A very merry Christmas.

It’s been a wonderful Christmastime, but it’s also been a very busy one.  With holiday parties/get-togethers, friends in town, finishing up a project for work, getting ready for my dear friend G to come live with us for the month of January, and interviewing for new jobs (and getting one), it’s been a busy couple weeks.  But, I’ll be home for Christmas and I’m looking forward to spending the week at my parents’ getting fed, watching movies, and relaxing (and catching up on all the blog posts floating around in my mind).  I don’t think it’ll be a white Christmas in Chicago, but it’ll certainly be a happy one.

More super easy Christmas crafts.

Even after getting a tree and making stockings, it’s hard to keep this Christmasy feeling going when it’s so warm and sunny everyday.  It’ll be nice to feel some chill and hopefully have some snow when I go back to Chicago for Christmas.  (I’m saying this now fully knowing I will probably regret it once I’m there).

So, in an effort to stay in the spirit, I’ve continued my zero dollar and almost-zero effort approach to Christmas decorations and tried to North Pole up the place with an angel tree topper, snowflakes, and a bit of Christmas cheer on the mantle.  We also got those cute and nerdy ornaments from Etsy I was talking about!  I’ll tell you more about those in just a sec.

Easy DIY Christmas stockings for the lazy crafter.

Despite the 80 degree weather , all the tree trimming, mantle decorating, and Christmas carol listening has got me in the Christmas spirit.  I’m excited it’s happened so early this year.  I get to feel Christmasty for an entire month!

In my continued effort the Christmas up the house, I’ve been looking on Etsy for some stockings to hang above the fireplace.  I think the knit ones are so darling because they actually look like overgrown socks made for giants!

But, I just can’t pull the trigger on spending $100+.  So, until I learn how to knit or find cheaper stockings or find stockings I can’t live without, I made some placeholder ones out of random things around the house.

Now this isn’t much of a tutorial as it is just reinforcement to those who think they need to make a trip to the craft store, have a sewing machine, or have any sort of skill at all in order to DIY.  Not true.  Look at me (no skill).  This project took 30 min, $0, and involved the most laziest sewing ever.  It would make Martha cringe in horror.

Christmas in LA.

It was close to 70 degrees out today and hardly feeling like Christmas, but R and I continued his family tradition and went out the day after Thanksgiving and got ourselves a pretty little tree.  This is my first real tree (at my house, Christmas was always a day of going to a lot of church and not a day to celebrate Santa).  I didn’t realize there were so many different kinds!  Apparently, we got one that smells real piney.  I love it and think it’s perfect.

No, those are not snuggies around the tree.

I’m also really excited to start collecting some meaningful ornaments with R.  We just ordered two off Etsy that are super dorky, but super cute.  Don’t worry, I’ll share once they get here.

We spent the day hanging out and Christmas-ing up the house.  We trimmed the tree and decorated the mantle.  I swapped out the pumpkins with cinnamon-scented pine cones and replaced the Autumn-y pictures and cards with Christmas-y ones.

I love saving old greeting cards. When I frame them, I get to think of the lovely people who sent them.

We also had Christmas music playing all day.  I love Christmas albums from Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, and Johnny Cash.  They just make you feel good.

I think we did a pretty nice job bringing Christmas to LA today.  We even made ourselves a fancy steak dinner and broke out the Christmas wine glasses and placemats.  While R’s delicious filets were the star of the meal, I made a new broccoli dish that was pretty tasty.