The joys of the holiday

It’s Christmas time, right? The time of year when the malls are crowded with hoardes of people in search of the perfect gift, amazing ‘sales’, and holiday songs fill the air 24-7. It may also be that time when people (okay, women) let crazy ideas take over, try to do too much and generally get a little crazy. Okay, fine, a LOT crazy. 

Well… I may or may not fit into that category. Twist my arm, why dontcha?! Here’s how I fell down the rabbit hole.

My husband’s family doesn’t really have a family Christmas celebration. They’re involved in the local Christmas dinner banquet, helping host or serve. I, on the other hand, LOVE Christmas. My family has several different traditions (see me next week!). I couldn’t bear the thought of no real celebration, early or late, with his family. Family isn’t around forever and I want to make the most of the holidays while the grandparents are still with us. 

Our Charlie Brown tree

This is our first REAL Christmas. Last year, well, not so much. We had no decorations, I had two suitcases of clothes to my name and I was in a different country. Eh? So I count this year as our first real Christmas. We have a real tree; apparently everyone in this area prefers the fake type of tree. Well, last year, we had a baby faux Charlie Brown tree. This year, the tree is awesome.

Right around Thanksgiving I started brainstorming ideas for decorating. Pintrest is my new best friend. My poor hubby adores that site with all his heart (sarcasm anyone?). I, true to my Scandinavian roots, decided to go with a Nordic-styled tree décor. With a few of my childhood ornaments thrown in as well. 

Every time I go to town for groceries or a bit of shopping or what have you, I pick up a few holiday decorations. It’s best to slowly build one’s stash of holiday décor. It looks more like several small, nice sized bites on the budget when I do the books. Ha. 

Then I decided that I couldn’t possibly stand the mish mash décor style of my porch, one of the few rooms untouched (before my reign in the house). So, thankfully due to my long-range thinking, I still had paint left over from when I painted the garage. Intentionally.  Hehe. I used the same color scheme in the porch as I had in the garage. Then to add a bit of interest I stenciled a Dala horse - flower - moose border around the walls. A nod to heritage and my new country.

My hubby thought the porch was done and could go back to normal. Not so! I looked at this one wall that just had coat hooks on it and all the space in the porch that was going unused. And then I thought of how little storage space this house has. Naturally, I came to the conclusion that we should build a closet in the porch. ‘We’ should build. I mean, we already had two doors we could use. It’s just a matter of building the walls and putting a track and hooks on for the doors. I, of course, will be in the shop sanding down the doors and painting them a different color; seeing as how they're stained different colors. Sliding doors are more efficient in this case, especially if you have several people in the porch. 

Then came the added caveat: I would like the closet done and the porch completely wrapped up, ‘done, ma’am, done!’ style BEFORE the Christmas party with his family. The same party that will be hosted at our house. OUR. House.

 

Our Nordic-inspired tree :)

Uff da. Now when I think about it and all the cooking (do not mention the cleaning!) to do, I kind of wonder what I got myself into. On the bright side, it’s all done before the holidays and after the new year I can get into the shop to build another set of end tables. Then if we were to actually go for a holiday somewhere warm, it’s one less project that needs to be done before spring aka a new work season. 

Oh, and bonus, we really only have two weeks in which to get this project done. Yes, it has to be done before Christmas since we’ll be with my family for a few days on Christmas and come back just in time to cook, clean and throw a party. What better way to throw a party?

Uff. Da.

Two weeks + build a closet + put track doors on = ?

Will we get it done?

P.S.  Holiday cards are a crazy business. Eh?!