Chip and Lucy had a very important meeting with Santa Paws. Getting them both looking at the camera was impossible, but at least they look adorable and the Santa looks pretty authentic!
My mom and I have an annual tradition of driving through a local neighborhood’s light display. These houses go all out and it’s quite impressive. Every year, we talk about how annoying it must be to actually live in this neighborhood during December. I’m assuming there’s a way to get in and out of the neighborhood that’s separate from the driving path. Otherwise, how would you go anywhere during December? Anyway, I didn’t take many pictures this year, so this is the best I’ve got for ya!
Bri and I had a very festive lady date last week: We went putt-putt golfing at the pier! The course was super fun, even though I lost badly to Bri. And three cheers for Bri because I needed her to pick up my ball from every hole and place it down on the next one, thanks to my stupid hip issues. There’s a TWSS joke in there, but I’m not creative enough to make it.
My Secret SANta this year was Jenny! What a sweet surprise. I love the mug she got me. I shared with Jenny that I have a shirt with this same design, so now I can drink coffee from my bookish Christmas mug while wearing my bookish Christmas t-shirt. I also loooooove the grumpy cat ornament she got me. It’s basically like Eloise on an ornament! Thank you, Jenny!
I love this little Christmas present headband that I bought a few years ago. It’s perfect for Christmas parties, work calls that happen on Christmas week, and adding a little oomph to my outfit on Christmas morning. 🙂
Another favorite tradition: making Christmas cookies! A few years ago, we found a peppermint frosting for these cookies and I haven’t looked back since. I desperately wanted to make ALL of my cookies with this frosting, but it’s white, and that’s kinda boring. I compromised: for every peppermint-frosted cookie, I had to make a green or red frosted cookie. Balance, as they say.
For my birthday, Kim gifted me a ticket to A Drag Queen Christmas and then suggested I start watching the latest season of RuPaul’s Drag Race so I could get to know some of the performers. I’m so glad for that suggestion because I fell head over heels for some of the queens at this show, and was screaming my face off when they came on stage! (I’m a Suzie Toot fan girl for life, but how could I not love our hometown girl Jewels Sparkles?! She was RAVISHING on the stage!) This show was joyful and fun and while Florida can get a bad rap when it comes to our stupid governor and attorney general (who was definitely not a fan of this show coming to Florida!), the St. Petersburg area is beautifully accepting and affirming and gay as hell. I LOVE IT.
My Advent calendars this year have been a bit of a bust. First, there was the mystery Advent calendar that was basically a badly written story about a murder with some very complicated puzzles to solve. (Well, some were very complicated, and others were so easy that they were boring. No in-between!) I decided I didn’t care to spend my December with this Advent calendar, so I stopped after a few days. I bought the girls a cat treat Advent calendar, but when they turned their noses up at the treat for the third day in a row, they lost their Advent calendar privilege. And lastly, I have the above chocolate Advent calendar from Target. It’s… fine. But it’s kinda boring, the same three or four chocolates cycling through the month. The only thing I like about this calendar is that my mom bought the same one, so every day, we FaceTime each other so we can eat the chocolate together. (Aww!) I give this Advent calendar a 6 out of 10; my mom gives it a 5 out of 10. We’d like more variety, so if you have a chocolate Advent calendar you recommend, please let us know for next year!
And here’s my Christmas tree this year. It’s an obnoxiously tall Christmas tree for someone like me (you may notice that the top of the tree is barely decorated, nor have the branches been properly fluffed. And that’s because I have to get on a stepstool to reach the top part of the tree and that’s just not happening these days. I’m just happy I was able to get the star on the top of the tree, whew.
Merry Christmas, my friends! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.
I didn’t notice anything about the top of your tree so it’s not noticeable that it’s not fluffed and has less ornaments! It’s beautiful!
I love that headband! How festive!! And Jenny did great with your secret Santa! That mug is adorable! I do not have any Christmas mugs and I need to change that. I am not a mug collector but I should really get a Christmas one to make the season a little extra special!
You definitely need at least one Christmas mug! Target usually has great options around November/December. I’ve gotten a lot of cute Christmas mugs from them!
