Home for the Holidays

I've spent the last god knows how long attempting to start of this post with a video I took of my mother's rotating Christmas tree. There clearly is no video, but know that it was glorious, chock-full of super nice blown glass ornaments, and it rotated. This was a new addition to her already impressive Christmas set up. She has a lot of ornaments (like, a lot a lot) but not a lot of space for a big tree so the rotating allows her to display as much as possible. I was impressed. 

Anyway, yeah. I went home to North Carolina for Christmas!

Lots of precautions were taken, making sure we got tested before and after, traveling by car (14 hour drive, ugh) and vastly reducing the places we visited while there to limit exposure but it was SO worth it as I got to be there for my nephew's first Christmas and besides, after this year, it was nice to end it with some family time. 

I mentioned before that I was doing a lot of making for Christmas and this was one of the handmade gifts. My sister is a big Golden Girls fan and had given me this book of Golden Girls cross stitch patterns so of course I had to make her something for Christmas featuring one of her favorite characters.

The thing I'm most proud of though, is this Christmas stocking for M. My whole family has handmade Christmas stockings so I couldn't let M go without one. My mom made the actual stocking using some pre-quilted material and sewed the binding on the cuff- I just did the cross stitch bit.

I couldn't bear to make him a "normal" one which M, of course, greatly appreciated. Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like a large evil robot destroying a neighborhood with his laser beam eyes, right?

I couldn't let that evil go unchecked on such a special day though so on the back I sewed good ol' Saint Nick defeating the robot with his ornament hand grenades. 

It was a fantastic yet all too short trip- we had to get back in time to get tested before returning to work, per regulations. M took it upon himself to drive the entire way back home so I had a lot of chill time (I have a sneaking suspicion that my driving on the way down alarmed him, though I can't imagine why...). My sister got me a JavaSok, one for hot coffee (above) and one for cold. I highly recommend them! ...but maybe not the 7-Eleven coffee. Desperate times and all.

We've been doing a good job keeping busy doing our post-trip quarantine though, partially because my family bought us a Switch! Mike got Zelda Breath of the Wild and I got Super Mario 3D All-Stars and I'm currently working through Super Mario 64. I'm looking into getting Animal Crossing though, and would definitely take more game recommendations! 

For New Years Eve, we set up a Zoom party with our friends. We dressed up, chose a cocktail, chatted and played a party game! It was fun and even though we stayed home, it still felt like a celebration. It was also nice to get dressed up. I took the opportunity to don my beautiful silk metallic embroidered hoari (a jacket meant to be worn over a kimono) which I bought on my trip to Japan, along with a long, excellently swooshy and shiny skirt I recently bought at Uniqlo to really round out my Japanese inspired get up. I mostly think I looked like a fancy witch though, but I'm not mad.

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M took his inspiration from a Mr. Bean t-shirt I got him for Christmas and the Mr. Bean New Years party episode we watched recently (M is a long time fan. He also does a pretty good impression. I definitely picked a winner 😊). He wore this shirt, a bowtie (he didn't want to hide the shirt with a regular tie) and a blazer. And I of course made him a party hat. We were clearly the best dress couple.

Our signature cocktail was The New Englander- a Moxie-based cocktail made with, of course, Moxie, gin, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and a lime wedge. Moxie is a very polarizing soda- you either love it or hate it. Adding gin and Worcestershire sauce might not sound like it's doing it any favors but I assure you, it's a delicious cocktail and tastes vaguely like NECCO wafers. 

For New Year's Day, I decided to break in my new dutch oven. Isn't she a beaut? I've been wanting one for ages and am glad to have one in this pretty blue. I figured I needed to make something extra special what with it being the first day of the year and all so I made some beef bourguignon, Julia Child's recipe no less.

It took about 3 or so hours all told but it was so worth it. It was a hit, though I don't think you could go wrong with some beef simmered in a bottle of wine for a couple hours. 

Served with a good chunk of garlicky baguette. Luckily this makes ton so we'll be good to go for a while.

Today I gave myself the sad task of taking down all the Christmas decorations. It's nice to have the house back to normal I suppose, but it's always a bittersweet chore. This time, I decided to take a picture of all my ornaments, partially to share but also I'll be interested to see how my collection grows by next Christmas.

They basically fall into 4 categories as shown above- birds, which I love to have hovering around the top of the tree, fill, which is exactly what it sounds like, sentimental, which I got from my parents house a couple years ago, and fun, which are largely space themed but not necessarily on purpose.

A lot of the sentimental ones were given to me by my grandparents, including the small Hallmark nursery rhyme books (they open and close!) which they gave me from 1993 to 1997. Its nice to have those up and read my grandmother's recognizable scrawl on the side of the boxes. 

I'm glad my "fun" category is growing though- if I buy ornaments myself now, they usually fall into that category. A friend of ours was clearing out his Christmas stash and is going to give me some Hallmark Star Trek ship ornaments so it's only going to get better! Aside from those, my goal is to make some for myself next year. I'll have to start early though as I always take on so many projects for other people around the holidays that I never find the time.

Since that was a lot of (kinda sad) work, I intend to get as much done on this No Face cross stitch as possible while lazing on the couch watching murder mysteries. Tomorrow I might do some much needed cleaning... or I'll continue with this. Plenty of time to be productive when vacation is over. Besides, one of my big new years resolutions is to finish what I start so I'm not allowing myself any new projects until this is done.

And lastly, check out my sweet needle minder. It always makes me smile and think of M, my own personal Mr. Bean. That, and I've stopped dropping my needles so much only to find them when I step on them later on...

I hope everyone had a great holiday and has a fantastic new year! It can't be any worse than 2020, right? 

...right?

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