Christmas decorations are NOT practical with 3 cats in the house....

The bad news: The cats destroyed the Christmas Tree

The good news: I got some great photos of the tree before the cats destroyed it (see last post).

I don't know what they do while we aren't here, but branches are definitely going in directions that they were not originally.  The evidence:

Full shot of the "hot mess" 

Close up of the damage... notice Meredith lying all innocently in the background.

Yup... no more bow on that gift.  Apparently the cats cannot read because it says "DO NOT TOUCH."

I suppose it could be worse.  It sort of adds character right?  No? OK. Well we do plan to trim the branches on the bottom that are sticking straight down before the whole family arrives on Christmas day! While we're on the subject of the cats, here are a few shots of them recently:

Meredith lounging on the couch.

Sam looking super unimpressed with Nathan.

Meredith "helping" me plan Christmas dinner (more on this later)!

I know what you're thinking... "where the heck is Bubba?"  Recently Bubba has been a wee bit camera shy.  We (and by we I mean I) think he may be having an identity crisis, but he refuses to talk to us (and by us I mean me) about it. We I will keep you updated. 

I know I've completely lost it, but if you had the day I had you'd understand my madness! 

Love Always,

The 24 Year Old Crazy Cat Lady

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer is Singing Loud for All to Hear!

Well... for once in my deeply procrastinated life, I've followed through on something I said I was going to do.  I had a weekend jam packed full of all things Christmas.  Nathan and I don't really get into the whole buy each other a million things for Christmas.   Rather than the immense amount of stress many people feel, we just enjoy getting into the spirit.  It was quite the coincidence that today at Church we were reminded to take a breather and remember what Christmas really is about.  It's not about getting up at 2am to stand in line for a toy that is soon going to be replaced by the next best thing, or about how many lights you can string outside your house.  I'm not saying you can't do that if you enjoy it, but that doesn't sound like fun to me.

I will now stop my rant and give a rundown of the weekend. Saturday consisted of a lot of gathering supplies and Christmas music.  We also watched Garfield Christmas and Elf with Joel, Lynsey and Ella.  Today was when it all came together.  The following a is a pictorial timeline of the weekend! :)

The House

The front yard of the house with snow!

The Happy Little Farmhouse in the winter! Yes, that's our tree on the front porch. 

The lovely wreath we got today!

The Decorations

       

 

              Just some candy in jars I made pretty with all the ribbon leftover from last year!

The DIY centerpiece... a separate post on these will be coming soon!

The stockings were hung by the chimney staircase with care... :)

Bubba Clause... :) 

The chalkboard turned Christmas! This might be my favorite decoration of them all! 

The Tree

Love this one! 

The Village:

If these photos don't put you in the spirit I don't know what will

Merry Christmas!

If at first you don't succeed...

If you are a follower of my "DIY/Crafty Ideas" board on Pinterest you already know I'm a bit obsessed with fabric flowers.  If you are a follower of my life (aka a friend) you know I don't sew.  Imagine my excitement when I found a tutorial here at lillyella that didn't require sewing! Jackpot.

She has a great tutorial on how to make the pretty little rosettes and I got super excited.  On my last trip to Burlington I made sure to stock up at Michael's and Joanne's on all the materials I needed! I finally sat down to give it a good ole college try on Sunday.  My track record with the "college" try hasn't been so great and I'm pretty certain I was doomed from the start.  Here are a few photos of the process:

The materials: 

Fabric, Craft Glue*, ribbons, scissors, card stock, iron, pin backs, felt.

*See my thoughts on why I failed below

First I cut the fabric into strips (for details please see the link to the tutorial above)

Than I ironed the fabric so it would stay folded like above.

Finished product of rosette number 1.

Finished product of the three that I made.

I tried gluing them to the ribbon because the glue didn't hold to the pin back.

Perhaps you are thinking that it doesn't look like a terrible failed attempt.  They look pretty good, but i'm almost certain that they will fall apart after any wear.  It was a decent first attempt, but definitely not the best.  I think part of my problem lied in the glue and the fabric.  If I had a hot glue gun it definitely would have helped, and I think that the fabric that they used in the tutorial was a bit different.  Either way, if at first you don't succeed, try again! 

I found another tutorial that requires very little sewing.  I'm also going to invest in a hot glue gun so I can use the pin backs and hair clips that I bought! I'm going to give this one from Everyday Chaos a shot next time.  I'll let you know how it turns out!

If you really love Christmas...

If you have never seen the movie Love Actually you are seriously missing out and should stop reading now and go rent it.  It is technically a movie about Christmas, but it's so much more than that. It seemed fitting that I shared a song from the movie to start a blog about Christmas. Notice I said Christmas and not the holidays. I will not go on a rant about this, but just take note. Enjoy the tunes:

The scene: Brandi at the bank looking at the Christmas decorations thinking "holy crap, Christmas is in 20 days."  I literally did not think about the fact that it's almost Christmas until this moment. Living in Northern Vermont the Christmas season usually punches you in the face in the form of lots and lots of snow.  Until today there has been no snow (except for a couple of days in November), which has thrown me way off! The only "Christmas" decor in my house right now are snowman coasters.  I'm pretty sure Nathan and I own more coasters than any other mid-twenties couple in the world, but this is a subject for another post all together. 

Add all this to the fact that I'm hosting Christmas dinner for our families this year and having a Christmas party for our friends and I am spiraling into a slight state of panic.  The logical thing would be to actually start decorating.  Instead I have been pinning "ideas." Go me!  We do have plans to get a tree and decorate this weekend, but in the mean time the following are some fun ideas I have for the party and to make the house look "a lot like Christmas."  

I could very easily do this with a piece of wood and leftover chalkboard paint!

Love these burlap stockings!

We will be hanging our stockings on the staircase this year since we don't have a mantle!

Cute and easy to decorate like this.

Might try to make this for a centerpiece for the table.

Definitely doable... but a G of course!

Martha's Cheese Ball!

Caramel Coated Brie

Made these cookies already for Halloween! It will be much easier with my new mixer!

Hot Chocolate Bar

These are the plans so far... hopefully I'll actually get my act together this weekend and get some of this stuff done! I'll be sure and post some photos when I do! Merry Christmas!