Christmas Tree

Despite the lack of extra space in our condo every year I make space for a real Christmas tree.  Once we have a bigger place I have told my husband to expect 2 trees but for now I enjoy the one I have room for.

This year I decided just to decorate using all my sentimental ornaments and a bunch of purple and silver balls.

I have my tree on a timer so it is always on when I walk in the door from work and turns itself off around bedtime. It is really nice to walk into a lit Christmas tree but in reality it is on a timer because the plug is way behind the tree and hard to reach.

My birthday is on Christmas so one of my sisters bought me this fun Mickey Mouse Happy Birthday ornament a few years ago.

This is one of my Santa Clauses that my grandparents bought me when I was younger. This Santa is covered in beads so it is remarkably heavy.

My grandmother bought me this wooden carved Santa on a trip to Branson, Missouri.

I love monkeys so it is not surprising that that I have a few monkeys that people have given me over the years on my tree. I don't remember who gave me this one but I love it.

I love my little tree and all the fun ornaments that bring me happy memories. I almost never throw away ornaments so my collection just keeps growing.  At the rate I am going I might eventually need 3 trees to house all my ornaments.

Stitch Fix #7

This month I wasn't as thrilled with my Stitch Fix as I have been in previous months.  I didn't have my photographer (aka handsome husband) around to take photos of me in the clothes so I took pictures of just the clothes.  It also could have something to do with the fact that one of the pieces was too small.

This cute grey sweatshirt was the one piece that I ended up keeping.  It has a pattern on the body and a different pattern on the sleeves to make it interesting.  It looks great with my jeans for weekend wear.

When I pulled this dress out of the box it looked like it had potential.  Nice color, nice shape, waaaaay too short.  My butt was almost hanging out the bottom of this dress so it very quickly went back in the box to go back.

Turtle necks and I are not really friends so I didn't have high hopes for this sweater. Oddly, I love scarves but I hate the way a turtle neck feels.  I always feel like there is too much fabric on them.

I didn't like these jeans when I saw all the fading on the legs and it really sealed their death when they wouldn't even get over my butt.  These jeans went back immediately. 

This purse was cute on the inside but I wasn't crazy about the chain. I like the size of this gold purse with a strap but it was too big for me to carry as a clutch so since I didn't like the strap (which was removable) so back it went.

Not my favorite box this month but I am still looking forward to getting my box next month.  If you want to get your own box feel free to use my link.

Disneyland at Christmas

Since I have an annual pass to Disneyland this year I was really wanting to get down there to see the Christmas decorations.  This past weekend my mom and I took a little trip to do just that. Warning: this post may contain picture overload!

I, of course, couldn't go without wearing some of my fun Disney hair accessories.  I don't get to wear them anywhere else so I try to take advantage of my opportunities.

Disney definitely takes its holiday decorating seriously and I am always impressed at all the small details.  Apparently this has been done at Disneyworld for a few years but this is the first time I have seen the Jungle Cruise turned into the Jingle Cruise at Disneyland.  The premise of the ride is that all the holiday decorations and supplies that had been ordered never arrived at the way-station.  They are instead found all over the ride and put the various uses.

The elephants are enjoying some Christmas wreaths and colored balls.

There are all kinds Christmas decorations scattered throughout the ride but I had to laugh when I saw fruitcake floating in the water.  My dad loves fruitcake but of course Disney took the opportunity to make traditional fruitcake jokes.  Almost all the jokes on the ride are actually new and holiday related.

After going on the Jingle Cruise my mom and I made our way over to Holiday Haunted Mansion stopping to ride other rides on the way.  Not the best picture of us but still fun.

After riding lots of rides and admiring the decorations my mom and I hopped on the train to ride around the park before heading to California Adventure to eat lunch.  Riding the train is always a nice way to see the park and rest your feet at the same time.  The train station at Main Street was all decorated for Christmas with blue 60th anniversary accents too.

