Christmas Exploded All Over Our House

that's the text message my dear husband got last week while I was decorating for Christmas. I had tupperware containers everywhere with all kinds of ornaments, garland, wrapping paper and odds & ends. I guess I went a little wild at the after Christmas sales last year-- remind me that I don't need to buy anything when the sales roll around in January, okay? ;-) I tried to go a little bit more modern and fun this year. I packed away all of my gold and went with more of a red & white candy theme.

I'll start with the entryway:

The candy dish is from Kirkland's and the little Christmas sign is from a local craft fair:

 I believe I got the "ho ho ho" letters at Pier One last year. The tin tray was a Hobby Lobby find last week and the candle is from B&BW. Mike picked out the scent this weekend-- Homemade Cookies. Heavenly!!

The mantel-- the wreath is from Pier One. I put the garland together with greenery from Wal~Mart, & mesh ribbon, decorative picks, and ribbon from Hobby Lobby. The stockings are also from Hobby Lobby-- can you tell it's my favorite place?! 

 

 I always add ribbon and a decorative pick to my lamps-- I went with a completely different color scheme this year-- red & white:

  

 The tree! 

I plan on making a proper Christmas tree skirt but the temporary fix is just a big piece of red burlap.

 I made my tree topper this year-- I used styrofoam disks, red felt, wooden dowel rods and cellophane to make "candy". I really like the way it turned out.

   

 The chargers are from Target, the glasses are from Pottery Barn, and I've had the Santa teapot for years. You can't see them but I have some adorable jingle bell napkin rings that I got at Pier One last year. I can't wait to set the table and use everything for Christmas dinner this year! 

Last Minute Thanksgiving

Before I head off to the grocery to fight off last minute shoppers I wanted to blog my Thanksgiving decorating pics and a fun little survey I saw on another blog. 

1. Well normally I cook standard Thanksgiving stuff--all vegan-ized of course: green bean casserole, mashed potatoes & gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, stuffing and instead of turkey, a Field Roast Celebration Roast. This year however, we're totally changing it up and having Thai food with my family! I am so excited to do something completely different.

2. We usually alternate between my family and Mike's family. If it's a year with my family, they drive to Arkansas and celebrate here with us. If it's a year with Mike's family we head to Chapel Hill, NC.

3. The one tradition I have is to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade while I cook.

4. I look forward to dessert! Last year I made a caramel apple pie, a pumpkin cheesecake, and a pumpkin pie. This year I'm making chocolate peanut butter cups (sinfully delicious!), pumpkin pie and a caramel apple pie.

5. It will be a small celebration this year, just four of us-- me, Mike & my mom and dad.

6. I usually decorate on Black Friday but this year I changed it up and started on Monday. The entire house is almost finished!

7. I always Black Friday shop-- but we only get up at an insane hour if there's something specific we're looking for. This year I plan on sleeping in and hitting up the stores with my mom in the afternoon.

8. Something comfy! Usually jeans or leggings and a top.

9. Negative.

10. I've cooked Thanksgiving dinner on my own since I got married. Very proud of that! ;-)

A few Thanksgiving decor pics:

can you see the creepy cat in this pic? Scary!

Hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Winter Wonderland Date Night

On Saturday Mike and I went to the Winter Wonderland Lighting of the Square event in Bentonville. It was so much fun! It was also the grand opening of the new ice skating rink-- (we decided to watch this time, not skate)  plus lots of music, vendors and Christmas lights. 

Such a great day.

 Mike being a dork as usual :)

  

 After checking out the rink, we headed to dinner at our favorite Thai place right off the Square. We still had some time to kill before the lighting so we headed over to a new frozen yogurt place-- which also happens to have two vegan sorbets! It might not sound like much, but any place to get a vegan dessert in our area is a big deal! This picture of Mike cracks me up:

I got a mixture of the mango and the valencia orange... so freaking good!

Okay, back to the Square! Can you tell we live in Arkansas?? 

 one of my favorite restaurants is shown in this pic--- Table Mesa. Fantastic Mexican food!

 The first W@l-Mart-- it's a museum and it's currently being remodeled. 

  no town square is complete without a courthouse:

 the sun finally went down and it was time for some Christmas lights!

  

please tell me you're watching this

my favorite show right now! 

and Mike and I got to meet this zombie at Dragon*Con!

Zombies and AMC? You can't go wrong.

The Christmas House

**edited to add-- I have no idea why some of the pictures are only loading a little bit-- you can still click on them and see the whole tree.*

Here's the S@m's Club Christmas home. Every room had a tree and most trees had themes. All the decor and trees can be purchased at S@m's.

the formal dining room:

 the foyer:

 the formal living room:

 the game room:

 little girl's room:

 guest bedroom:

 family room tree and mantel decor:

 master bedroom tree:

 little boy's room:

  some iPhone shots of the family room and dining area:

Showcase of Homes

Last month my friend Amy and I attended the Shadow Valley Showcase of Homes. All the proceeds went to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fund and I thought it would be a fun way to spend a Saturday.We toured the six different homes. Most were still for sale and one was a custom build that a family lived in. 

I'm going to start with the more "unique" choices the homeowners made. This is a bedroom and bathroom in the custom home:

The best way I can describe the custom home is it was kind of a gothic log cabin... very interesting.

And the master bathroom in the custom home:

Definitely not my favorite! The best part of the custom was the master closet. This pic shows about a tenth of the room. It was enormous and fabulous!

Since we live in the land of W@lmart, every year they sponsor one of the homes and every single item in it comes from their stores. I'm talking furniture, art, linens, dishes, everything! Surprisingly it was my favorite house on the tour! Here are some pics of the WM house:

The little girl's room was much cuter in person although the high water curtains annoyed me:

loved this part of the master bath:

S@m's Club sponsored the Christmas themed home-- every room was decked out for the holidays. I'll put that post together next--- lots of Christmas inspiration!