november backlogs: tis the season

As soon as you break out the eggnog, the time has come. It's the holiday season. 

We had our first eggnog over at Colin and Victoria's house, sprinkled with nutmeg and all, and it was like a big whoosh! Here come the spices, the cinnamons, the pumpkin spice lattes, the winter time, the desserts, the festive feelings, the Christmas. 

Obviously Thanksgiving comes first, but in our household, there's a thing called Winter Wonderland. 

You see, Winter Wonderland can't be rushed, thrown up and torn down between December 1st and January 1st. It's a thing to be savored, it's a feature. It's grand and mighty and yes, it supersedes Thanksgiving. 

Therefore, November 23rd, 2013, this happened:

Winter Wonderland is a commitment.
I spend weeks beforehand, shopping online and adding things to my wishlist, carefully eliminating the unnecessary (let's be honest, all of this is unnecessary -- but sometimes the unnecessary things are the most fun!). This cat bed was by far my favorite purchase. Luna spent a lot of time in it this winter, and it was seriously the cutest.

By the time I had WW'd our apartment, it was pretty legendary.

Let us take a tour, shall we?

I think I really outdid myself this year. Granted, it was easier, because I had the basics from last year still in our collection. I can only imagine what Winter Wonderland will be like in ten years!

So that was the downstairs. Glowing, cheery, detailed, crazy. 

I did a little bit of decoration in our bedroom last year, but decided to kick it up with a notch with some upstairs bathroom decorations, and some more in our bedroom!

I loved this giant red Santa shower curtain, and Dusty has always loved penguins. 

Our bedroom was the best. Man, I love Christmas.

Like last year, I did all of this in one day, while Dusty was out of the house studying.
It's a really fun surprise (and a lot of work, I think I went through 8 Christmas movies), and something that I'd love to continue in the years to come.
I think in the future it'll have to be something he helps me with, though, but hopefully I can still whip up a few surprises here and there.

Like this one:

Haha! Dusty has always joked (or maybe he's secretly serious -- I can never tell) about dressing our cats up in costumes, which I think is an absolutely horrible idea. I'm already enough of a cat lady, I don't ever want to cross that line into calling our cats my children and dressing them in dresses and hats.
So while he was studying intensely that afternoon, I went to Target to run some errands, and saw this santa hat for $5. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. I grabbed this photo of Eva and sent it in a text message to Dustin, and pretty much made his entire life.


When he got home that night we were able to set up and decorate the tree, which was the cherry on top of a great Winter Wonderland weekend.

I made caramel-filled apple cider cookies, served with cold eggnog, and we watched Love, Actually (which he had never seen).

One of the best things about setting up our tree is pulling out all of the new Christmas ornaments we've collection over the year.

We love to try and get a Christmas ornament whenever we travel somewhere, so this year we were able to add Paris, London, Charleston SC, Blowing Rock NC, and a few others!

Some of the new additions included a handful of Harry Potter ornaments my dad got for us. 

They're awesome. 

Since this was our very last Christmas in Virginia, it was pretty bittersweet.
Our first Christmas here was really simple and fun, and our second was the introduction of Winter Wonderland, and found us much more at home in Lynchburg. Both of those years we set up our tree, and had little mini-Christmases with just the two of us before heading home to Arizona for the actual holiday.
This year was different, because we were spending the actual holiday in Virginia. The first and only time we've ever been away from Arizona for Christmas. Luckily Dusty's family was going to be visiting, which would be wonderful! But it was still a big deal for us.

We still did one thing the same, though -- we always start our tree with the first Christmas ornament we ever received, an engagement Mickey and Minnie ornament from my brother and sister-in-law.

2011

2012

2013

Our tree is now a sad little crumpled thing, which we will be throwing out after this year.
It has served us well.
It has been a climbing post for our cats, mostly, but it has served us well, in allowing our home to be the Winter Wonderland that it is.

In love,

Cait

Winter Wonderland!

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

Okay, I might be a little bit early.

But the upcoming weekends are crammed (we're going to Georgia next weekend, and then it's the home stretch to Dusty's law school finals!) and then we leave for Arizona from Dec 21st - Jan 3rd.
Dusty and I had our own little Christmas weekend last year, so we plan to do the same thing this year, on December 15th.
We exchange presents, have coffee and hot chocolate, watch a Christmas movie...all the normal Christmasy things!

