Tag Archives: christmas tree

Holiday Hiatus

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As you may have guessed, the lack of posts the past week was due to my week-long holiday vacation at home. My boyfriend, who shall be referred to solely as “Tall Guy” going forward, and I got back to Philly on Saturday night and were perfectly happy doing nothing yesterday since we were so tired from our trip! Going home for the holidays is always really fun, but it’s also SUPER exhausting. On top of the holiday hubbub, it was Tall Guy’s first time meeting my family (yikes!) and seeing my neck of the woods, and only his second time in Boston, so we had a lot of bases to cover in a short amount of time. Hence the aforementioned exhaustion.

Not pictured: Tree trimming, parking at South Shore Plaza the weekend before Christmas, Amtrak station at 7:30 am the Monday before Christmas, breakfast at the Mug, a pottery shop sale, Tall Guy running on 2 hours of sleep, Christmas Eve Yankee Swap hot-ticket item Dirty Water rum tasting like grain alcohol, driving around looking at Christmas lights late Christmas Eve, looking at luminary-lined streets in Tinkertown with the car headlights off, snow falling exactly as the clock struck 12 on Christmas, the 2+ hours it took us to open presents on Christmas morning, watching A Christmas Story all day but still not seeing the movie in its entirety, tearing the basement apart in search of a lost TV remote, our hilarious Sam Adams tour guide Grace, playing Think While You Drink for 3 hours, tequila shots, a snowy owl sighting and flight delays.

I hope your holiday was as fun-filled as mine! x

A Few of My Favorite Things (Part 4)

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I have a crystal clear memory of one Christmas morning when I was very young. I walked out of my bedroom and immediately spotted a present at the end of the hallway. When I turned the corner into the living room, I could see that we had so many presents under our Christmas tree that the present at the end of the hallway was not, in fact, forgotten by Santa, but placed there because he ran out of room everywhere else! We had an unbelievable amount of presents to open that year and it felt like it took us the entire day to get through everything!

Being older and wiser, I now know that there probably were not millions of presents for us to open and it most likely didn’t take all day, but I’ll never forget the way I felt when I walked out and saw all those presents that morning. It was, for lack of a better word, magical.

Christmas never feels as magical as it does when you’re a kid, but I still cannot wait to go home for the holidays every year. Christmas isn’t just about gifts, it’s about family and traditions and trees! And food. Lots of food.

I leave Philly for Boston this Friday night and I could not be more excited. I love everything about spending the holidays at home.

I love our Christmas decorations and the fact that we have a working fireplace that gets used fairly often.
I love my mom’s cooking and brunch on Christmas morning.
I love decorating the tree and re-discovering all of my favorite ornaments every year.

dad and tree

I wasn’t home for last year’s tree buying, so I had to give my text message approval.

I love that our tree topper is a starfish that my parents got when they lived in Aruba way back when.
I love the party we go to on Christmas Eve at my dad’s cousin’s house in Rhode Island.
I love that we always drive around to look at Christmas lights on our way home from that party.
I love the fact that I still wake up first on Christmas morning.
I love that we always open our stockings first and that my mom always puts an orange in the foot of them.
I love hosting a party at our house on Christmas night.
I love that my brother, sister and I take a picture together at our party every year.

Lastly, I love knowing that even though times may change, our Christmas plans are pretty much a constant. We do the same thing, more or less, every year, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy holidays! From my family, to yours. x

Christmas Tree Adventures

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Since both my roommate and I had to slack on Halloween this year because we were crazy busy working at a haunted house during the month of October, we decided to put all of our decorating/party efforts into Christmas instead.

I never had a fake tree growing up, but I’ve just never saw a good enough reason to buy a real tree for any of the apartments I’ve lived in since moving out of my parent’s house 4 years ago. I’ve also never gone Christmas tree hunting without my dad, and I’ve certainly never had to put a tree in a stand or worry about keeping it watered. Well, all that changed this past weekend, when my roommate and I dragged went with our boyfriends to cut down a real, live Christmas tree.

We went to Indian Walk Christmas Tree Farm in Wrightstown, PA. I had never been there before, or even heard of it, actually, but it was super cute! They had a bunch of farm animals and cute shops, as well as multiple kinds of trees and all the other trimmings you can think of!

It didn’t take us long to find our favorite tree. As a matter of fact, we both spotted it as soon as we walked a few feet down the main path. We scouted for a little bit longer, but ultimately decided that the first tree we saw was the best.

And we even got lights up on the tree last night! Finishing touches (aka popcorn and cranberry garland) coming soon!

Have you gotten your Christmas tree yet?!