Christmas and Christmas part two

This year we had a great Christmas (one and two!).  We spent Christmas morning sleeping in and making brunch until we left for Trevor's parent's place around 1pm (such a nice change from the usual rush to get there early in the morning).  All the snow that we had made for a pretty Christmas as well.

On Boxing Day we caught the ferry over to Victoria for Christmas part two with my family.  It was a little hairy getting there (snow and a quirky railway crossing), but all worth the effort!

We were spoiled with presents as well: I got an iPod touch, a new necklace, prints from Etsy, a Henckels bread knife, and winter boots; and Trevor got a new watch, Blu-Ray movies, a jacket and other goodies.  (He also scored a Callaway golf bag for $25 on the day after Boxing Day!!)

On the way to the island, a train crossing decided to activate itself without a train.  It was nice to see everyone helping each other out to get past.

Questionable electrical coordination (not mine...).

Funniest monster slipper shoes ever!

Festive evidence.

Trevor threw a snowball through our pile of snow on the fence.

The little man chowing down on a pair of sunglasses.  He's our festive elf!  :)

Christmas Eve

We had Christmas Eve dinner after all, but we were down one person who was stuck in the snow. Tomorrow's looking promising now for getting out and about for Christmas dinner. So far we've watched Scrooged, It's a Wonderful Life and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation -- I think we're all set for Christmas now!

It just keeps on going...

It's snowed all day now. Just look at our pile of shovelled snow! The Christmas Eve dinner (was) officially cancelled, and tomorrow's Christmas Day dinner/gift unwrapping at Trevor's parent's place is looking a little dodgy. Everyone's dream of a white Christmas has happened all at once!

This is just getting silly now

It's snowing like crazy here today, and it's looking like our annual Christmas Eve dinner will be cancelled. Oh well, we still have our power on, and lots of food to eat!

My favorite garland

Last year I bought colour-changing ornament lights that I couldn't use because I couldn't figure out where I had put the adaptor for them.  Well this year, I found it!  I wound it through one of my favorite parts of our Christmas decor and it looks so cool with the white mini lights and the changing colours of the ornament lights.  Ahhhh...you almost can't see all of the renovation crap in the house!

Tree goodness

I think our tree is having one of it's prettiest years yet.  

Martha's minions are too smart

This is so cute (and a neat way to give a glass jar as a gift!).  If you're crafty, here's the instructions.

My favorite Christmas decor in the house

These are velvety flat red ornaments hanging from a string of mini lights on a mirror in the living room.  So festive!

(And on another note, the countertops have been put it -- there's a few small issues that we're going to have fixed, one being the glue colour not matching well -- but I'll have photos soon!)

Glimpses of our Christmas Tree

Almost done!

Just letting everyone know that my new 'getting Christmas on track sooner' idea is working well so far.  The tree is up (but not decorated yet -- and will not be lit up until Dec. 1), other decor is going up around the house (hiding lingering reno supplies, but I suppose they can be festive too!), I've started gathering supplies for crafty things and baking, and...AND...I'm *thisclose* to finishing my Christmas shopping.  

Fa la la la la...LA!

Exterior illumination

Yes, I've caved and put up Christmas lights nice and early this year.  Even the wreath on the front door went out yesterday.  

(The lights on the tall cedar in the middle of the yard has twinkle LED lights -- which resemble something that NASA would use to land the space shuttle in our front yard.  Oh well.)

4L of milk and a Christmas attack to go, please

We went out and grabbed some much needed groceries last night (it was a drag...literally, both of us just wanted to sleep). Cruising through the aisles, we couldn't help but notice the explosion of Christmas everything all over the place. Even in the meat department there were trees and gigantic Santas all over the place. Add this to the overwhelming amount of Christmas ads on tv and the radio...we feel like we've come back to Christmas-mania! (The worst part for me is a weird underlying panic to start writing lists and think about shopping -- augh!)  

At least the main purpose of going grocery shopping was accomplished. (I think we're having some European withdrawal -- lots of fresh pasta, gnocchi, polenta, lemons, limes...no gelato though *boo*.)

Things have been a tad busy around here...

Quite possibly the best Christmas movie ever...
As I type, Trevor is attempting to unplug the drain (and I mean the big drain pipe, like in the basement) from the 18 potatoes worth of peelings. This was for the mashed potatoes we had with our big dinner with Trevor's family yesterday. Can't say it's all my fault, I was going to put them in a bag and Trevor said 'just garborate them!'. And well, I did...and now...well the kitchen sink and dishwasher are all out of service until the drain is unclogged. Two trips to Home Depot so far today!

