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!:

Hello all! I wanted to announce the winners of the Accessory Steals and Decor Steals giveaways before I forgot. :)

The winner of Accessory Steals $50 gift card is:

Melissa at Honey Bee Hive

The winner of the Decor Steals $50 gift card is:

Callie at Babbling with the Bowers

Congrats ladies! Email me at thriftydecorchick (at) gmail (dot) com so I can get you hooked up.

I finally got video of the Thrifty Decor Chick segment taped -- this is the third try. :) I gave up on shushing the cats, so there’s a point when you’ll hear our (pee) cat doing her totally weird meow. It’s a little freaky sounding, so sorry about that. :)

Oh, and she’s rubbing against the volume control about half way in, so it gets a teensy bit loud for a few seconds. GAH.

But anyway…here you go!:

I’ll be back later with a HUGE decrapification project! WHOO!

Thank you to my sponsor!:

Well hellooo! Hope you had a great weekend! We did a whole lot of marching band and not much else. :)

I just finally got all of the Halloween decor down a couple of days ago. (Well, except for the orange lights out front. And the stuff I forgot in the garage. And the trinkets in the car. And the nightlight in the Bub’s room.) But other than all that…it’s all put away.  :)

And now I’m really starting to think about the upcoming holidays – and getting really excited! Our season last year was full of all kinds of bad news – my father-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and then weeks later we lost my mother-in-law.

Needless to say, we just couldn’t get to everything -- it was the first year I can remember that I didn’t send out Christmas cards. I know it’s no big deal in the scheme of things, but that in particular really got me thinking about preparing for the holidays this year. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been making a list of the things I want to get done well before the end of the month!

First up…address our Christmas cards and get them ready to mail:

(Click on photos for sources.)

Guess how many boxes of cards I found in the basement last year? That would be THREE. I think we’ll have plenty. ;) Now, getting all four of us together for a decent Christmas photo – that’s the hard part.

I still hand address our Christmas cards – I actually quite enjoy it! I find it relaxing, and add in some Christmas music and hot chocolate and it makes for a lovely little tradition of my own. :)

Next up – going through the pile of toys:

OK, I may be exaggerating. Just a smidge. A skosh. Really, not much. Not at all. :)

The Bub’s birthday and of course Christmas are both in December – so we get the influx of new toys for the year within a span of a few weeks.

I. must. prepare.

I. must. prepare. when the Bub isn’t home.  ;)

Third on my list is to make a list and check it twice (wink). A few weeks ago I started a list of folks I don’t want to forget at the holidays -- there’s the mailman, the Bub’s teachers, friends and family of course. But also some folks we haven’t given to before – like the day care staff at our Financial Peace class, the waitresses at our favorite restaurant (if it tells you anything, they know us by name), and some of the great contacts I’ve made through blogging.

A few will get some of my yummy strawberry jam I made back in the summer:

It sure is good!! I know…I’ve already eaten a couple of the “gifts” myself.

And finally, because our kiddo is almost four and getting more fun with each passing day, I want to create new traditions that he’ll remember year to year.

I’ve heard the Elf on the Shelf can be quite labor intensive (on you-know-who’s part), but oh my goodness they are too stinkin’ cauuuute!:

Just look at that face!!

I guess he “watches” over the kids for Santa, yes? And he moves around the house every night, finding a different spot to hide. ACK! Adorable. Right up my alley baby.

And I kind of have a thing for advent calendars. Last year we got this cute Lego calendar:

My friend Richella told me about it, and even though the Bub was still a bit small, I couldn’t resist! He LOVED it.

I have a couple advent versions I’ve made and I highlighted them last year here. The little cardboard boxes are my favorite:

I love finding advent calendars you can make on your own – on a recent browsing trip through Pottery Barn Kids, we found both of these:

The tree is especially adorable just because it’s more than five feet tall and HUGE…but at $70, my mind immediately went into gear thinking how (relatively) easy it would be to make this one on the cheap! A huge piece of green felt, scraps of holiday fabrics and little embellishments and you could totally do this one on your own!

And Pottery Barn has a couple of advent calendars in stock, but this is the one that absolutely kills me:

Yes, because it’s pretty and adorable and a really cute idea. But it really kills me because it’s priced at $299. Gah, excuse me while I choke a little. What the what??

I know it would take some time, but some branches from a tree, (you don’t really have to use branches – how about some dowel rods?), some twine and 25 little spray painted buckets…you’ve got yourself an equally adorable advent calendar…for about $250 cheaper? Maybe?

I’d like to get my prep for the holidays done this week, so I can focus on Thanksgiving and then the Christmas decorating!! Whoooohoo!

How do you prepare for the holidays? Do you have any fun family traditions? Have you made your own advent calendar? Be sure to tell us about them or if you’ve blogged about one – link it up in the comments! We all could use a little help making the magic happen.  :)

Christmas is only SEVEN weeks away! Can you even believe it??

**You can enter the Makia Creations and HomeGoods Mom Cave giveaways until Monday at noon. And there’s still a bit more time to link up your before and after project for this month here!