christmas for everyone and Mom and Dad would probably return all of my gifts.

We made more Christmas cookies Sunday night.  Because we've been out for several days and I was starting to feel a sugar deficiency.  Imagine our huge happy family gathered around the table delicately frosting mounds of sugar cookies, the smell of sweet frosting and vanilla wafting through the air, as we artistically handcraft silver snowflake designs with toothpicks and tweezers and the sounds of Ella singing Christmas tunes surrounds us.  Nice thoughts right?  Heehee!  We had a blast, but it was louder than that with a hefty amount of bickering going around, mostly, because I had made one batch of gluten free cookie dough and one batch of regular and thought the best (most classy) option for keeping the batches separate would be to use specific cookie cutters (yes, it was quite brilliant).  Worked great until Daniel went to town on the regular dough and filled another tray full of penguins.  Arghhhh.....  

Penguins were supposed to be gluten free.

It's probably not too late to return his gift, only I haven't gotten his gift yet.  Problem solved, I guess.  After the "penguin debacle of 2013" we sat down to frost those babies.  Using some very interesting colors of icing, because apparently the only box of food coloring we have in the cabinet is a neon combo pack.  Which is mostly fine, but your eyeballs start to burn after about three cookies due to the intensity of the hue of pink.

But no worries folks, we pushed through and our cookie jars are full once again.

Dad preached yesterday on Galations 4, not your typical Christmas sermon, but so beautiful with the tie in to "heirs and sons" and the Son of God.  He spoke of the incredible miracle of the virgin birth and how we often forget to treasure these gifts.  There are so many parts of the story of Christ's birth that send shivers up my spine.  But the most amazing is the prophecies that were fulfilled.  Dad has begun to preach through Genesis and came to the creation of the stars several weeks ago, he mentioned the "Star" that told of Messiah's birth.  This is amazing.  New stars don't appear, they are created by the very Hand of God.  Amazing!  Every year, I see something new in the story of the birth of our Savior, the faithfulness of Simeon and Anna, the purity of Mary, the kindness of Joseph and so many other tiny details that are easily missed.

It's early morning here.  With a busy day ahead.  Uncle Bob is in from DC, we have to think of someway to get mom out of the house for a few hours while her gift is delivered, I'm sure I will need a cup of coffee at some point (we are mere mortals over here and run on strong coffee) and the aforementioned "surprise" tonight.  Can't wait!   I'm making the cover cake recipe from Southern Living's December issue, I'll probably regret that one, but it's so beautiful.  And also, red velvet.  I will never not love red velvet.

Wishing you the Merriest Christmas, may your joys be many on this happy day.

quotable | stay pretty

| lunching with my mom & mimi |

waitress:  "You're so pretty!  Even prettier than those Kardashians!"
abbe:  "Um, thank you.  I think..."

(later, after dropping off the bill at our table.)

waitress:  "You stay pretty, hon."


Is being compared to those "K" people ever actually a compliment?  I'm wondering.