Christmas Decorations

It's not that I'm a grinch when it comes to Christmas, but I've always found it hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's 70 degrees outside and I wear long sleeves to prevent sunburn, not chills. But Christmas is my husband's favorite holiday, so I'm trying to be more...jolly.

I've branched out and actually helped decorate the house this year!

Here's our stockings (Sam and Rusty included) hung on our fireplace. Dan's in the one with the cute little cartoon Santa. Just a reminder that I need to spend some time and declutter and organize the mantle...

Give me a sale on vases at Target and I'll give you a Christmas table centerpiece, even though we aren't hosting (thank God). The mercury glass vase was $5 at Target because everything is 50% (YAY!!!!) and the green and red tea light holders were leftovers from our wedding {Sidenote: our wedding colors weren't red and green, don't worry. Maybe I'll post about it one day, but we didn't have wedding colors, really...)

Our tree is so sad this year. So so sad. It's our first Christmas with cats and it is not going well. You see the tree? Notice how all the ornaments are in the top half of the tree? That's because Rusty believes that ornaments are the greatest thing ever. We're just lucky that the tree isn't strong enough to support him otherwise we'd really be in trouble. He did bend all the bottom branches down, though, in an attempt to get at the ornaments. Also, because the tree is cheap and old, Sam got tangled in one of the wires for the built-in lights and got a pretty bad shock and shorted out the tree. Fortunately, Sam is fine and Dan fixed the tree, but it was dark for a couple of weeks.

Also, notice the tinsel around the top of the room, but none on the tree? Yeah, cats aren't allowed ANYWHERE near tinsel. Not since one of them got into the decorations box, had a little snack, and threw it up one lovely morning.

See the big red present under the tree? The one that looks like someone drop kicked?

It's Rusty's new favorite thing. Hopefully my grandma will understand.

Gotta love a Christmas with cats.

Santa Loves Me

I've been quite busy lately (and not documenting it well), but it's time to start playing catch-up. Mainly because I am finally off of work for the rest of the year!

Last Saturday was my work's end of the year party. They rent out a local mini-golf course for the morning and everything is free. Granted, every year, it's the one day that it's rainy, cold, and miserable. Dan and I always manage to have fun anyway. And because my dad works for the same company, my parents and sister get in on the action, too.

My dad got three hole-in-ones and will probably never let us hear the end of it.

The highlight of the morning, though, was getting to see Santa. Why so exciting? Because this is no ordinary Santa's helper. It's my coworker Jerry and his wife. I love Jerry. He's so good to me. We don't work in the same department, but he always tracks me down once a week to check in with me. Such a sweetie.

We patiently waited in line to see him. When we finally got our turn to see him, he kept trying to insist that I sit on his knee. This is me reacting:

I'm not going to be THAT girl at work.

We decided to reenact the majority of the photos we had from childhood with Santa: scared out of our minds.

But we quickly warmed up to him.

He's my favorite Santa. 

Afterward, my mom and I DDRed it up in the arcade. You know you're out of shape when you get out of breath from stomping around on a giant controller. Even ten years later, it's still really fun.

And some other random highlights...

Living in a tiny town

Destroying said tiny town

Yet another hole-in-one

Feeding ducks