With all those things going on, we'd have very little time to really enjoy Christmas decor.
And this year, I wanted to go all out. 

So I wanted to have at least 3-4 weeks to actually enjoy it!
Thus, this weekend, Winter Wonderland happened.

Sorry for all of the How I Met Your Mother references, but in season 2, they have the most magnificent Christmas.
Lily decorates the apartment while Marshall is studying for one last paper (Marshall is also in law school).

He comes out of his room with his eyes closed, not wanting to see "Winter Wonderland", because it would be his reward later that night for finishing his paper!

Marshall: Save me at least twenty cookies, and DO NOT lick the bowl! Was that a reindeer? I DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

So for my very own law school hubby, I decided to have our own Winter Wonderland.
This past Saturday, he went to school all day to study, and I got to work!

But first things first.

Welcome to our cozy abode!

Our apartment is small and narrow, and one of the coziest place of all time.
We both can't wait to finish school and get our first house, but this has turned out to be a pretty lovely home for us.
We separated the living room from the dining room/kitchen area with a large room dividing shelf, which holds our large collection of movies!

 We have a little bathroom to the left, between the dining room and kitchen.

We have finally arranged our kitchen just the way we like it.
It was tricky arranging everything so that we still have the space to move around, and fix meals!

Our woodsy kitchen view!

The child-like drawing is by my adorable husband, on a dry erase frame I made.

Upstairs, we have two bedrooms and another bathroom.
The second bedroom is used as a study/craft room/guest room, and is in serious transition/remix mode. I hope to document the changes soon, and blog about the finished product!
I also left the bathroom out of this post, because I'm also dreaming of a complete color change...
I mostly just focused on the areas I decorated for Winter Wonderland :)

Our apartment is almost entirely thrifted, and we like to call this spectacular dresser our "Chronicles of Narnia" dresser.

My vanity corner.

On Saturday, I cleaned and began the preparations for the great Winter Wonderland transformation!
I started with a hearty warm breakfast, and great Christmas classics to play in the background!

Over the past few weeks, I had been meticulously shopping, thrifting and making lists of what I needed to put together to pull this off!

And before long, it started coming together!

Welcome to Winter Wonderland.

I squealed when I found this Christmas kitten throw!

Speaking of kittens, they have become obsessed with the penguin blanket, ironically.

I made this little Santa at our local pottery painting studio - it's called All Fired Up!
I went with a friend, and decided to make a Dallas Cowboys Santa to sit on our coffee table especially for Dusty.

This was another one of my favorite finds - a stocking holder!
We don't have a fireplace (therefore, no mantel) but I knew I wanted to actually have stockings this year.
I got a lot of these things on two really fun sites - orientaltrading.com, and collectionsetc.com.

I have a lot of favorites, but I love the way our Christmas table turned out.
I found the adorable dishes at Good Will (the best place to look! 50 cents a piece, in perfect condition!) and used a few things I already had, then filled in the rest at Ross, the dollar store and Joann's.

The seat covers I found on Amazon!

Easy peasy, cost effective Christmas decor: fill your existing frames with patterned wrapping paper!

The bathroom saw quite the transformation!

I always wondered when Santa had the time to go over his long lists...

Another favorite. How cute is this little nativity?

Now for the kitchen!
Simple, but cute - I love the lights!

I didn't actually tell Dusty that I was decorating our bedroom.
So far, it has been my favorite part of the decor.
The downstairs is fun for us and our friends, and is so much fun to come home to.
But the bedroom is more private, and is like our own little secret.
Except that I'm showing it to all of you.
But still :)

I was giddy when I found this wall sticker of a snow scene window.

So cute! And maybe goofy, but I love it.

Officially my favorite Christmas candle.

I am so proud of the pillows.
Pillows can be so expensive, and all of the ones I liked the best were upwards of $30.

But then I found the cutesie little reindeer pillow at Ross, for $6.
And I made the other two!

They're funny and quirky, and I made them from scratch!
I bought the Sharpie fabric markers from Amazon, and the fabric from Joann's.
I already had the pillow stuffing from another project!

Winter Wonderland has been the best.
Last night was so cozy and fun!

All we have left to do is put up our Christmas tree together. I can't wait!
We had so much fun last year, which was our first Christmas as a married couple!

I'll be sure to post pictures of the actual finished product, tree and all.

Before and after!

I hope you all had a great weekend, too!

What are your plans for Christmas decorating?

Talk to you all soon,

In love,
Cait