christmas 2010 - part two

Let me start by saying that this post may be a bit on the all over the place side.

Brain = all over the place.

Post = all over the place.


I set out to photograph my Christmas decorations and very quickly realized that I had photographed every speck of Meadowbrook Christmas Cheer in great detail last year.

As there is not much new on the decor front for this year, (with the exception of the guest room), I resorted to a few new pictures that ended up being extremely heavy handed with the shallow depth of field, (most of the photo blurry with a small part in focus), and pretty darn heavy on the processing front as well.

Just a word of warning.

I was in a mood. Not a bad mood, just an extreme makeover photo edition mood. (See heavily processed and heavily staged, heavy on the out of focus Christmas cookie paraphernalia shot.)


The ribbon photo below is another perfect example of extreme, with a side of extreme thrown in for good measure.


But, I like it. At least for today. I may very well replace it at a later date and pretend this particular ribbon photo never happened.

It's been done before.

(Here are the links for last year's Christmas posts...click over to see more photos of my Christmas tree, my dining room, or if you're feeling ambitious, here is the link to all things under the Christmas label.


I'll now move on from obsessing over my photos to the real reason for this post....my son's visit and our family Christmas celebrations.


It was as perfect as it could possibly be. I loved having my oldest home for the week, and his girlfriend fit in just like she'd always belonged here. The week would not have been nearly as fun without her. We played games, ate, watched movies, ate, played lots and lots of ping pong, went out to eat, and came home and ate some more.

I gained four pounds in one week.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk. I needed fresh air, and some type of movement other than the movement required to make some form of cream cheese infested food item, or the movement required to consume the cream cheese infested food item.

The fact that I used the word infested in the same sentence with my beloved cream cheese lets you know just how extreme the food situation was around here. We went through ten packages of cream cheese last week.

Dear Cream Cheese,
I hate your stinking guts. You make me vomit. You are the scum between my toes.
Love,
Alfalfa

(Sorry, that was one of many, many movie quotes heard repeatedly over the last week. We regularly communicate through movie quotes around here.)

Dear Cream Cheese,
I'm sorry. I don't hate you. I love you. I just think maybe we need a little time apart.
Love,
Teresa


The fellas set up a huge tent in our back yard, complete with a wood burning stove inside. The night of our Christmas party, all the guys went out to the tent and just hung out.

No chairs.

No lights.

Just standing in a dark tent, shooting the breeze.

With an awesome fire burning.

I chose to stay inside, and that's probably just as well because questions like, "why are we standing in a dark tent?", and "hey, did you know there's a real live house right over yonder?" probably would have have killed their tent buzz and that would just be sad.

I know my place and it's not in the tent.

It's in the kitchen with the cream cheese.


One quick non-Christmas note. Last week, I got a comment from a dear reader named Erin. Back in September, when I shared about my very favorite, very holey sweatshirt, Erin actually did an Ebay search to find me a replacement. Lo and behold, the exact hoodie in the right size popped up just last week. Erin sent me the link and before you could say "Why didn't I think of Ebay," Paypal and I had sealed the deal. My brand spanking new, mint condition, perfect shade of blue hoodie arrive safely just a few days ago.

Who. Would. Have. Thought.

I bought the original almost five years ago. Where has this one been all that time? I need to know.

Erin - if you read this, please email me!

Between my new blue hoodie, and my very first ever, extremely dreamy fleece hoodie, (a gift from our very special guest room occupant), I'm in hoodie heaven.



So, that's our Christmas in a nutshell. It will be a Christmas Eve church service for us, and we have a few gifts left to open on Christmas morning, so it's pretty smooth sailing from here on out.

Nine days to go, my friends. Are you ready?