Office Christmas Parties

I've planned the school Christmas party for 6 years running. 
My goal is always to make it better than the previous year's party.

We typically do lunch, games, and a small gift exchange.

Here are some things that I've done in the past:

1. Scarf Exchange

This was the scarf that I came home with:

 We catered in the meal and then had everyone bring desserts.

2. Christmas Gift Exchange

 3. Favorite Christmas CD exchange

 4. Hot Chocolate Mug Exchange

 5. White Elephant Gift Exchange

6. This year's theme is "Must Have" Christmas Exchange:

We usually have some type of game to play.  

Here are some examples that were really fun.

 Christmas Carol Picture Game

 I also have everyone sign up to bring in their favorite holiday treat to share 

at lunch the two weeks prior to Christmas break.

How does your company/work place celebrate the holidays?

Love is...

Love is... your husband surprising you by bringing home swanky cupcakes for dessert :)

Christmas Advent of Activities

Do you use any sort of advent calendar for Christmas?

For the past several years, Kevin and I have been doing an activities advent 

calendar for the whole month of December.

We work together to create a list of 16-20 things we'd like to do 

to celebrate the holiday season together.

We look forward to doing things on our list.

We do as many things as we have time for and don't feel pressure to do everything.

Here's what we have done for the last few years:

 I came across these mittens in the $1.50 bins at Michaels this year.
They were two for $1.50 so pretty affordable.

 Then I wrote out each of our activities on index cards that I cut to fit inside each mitten.
I tacked up a ribbon shaped tree on the wall and then clipped the mittens to them.

 Looking forward to doing our fun activities this month.

Fondue for 2

Have you ever been to The Melting Pot?

It is an amazingly delicious fondue restaurant.

It is pricey so we don't make it there as often as we'd like.

Lucky for us that we have our own fondue set so we can fondue at home.

Here's how:
Figure out what your favorite items are to dip in cheese.

We choose steamed broccoli, baked chicken, bread, 

tortilla chips, Granny Smith apples, and red potatoes.

Then we made our cheese sauce on the stove.

Transferred it to our fondue pot and lit the lighter underneath.

Then we dipped until we were STUFFED!

Next time, I plan to do a smaller dinner course 

and plan a dessert fondue along with dessert dippers.

 Everyone was excited about this meal :)

Classic Christmas

I love pulling out our Christmas decorations every year.

My house is almost decorated.

I just need to get some garland and ornaments on my tree.

I decided to document my decorations in black and white.

Welcome to my Classic Christmas:

Buying the Tree

I mentioned here that we are a real Christmas tree family.

We both hurried home from work on Monday to go and get our tree.
We went to a lot near our house.

Tips when purchasing a real Christmas tree:
1. Decide ahead of time and measure how tall of a tree you want
while you are at home because you lose perspective once you get to the lot.
2. Decide on a price you'd like to stay under before you get to the lot. 
We always shoot for under $40
3. Look at all the trees the lot has to offer.
4. Ask if there are any deals or specials.
5. Wander around the lot for a while
just to make sure you have selected the right tree.
6. Test the branches to see if they will hold
a 12lb and 18lb cat that are sure to be climbing the tree.
7. Bring a blanket to lay down in your car or trunk to catch all the needles.
8. Take home the bottom of the trunk that the cut off at the lot
and any limbs that they trim off.
9. Bring your tree stand to the lot with you to ensure that the trunk
of your newly selected tree will fit down in it. 
(We did not do this and just assumed it would fit like last year. 
We  ended up having to buy a small hatchet & saw,
trim the tree for a while to finally get ours to fit once we got home.)
10. Enjoy that FRESH pine smell in the car on your drive home.