Merry Christmas, Stephany! I’m chuckling about your cats being revoked from their Advent calendar! That’s too funny, and so cat-like! Your Christmas tree looks gorgeous, I love your present headband, and it sounds like you’ve had lots of Christmas fun!
They have LOST THEIR PRIVILEGES! They were like, “Can we just have our normal treats? We don’t need this fancy stuff.” SIGH.
I love your Christmas scenes! Go Chip and Lucy for looking at the camera at the same time! I bet that Santa will bring them an extra treat.
Santa was VERY good to them this year! <3
All your photos are lovely, your tree is impressive (didn’t notice the top until you drew my attention there, so maybe don’t :), those cookies look delish, and I’m off to look up peppermint frosting (I don’t think I’ve had it before).
I’m muttering “I don’t need more stuff” to myself, but I really want a Christmas headband like yours, Stephany!
I am tempted to have a whole collection of Christmas headbands, but I really don’t need a whole collection. (But the want is real!)
I like your tree! I would not have noticed the top being less finished if you hadn’t mentioned it. I’m glad you’re having festive fun in all these different ways right now.
As far as chocolate advent calendars, my brother gave me one back in 2019 (thanks, blog, for remembering the year for me), and it had lots of different kinds of chocolates. It was gorgeous, very-very fancy (more than I am, really), and frankly it’s $$$. But it’s a fun idea if you want to go all in! You can see my blog post about it:
https://knit-read-cats-hockey.blogspot.com/2019/12/delectable-daily.html
That’s a lovely advent calendar! Maybe it will go on sale in September/October of next year, HA.
Our Christmas tree is the reverse–all our ornaments are up high in hopes of salvaging them from the toddler. I’ve never really done advent calendars–it sounds like a fun tradition though! The drag show looks like a highlight!
Ha – that makes sense! The cats tend to mess with the ornaments on the bottom, but they didn’t really notice the tree that much this year!
Merry Christmas! Great celebrations!
What cat advent calendar did you get? I got the one from Trader Joes and Muffin and Foxy LOVE the treats. But, Muffin loves all treats and Foxy loves all food of any kind, so maybe they’re not the best judges.
Peppermint frosting, you say??? I may have to get some for next year!
Chip and Lucy sitting on Santa’s lap… that is SO CUTE!!!
The one I got was from Target. I need to try the Trader Joes calendar. They aren’t very picky about their treats, usually, but they were not fans!
I am sorry that the advent calendars were bust this year, but the rest sounds amazing. I also go look at the Christmas decorations through a local neighborhood and it’s always PACKED. I would NOT want to live there during the holiday season… but they always have great decorations (which I will share in a post).
I love your tree! It looks really nice. And are all those present YOURS?? I am going to come over for your Christmas! LOL
Yes, those are all presents from me! I like to spoil my family, but I only buy for my mom, my brother, my nephews, my stepdad, and my SIL, so that means I can go hog-wild, even though I should rein it in, ha.
Oh, and I hit “post comment” too soon. I love the mug that Jenny, your Secret SANta picked out for you! So fitting!
It looks like you had some fun things happening up to Christmas and making the most of it. It was the first year ever that I did not have an advent calendar. I would have gotten one from my mom if I insisted but it was a bit of a planned skip in order to reduce my candy intake.
What a cute mug you received from Jenny. And especially if you have the matching shirt.
I totally understand reducing the sugar intake, especially around the holidays. I’m hoping I can find a better advent calendar next year because this one was lackluster.
Don’t worry, we all feel the TWSS jokes in our hearts! LOL.
Aww the mug and ornament from Jenny are both so cute! Great picks!
That is a bummer about your advent calendars. I LOVED my cat puzzle one. Do you think you’d like something like that?
Wow! Your tree is gorgeous!
Yes, I want your cat puzzle advent calendar. I think you linked it on your blog, but I may have to bug you for the link again. I think that would be so fun! What did you do as you finished each puzzle? Did you display them somewhere, or just destroy them?
I think it was Nicole who linked to the huge Lindt Advent calendar from Costco. It was, I believe, as tall as I am (5 feet, I’m 5’1″ on a good day…). Just sayin’. Think about it for next year… 😉