I didn’t take my comfy pants off for days till last night. (Not the same pair all that time, mind you. Eww.)

I didn’t put bows on the presents. Wrapped and done.

I didn’t even use many tags. (Just coded them by wrapping.)

We didn’t have a beautiful family picture for our Christmas cards – I ended up making a collage so all four of us would be represented.

I didn’t get out of bed before 9 a.m., ever (even on Christmas morning – our children ROCK.)

I didn’t make “real” cookies with cut outs or beautiful icing (and Santa still liked them just fine…he told me so.)

The Bub didn’t change out of his Christmas jammies for more than 24 hours, and that was just to change into new ones.

I didn’t cook anything on Christmas eve. (Pizza. Thank you.)

I didn’t take enough pictures – I was too busy being in the moment. (But I’ll probably regret it.)

I didn’t pick up the millions of itty bitty legos that have been underfoot for days. (Still haven’t. I kind of surrender.)

I didn’t make the bed once, even with tons of family here.

I didn’t take one piece of Christmas decor down. (But I’m feeling the itch.)

I didn’t mind one single bit when the whole family sat down and watched Despicable Me during Christmas dinner. I loved it – it was easy and fun and relaxed and US. (We love that movie!)

I didn’t break out into hives when the house was trashed for 36 hours straight.

And then I still didn’t clean it after 36 hours – I just left and went shopping. :)

My husband and I didn’t exchange gifts – because being debt free is going to be our gift to each other and our family. (SOON.)

Every year, I have all of these visions of what our holidays will be in my head -- usually there’s a soft glow around everyone, birds are singing (somewhere) and I look 15 pounds thinner…it’s a great vision. In my head. :)

And those visions pretty much never happen. It’s never perfect. I never accomplish all that want to. Every year I say, I’ll make a list of those things I want to get done and make sure to do them. And every year life gets in the way.

A whole lot of “didn’t” happens.

And every year I realize how very OK with that I am. Our holidays don’t end up our like my visions -- they always turn out so much better. So sweet. So close. So much family. So much big, fat, LOVE.

I hope your holiday was all you (didn’t) envision and so, so, so much more. :)

I’ll be back tomorrow with an update on my office redo!

Hello all! We are prepping for the big day around here, and there’s SO much to do, but I LOVE IT.

I wanted to take a minute to thank you all so very, very much for your support and love this year. I have the BEST readers out there. (I really do.)

To wrap up the holiday posts, I thought I’d do a recap in pictures. A few shots I haven’t shown you yet, and some are of my favorites from this year’s Christmas posts.

Enjoy the lights, glitter and cheer. :)

(Click pics to get to posts.)

Merry Christmas from my family to yours…

I hope you have lovely, magical holiday!

Hello! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! We are almost done shopping…but still not one gift wrapped. We LOVE the thrill of last minute. I guess. :)

Tis the season for FUN stuff – I don’t know about you, but I’m a total and complete sucker for anything Christmas-themed or related. If it has snowflakes, I’m hooked. Peppermint swirls, forgetaboutit. Glitter? Gah. I give up.

It’s the one time of the year I give into the stuff – because I have NO self control. And yes, I know STUFF has zero to do with the real meaning of the season, so it’s important to keep it in check.

But I love it, and it’s my blog, so I’m going to share some of my very favorites of this season with YOU. Or more specifically, I’m going to GIVE some of my favorites to one of you. :)

It’s my way of saying Merry Christmas, thank you, I don’t know what I’d do without you, paying it forward, smooches…all that.

So let’s get on to the good stuff, shall we?

If you saw my dining room post, you know I’m quite enamored with Walmart’s ornaments this year. I can’t stand it, they are so stinking cute. So I picked up a couple of the pretty trees:

Glittery goodness!

Pretty much every single night this time of year, I enjoy a big, fat mug of hot chocolate. So I got a (cute!) big, fat mug for you to enjoy some hot chocolate as well:

And while I was at it, I remember that I’m a bit obsessed with the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate from Starbucks. If you have not had it, please, I beg of you…GO NOW. Or as soon as humanly possible. Starbucks is not paying me to say this, but I wish they were.

OH my. It’s so stinkin’ good. So I got a $5 gift card so you can enjoy one and a half of your own Salted Caramel Hot Chocolates:

And then I remembered another hot chocolate I love, and that’s when I add a candy cane Hershey’s kiss to it and let it melt inside. Uhhh…YUM. I told you about these kisses here and I still love them now. And I’m not even a peppermint kind of girl really – but they are YUM:

This has turned into a hot chocolate post. Moving on…

The folks at Waverly sent me some of their beeeeautiful new holiday party-ware to try out. They have some really pretty plates, napkins and even cups, and I’m IN LOVE with all of it:

We haven’t hosted any holiday parties this year, so I’m going have hubby pry them out of my hands and so I can give them to you. Yes, I know it may be a bit late for you to use them this season too, but maybe next year? Honestly, I kind of think they could be used any time of the year – aren’t they beautiful?

And finally, my very favorite part. I know this one won’t be a big deal to some of you, but I LOVE THIS THING. I found a gift wrap storage thingamabob at True Value a couple of weeks ago:

And for all that is good…I finally found something that WORKS. For years I’ve had a few rolls in a long, thin storage bin, but it’s too short to hold most of our wrapping. Then last year I got one of those storage jobbies that stands up, but the wrapping was still too long.

I swear to you, I even considered taking my miter saw to them, to make them fit. I kid you not.

But they don’t have to be sacrificed now! This thing is the BOMB. It’s long enough, and holds a bunch of rolls. And instead of the wrapping rolling off our tower of Christmas bins every. time. I walk by – now they are all contained, and that makes me SO happy!

So I went back and got one for you too, because I can’t be the only one with this problem. Am I? Crickets.

It really is the little things. Candy cane kisses and a tall gift wrap tube, and I’m a happy Chick.  :)

Soooo, I’m giving all of these goodies away to one of you! I wish I could give something to every single one of you, I really, really do. I just hope you know how much I’ve appreciated your sweet comments, emails and support throughout this year.

To enter, leave a comment here. Tell us your favorite part/thing/food of the season. I’ll only have this giveaway open through Monday at midnight, so I can get this all mailed off to the lucky one on Tuesday.

For now, I’m off to write 75 Christmas cards:

I’m just hoping everyone gets them before Christmas. :)

Have a wonderful Monday!!

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Thank you to my sponsor!: