Secret Santa

I will admit, I'm not the most well-versed person on social media... I check Facebook only a handful of times per week, Instagram about once a day, and I legitimately forget that I have a Twitter account for months at a time. I only use Snapchat with family and close friends, and as far as Pinterest goes, I stopped using it for anything other than storage years ago... but that's about all the "socializing" I do when it comes to the internet.

That being said, despite not fully immersing myself, I've been lucky to meet some pretty awesome people on some of those platforms! About two years ago I posted on Instagram about taking Christmas cookie orders if anyone was interested... Erin, who had been following me for a while, was the only person who took me up on it. Since she lives in Philly, I told her I'd deliver them in person instead of mailing them. When we met up, we immediately hit it off! Since then, we've hung out a few more times, specifically at the crafty parties she likes to host. This year, she also invited me to be part of a giant cross-country Secret Santa she hosts!

Everyone was asked to post a little blurb about what they like/want for Christmas, and then she randomly assigned everyone a Secret Santa. We had a few weeks to shop, wrap, and mail out our gifts, and we've all been keeping up with the progress and various gifts through Facebook. Now that pretty much all the gifts have been received, I figured it would be okay to post about it. I had a ton of fun doing this, and I really hope she organizes it again next year. If she doesn't, I plan on doing one myself! There's just something so gratifying about curating a gift box for someone - especially someone you've never met!

The person I was assigned also lives in Philly, and this was her blurb:
I like baking supplies (think cookbooks, fun cookie cutters and cake decorating things). Also love hot chocolate and teas. Also fun stationary, like notebooks and fun colorful pens. I've also really been into adult coloring books (fun ones like doctor who, Harry Potter, etc)

Um, has there ever been anyone more perfect for me to shop for?! Baking, tea, and stationary - yes, please! I got her some Pokemon cookie cutters, a rubber spatula, a few of my favorite teas, some notepads, a Doctor Who coloring book, my favorite colorful pens, and I sewed her a pencil case to store the pens in. She loved the cookie cutters! I requested photos for when she finally uses them.


Here was my blurb:
I love cats, dinosaurs, tea, stationary, chocolate, gin, puns, pizza, ridiculous patterns, stickers for my planner, heartfelt words of encouragement, and bohemian inspired jewelry/clothes/housewares. I also collect clocks, and salt & pepper shakers.


My gift arrived on Tuesday! She sent me two S&P shaker sets - a vintage cat one from Etsy that she had to dispute when it was never sent, and a set of dinosaurs that she bought after she thought the cat ones would never arrive... the Etsy seller did end up sending the originals after she contacted Etsy, and they arrived on the same day as the dinosaur ones! She also sent me two planners, a lucky cat pin, a pretty scarf, and some really cool holographic dinosaur stickers. Yes! Love it!




If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had an awesome holiday! Ours was low key... I made pancakes, potatoes, bacon, and sausage for breakfast, and we watched Christmas movies all day, with naps in between.... basically what we do every Sunday already ;)

Have you ever participated in a secret santa? Do you want to? I may attempt to organize a blogger-to-blogger secret santa for next year! Not quite sure how I would go about that yet, but it sounds like fun!

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I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving! We spent it with Shawn's mom, his brother, wife, and their 3-month old baby. It was our first time meeting our nephew- what a curious little dude! He was all smiles and laughter. I'm pretty sure I've stated it here before, I'm not usually a fan of babies... but he captured my heart a little bit - maybe because he's family! I can't wait until he gets a little older though... right now he weighs as much as our cats do. (Okay, I realize we have chubby cats, but still!)

I meant to get this recipe posted before Thanksgiving, but that clearly didn't happen. Oh well, if you still have leftovers in your fridge, give this a try. If you ate them all already, give this a try anyway! It's inspired by a salad I had from Trader Joe's. Their version left a little something to be desired though, so I made my own. I'm a fan of hearty salads - if I'm going to eat a salad, it needs to be filled with all the things... protein, something sweet, something tart, and something crunchy. This salad has all of those things, and it's perfect for this time of year!