We discovered that our best kept secret of eating lunch in the lounge of Carthay Circle is no longer a secret at all.  There were lots of people there but that didn't stop us from having a fun lunch.  We sat at a table with a group of guys who were definitely have a good time.  I didn't manage to take a picture of our food but I did capture our pretty drinks before we slurped them up.

After going back to our hotel for a little rest during the hottest, busiest part of the afternoon we returned to a magical sparkly wonderland.  Your really can't beat the beauty of Disneyland all lit up with Christmas decorations.  

We wanted to spend the evening in Disneyland (we only had one night in the parks) but we went into California Adventure for a just a bit to see it all lit up.  The big tree was gorgeous and there were so many fun ornaments. There was even a train set going around the bottom.  I wish we had more time to go further into the park to see the rest the decorations all lit up but we had to make do with what we saw.

It was too crowded to ride It's a Small World that night but we watched the clock show and admired the lights.  Don't worry we went back the next day to see the inside all done up for Christmas but the  outside is by far best at night.

There is a special 60th anniversary parade called Paint the Night that I had been hearing wonderful things about so we braved the crowds and watched the parade.  The braving part didn't happen during the parade but the hour or so we had to stand around waiting for the parade to start.  The parade was indeed fantastic complete with Belle all lit up.

We stopped to admire the huge ginormous Christmas tree on Main Street before heading back to our hotel.  After all day on our feet I can say we both slept well and we were up bright and early the next day to head back to the park.

We only had until the early afternoon in the parks on Sunday but we managed to ride just about everything we had missed on Saturday in Disneyland.  We missed a few fun rides in California Adventure but I have a pass so I know I will be back soon.

More Christmas Decorations...

Our condo is definitely decked out for Christmas.  I tried not to go too crazy with decorations in our small space but I am not sure how successful I was this year.

I was born on Christmas so every year for my birthday (until I was 18) my grandparents gave me a Santa Claus of some sort.  Sometimes they were statues, sometimes they were ornaments and sometimes they were something else completely.  Needless to say I have quite a collection of Santa Clauses.  Many of them are still at my parents house (thanks parents) but quite a few of them have made it into my collection of decorations.  This wooden Santa is one of my many Santas.

This little guy is one of my early childhood Santas so he is not in the best of shape anymore.  His bag is no longer attached to his hand but it just means he is well loved.

This Santa actually has an armless friend (twin) at my parents house somewhere.  My grandmother (and grandfather) had a matching Santa and after my grandmother died a few years ago this Santas friend came with me.  I always called this Santa the toothpaste Santa because the buckle on his belt looked like toothpaste to my eight year old self.  Well, it made sense at the time.

I am loving the combination of silver, red and green in my wooden bowl this year.  

I have a few more decorations and a tree to talk about but I didn't want to totally overwhelm people with pictures so the tree gets its own post later in the week.

It is Starting to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Tuesday night my husband got tired of me talking about getting our tree and said let's just go get a tree.  He doesn't have any strong need for a real tree but he humors me. Another reason why I love him.

We went to our local Home Depot and I picked out the prettiest Douglas Fir tree.  I debated between a Noble Fir and a Douglas Fir but decided to go with the Douglas Fir this year.  Can't beat a nice fluffy Christmas tree.

There were those fun cutout characters at the tree lot.  I tried to get my husband to be in a picture but he only humors me so much.  He agreed to take my picture instead.

We brought our tree home and I set it up in the living room.  I have one of those fancy tree stands that lets you use a foot petal to adjust your tree.  You just put the tree in the stand and you can adjust it in all directions to make sure it is straight.  Notice how straight my tree is? Such a good invention! 

My tree was a little wet so I decided to let it hang out in my condo overnight before I started to put lights and ornaments on it. I am still not done decorating (life happens) so in the meantime here are a few photos of some of my other decorations that I was able to put up.  

Next week I will have a full post on all my various Christmas decorations and if you know me you will know I don't take Christmas decorating lightly so there will be many decorations.