We're heading off on the ferry this afternoon to go see my fam on the island. It will be nice to spend Christmas over there with my side of the fam! My mom's Christmas dinner is the ONLY way to go for Christmas Day. I wish that my sister and brother-in-law were spending it with us, but I hope that we're able to go and visit them at the hospital so I can rub that tummy of hers for the first time! (now that's a good Christmas present!)

Hope everyone has a good Christmas as well!

Snowy weekend

It snowed like crazy here this weekend. We got a foot of snow to shovel (ahem, Trevor to shovel). My job is to go outside with a broom and smack the bushes and trees that are getting too weighed down by the snow. Our power stayed on (flickered a little bit), but for the most part it was really pretty to see the snowflakes falling outside the window while we were putting up the tree and doing some Christmas decorating. Trés festive!!!

Evidence of snow accumulation:
Even more came the next day:
And you know it's getting closer to Christmas when you see this on TV:(is it just me or is the log a little bit too early? I guess not if I'm watching it!)

We also spent most of the weekend cleaning (or clearing) the living room for the couch placement and tree area. It was a lot of work, but well worth it in the end (and not to mention, makes the house seem civil for once, no crap in that room!). We didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but hey, at least we made a difference.

Mike and Cynthia came over on Friday night for dinner and a bad-ass game of Skip-Bo (none of us have ever played it). Cynthia cleaned up with winning the game, and the two of them had to go because Cynthia was driving home and her 'L' status doesn't let her drive past midnight. But, we did keep on playing, just the two of us, to see who would have been the loser, lol! Mike came in second, I came in third, and Trevor drowned in his cards and came last...I mean, was the loser. HAHAHA. (Note: We played last night and he did manage to win.)

And now today, I am in panic mode, but also a bit (well a lot) bummed out about something that happened today. I'll put that in a separate post.

So much to do, no time to do it in

I feel like we're fighting an uphill battle with everything that we're trying to get done before we leave on vacation in...(insert crazed woman screaming here) 12 DAYS. Here's what we're attempting to do in those 12 days (keep in mind we both work full time!):

- Finish painting the moulding downstairs (this has been hampered by a, er, mis-measurement on the closet door openings...apparently they are not the same height as regular doors -- who knew? So the existing moulding has to be chopped, shortened, nailed in again, filled again, sanded again and then painted again. And paint touch ups need to happen around that. Plus some mdf has to be installed to adjust the height.

- Finish moulding in the laundry room. Fill, sand, paint. The cabinets in there need to be adjusted as well (it's a little tight!). The bottom cabinet needs to be assembled and installed.

- More paint touch ups.

- Paint doors and closet doors.

- Move and unpack my office downstairs.

- Move the moulding that's made it's home in the living room to another room.

- Unpack the Christmas extravaganza!

And so much more. Christmas cards, shopping, cleaning...and work all on top of that! Where is that cloning machine when you need it?

Fa la la la laaaaaaa...

Panic stations everyone!!! That was the feeling around here on the weekend. We have a list a mile long of things to do before we go on vacation, and one of those things was getting the Christmas lights put up outside. Seeing as it was a warm-ish and dry day on Sunday we figured it was time to get these suckers up.

We're not the 'oh-just-have-a-string-running-on-the-house' type. Oh no. It's the mega blast of external illumination around here. And this year we got a little smarter and bought a pole so we can avoid the suicidal ladder route and just be dangerous with 11 foot long poles instead. Well these pole were wicked bad I tell you -- we have lights in places that we could never do with a ladder. This year we dominated the maple tree out front and the big magnolia tree was a piece of cake. And...we even did the big evergreen with tons of red lights!

There was the unglamorous start though...someone (*ahem* not naming names...) didn't test the set of lights that HE (oh, clue there!) strung on the roof. These lights ended up looking so lame...they were really cool looking snowflakes, but so many of them had burned out. So we had a moment where someone (*ahem*) almost went mental when I hummed and haa-ed at them. And we went to the store and bought some *(&@#@*&!! LED lights (exact wording from the peeved person) so they will take about 650 Christmases to burn out instead.

The illumination will be on December 1st (not now like some crazy people). Can't wait to throw the switch and watch our power gauge on the side of the house start to spin out and smoke! Woo hoo!

Whoops...Merry Christmas!

It was back to moving around the boxes o'crap last night, and I opened the closet door in the spare bedroom and guess what I found??? One of Trevor's Christmas presents from last year -- I forgot to wrap it and give it to him. Oops! It was a hand crank flashlight. I think it was a bigger hit this way for some reason, as this little flashlight will have a story to go along with it for a longgggg time.