Thanksgiving Salad

Makes enough for 4 large salads*

• 3 small heads romaine lettuce**
• 3 big handfuls baby spinach
• 1 pound chicken or turkey breast
• 3 cups brussels sprouts, chopped into quarters
• 2 sweet potatoes, peeled & diced
• olive oil, to drizzle
• salt and pepper
• 3/4 cups sliced toasted almonds
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• lemon vinaigrette***

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lay chicken/turkey breast on a sheet pan- salt and pepper both sides and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil. Do the same thing with the brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes on a different sheet pan. Bake until chicken/turkey reaches an internal temperature of 165°F and until the veggies start to brown and soften, approximately 30 minutes.
Chop the romaine and baby spinach into bite size pieces and toss into a large mixing bowl. Top with chopped chicken/turkey, roasted brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, almonds, and dried cranberries. Drizzle with desired amount of lemon vinaigrette. Toss the salad until coated, and enjoy!


* If you're like me and just want to have salad ingredients on hand for yourself for the week... I prep the chicken and veggies ahead of time, and store them all in separate containers. Then I can assemble a salad for lunch as needed. I got 4 lunches out of these ingredients, hence the 4 salad yield.

** You can use any salad greens you like - I usually go for arugula or spring mix, but organic romaine was on super sale the week I made this, so that's what I bought!

*** I usually make my own salad dressing, but I was lazy this time around. Besides, why mess with a good thing?

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Merry Christmas

Here's the holiday card we sent out this year; a virtual version for all of you!
Merry Christmas!

(Family photo by Rebecca Gudelunas)

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The Cat Life: Stockings

I snapped a few photos of Lloyd and Sylvester when we let them 'open' their stocking gifts. The photos are definitely not the best quality, as most of them were blurry, but it was fun to watch and I thought some of you would appreciate them. We got them a few catnip toys (that's what made them super crazy all morning!) along with some tennis balls. They ran around for a good hour or so and then spent the rest of the day passed out under the tree or on the couch with us. It was very entertaining to watch!

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Week in Photos: Week 52

It's the last week of 2014!! When did this happen? How did we get here? And how have I actually managed to post a weekly wrap-up of photos for 52 weeks straight?!

Oh, Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree...



I finally finished sewing our Christmas stockings... at 6pm on Christmas Eve.



Growing up, my mom would hang all the Christmas cards on a ribbon or two; I always loved the way it looked and did the same this year! We actually got a lot of cards this year!





I asked for ornaments this year, and I got lots of 'em! Including those last two from lovely reader Jennifer, who after reading this post, sent us the bear from her very own tree! Also, apparently our love for squirrels is well known.



We had Christmas Eve dinner with our friends Dave and Briggette; spiral ham, mashed potatoes, brussels and bacon, and a friend's grandmother's recipe for pineapple bake!



Shawn and Dave got each other the exact same bottle of (rare) whiskey for Christmas.



Well, it didn't snow on Christmas, but it was the most beautiful day we have had in a while.



The aftermath of the cats getting their gifts. (Catnip toys... lots and lots of catnip toys.)



Shawn got us a record player! We finally got to play some of the records we've had for over five years. First on deck was Wish You Were Here. We only have a dozen or so records though, so we're planning a record shopping date!



Instagram cuddles.



Realtime morning cuddles.

Since my parents were in town and my family celebrated Christmas last Sunday, Shawn and I decided to stay home this year for the actual holiday. This was the first year ever that we didn't travel or spend the day with various family members... it was glorious. Shawn told his family we would see them sometime in January when we have more time to travel. We have both been working our asses off these past few weeks and we really just wanted a day to decompress together. We spent the majority of the day in our pajamas on the couch with the cats, watching movies of the comedic variety. At some point in the evening we did venture outside for a walk around town in the unseasonably warm weather; the streets were the quietest we've ever seen them, and it felt as though we were the only two people in town. This year was probably a fluke, as we'll most likely have to spend next year's holiday with other family members, so we drank in every moment of our first Christmas to ourselves.

Each year that we've lived together I've tried to implement a Christmas tradition or two; whether it's a tradition from one of our families, or just something completely new, it has been interesting making the holiday our own. Perhaps a 'no travel' quiet Christmas Day should become a tradition...

I hope you all had an amazing holiday and enjoy the rest of the year!

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A Gift Guide for Fanatics

Shawn is a big fan of football. I have never really been into it, but over the last six years I've watched so many games and heard so many player's names mentioned that I can somewhat carry a conversation about the sport. This was the first year I played on a fantasy football league too; Shawn was one player short and he had been asking me to join for years, so I finally agreed. I ended up in 8th place out of 10 - not too bad! I still don't really understand the game though!

I know that the audience on this blog probably isn't much into football, but since Shawn is, I can only imagine some of you also have football fans in your life and I decided to go ahead and make up a gift guide! I know it's a little late for Christmas at this point... but playoffs are coming up! I picked a few things from Fanatics.com centered around their Odell Beckham Jr jersey, because Shawn roots for the Giants and he has been a big fan of Odell this year.

Ugly sweaters are all the rage right now (did I seriously just use that phrase? I did.) That one in particular is for youths, but I'd buy it in a heartbeat if they made it in adult sizes!
Shawn is rarely without a beanie, and he's a big fan of the Giant's Throwback gear, so this beanie was an obvious choice.
Of course he'll need a vintage scarf to go with the hat...
My favorite on this whole list is the belt because it's the most subtle and practical way to show you're a fan!
Whiskey is Shawn's spirit of choice, and I can't believe he doesn't have steel cubes yet!
We collect garden gnomes, and how perfect is it that they make NFL garden gnomes?!

Go check out the NFL jerseys and team gear Fanatics has to offer for the football fan in your life!
(They carry things for every team - not just the Giants!)

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The Cats and the Christmas Tree

One of our primary concerns when we got last year's tree was how Lloyd would react to it... and we felt the same way this year with Sylvester. Lucky for us, neither of these guys are tree climbers! They're both content just laying underneath it all day. We've had a handful of ornaments fall off the bottom branches, but we think it's from them brushing up against the tree rather than trying to play with them. All in all, our little guys have great tree manners!

Looks like Santa left us a... cow?












Last year I bought two monogram ornaments for Shawn and I, as well as one for Lloyd. I felt bad that Sylvester didn't have one too, so I bought one for him this year! (I think it's this year's version of Lloyd's from last year...) I also found a cute fox ornament, and since we call Sylvester Sly because he looks a bit fox-ish, I thought it appropriate to buy. Funny thing is, when it arrived, one of it's ears were broken! Just like Sylvester's!






Now I just need to find a bear ornament for Lloyd, because he's my little bear... let me know if you've seen any cute ones!

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Holiday Cookies

Every year I say I'm going to make a ton of holiday cookies and give them out to everyone I know, and every year I end up just making my staple chocolate chips and oatmeal raisins and just give them out to a few family members. This year though, I would really like to go all out and make a larger assortment of festive cookies. So here's my question for you...

Would anyone be interested in buying holiday cookies?
The assortment would include chocolate chip cookies, rolled sugar cookies, jam thumbprint cookies, and a few other cookies of my choosing! I would have to calculate the cost of shipping, but I'm thinking I can probably do a small tin (a dozen or so cookies) for about $15 or $20. I can figure out the specifics for a more accurate number, but I just wanted to know if anyone would be interested first. I can ship to anywhere in the U.S.!

Please leave a comment if you'd be interested in purchasing some cookies- whether for you or for someone else! They would be shipped in a festive tin inside a padded box; perfect for gift giving! If enough people are interested, I'll figure out the details and be in touch!

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Week in Photos: Week 49

Circles.




We decorated for Christmas in the kitchen. Lisa brought in an awesome homemade Advent Calendar!




I saw faces in the scones.



...oops.



I've been sending out packages and letters this month - I love sending people things in the mail!!



You deserve a donut.



No, really, you do.



How about a whole apple pie, just for you? You deserve that too.



I get to be part of strangers' special days, in my own way.



I'm always telling myself "don't forget your sunglasses"...



Got caught creepin'.



These two.



We got our tree today! Just in time for my parents' visit next weekend!
(Does anyone else find it difficult to take a proper photo of the tree? All those lights!)



M is for lots of things... but mostly me.

This week was mostly just waiting in anticipation until we could get our tree. Shawn and I have opposite schedules, so we don't really see much of each other until the weekends when I'm actually home during the day.... so we had to wait. I love Christmas! Getting the tree and decking it is one of my favorite things to do because it brings back memories of doing it as a family each year growing up. Shawn picked the tree this year; it was the cheapest and skinniest guy in the lot... just like him ;-) In all seriousness though, I think he picked well. I was in favor of the wide fluffy trees, but this one suits our space much better. We need more ornaments though! I don't remember last year's tree being sparsely decorated, but it must have been because we don't have many ornaments. Family and friends that read this blog: get us ornaments for Christmas, please! I'm also working on some homemade stockings for the four of us. I love the fabric I picked out!

I hope you all had an awesome week! I can't believe the end of the year is just three weeks away!

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