ĦΔŇŇΔβΔŁ ΜΔŘƗ€: 🎅 Merry Christmas 2018--Christmas Prep, Eve Shenanigans & Gift Wrapping! 🎅

I made these rocks for my mom.
She wanted the words "Let It Snow" to be on them in some way, so I painted them like that.
Not my best work but she likes 'em.

Hello ladies and gents,

I am sorry for the long delay, I have been nursing an illness.
Aside from that, I've been so damn tired since Christmas Eve,

I decided to take a few days off to just catch up on some Z's and take care of myself.

Since it's a New Year, I want to recap on some of my Christmas fun!

Giving Christmas kisses to my dad Charlie. This reminds me of one of those renaissance paintings.

We didn't do a lot this Christmas, which is pretty much every year--Not complaining at all.
Truth being told, this time of year, I just like to cozy up on the couch with my pets

and experience the holidays as the warm festive occasion it is.

(Despite the weather being quite frightful!) lol

I took a lot of photos throughout the whole month of December, as usual...

but only am I posting NOW about it all.

I got a few mini hauls (I know, I know...I have been getting complaints from a few people that my hauls "bore" them, so I shall keep it all in one post!) and some other fun little shots I took that felt right at the time. I honestly forgot what types of photos I took, so this is going to be fun for the both of us. lol

The first haul of the month--just a few little purchases. Nothing too extreme.

Got this for my mom, an Au Natural palette.

Some of the cosmetics that come in the Au Natural Palette.

Got these at my local 99cent store--some Marshmallows & IBARRA Chocolate for Christmas Morning.

Just another look at the chocolate.

This year, we wanted to try to recreate the vintage talking Christmas Tree "Douglas Fir."
He is an old talking Christmas decoration people used to call "Annoying"
and well, we couldn't afford the real deal--so, we managed!

I didn't know that we were going to be getting an all white tree, so the illusion is a bit lost since
Douglas Fir is all green. But you get the picture. lol

One of my recent finds at the thrift store--this cute porcelain clown ordainment.

We didn't do much outside decorating other than the starry light projector.
I tried my best to get a few shots to show you the whole glory of everything but as I am sure you all know--catching lights on film is the hardest thing to do. At least, for me. hahaa

My neighbors cat is kinda like our cat, too...so, we came to give us Christmas Eve kisses.

I captured her mid-meow. lol

Some of the lights around the area we live at. Just a few of the houses.
Not much was up for Halloween but Christmas was blazing in lights. lol

More trying to capture the lights on our house. lol

I loved how our plants looked with the lights on them.

Sparkly, Sparkly.

Ferns and things.

"Let It Snow" in the back. hahaa
Sadly enough, it doesn't snow here in California. I've never seen snow.
We do, however, have a ton of cold fog that is quite bone chilling. lol

Our tree was also being lit up by the lights. Everything looks so enchanted.

hahaa Nightmare fuel. hahaa

Some ordainment's on the tree.

The little clown girl is up and patiently awaiting Christmas.

Some of our Vintage Christmas ordainment's.

Bambi's and Snow Globes.

We also got some of these new Mike & Ike's to try out around this time.
Pretty good, if you happen to like creamy things. I only picked out the Cherries, not even going to lie. lol

We added some stuff to our tree--a hat and some shoes.
He just looked too naked to us. hahaa

Around this time, we were doing our annual Christmas makeup collections
and one of the looks I was doing needed some blood-shot eyes.

So, I made a few of them to add to clips!

I was also doing the gift wrapping and this was among many gifts we got our dad.
This is a vintage Carlson Doll numbered 3-2. Still with tags. Proud find of mine.

An elf hiding away in my mother's Christmas wreath.

The wreath in it's full glory! It's actually very beautiful in person, the photo doesn't do it justice at all.
It's also quite large in comparison to my own hands.

Some of the decorations on our trinket cabinet.
We kept altering it over and over again, until we found the perfect look. lol

Another look at the tree, because we were very proud of him.

It's an old tradition italian tradition to leave your shoes out.
If you've been good, you will have them stuffed with goodies. If you've been bad, you get nothing.
Some people like to stuff the naughty kids with onions and things like that but this is more a decoration than anything.

Some of the other decorations we put up.
An elf man & some nutcrackers.

We even decorated our coffee table with some trinkets.
Vintage porcelain Santa, a porcelain church-house light and other items.
I may not be religious but I do love the look around this time of year. It's very beautiful.

This is an old custom in our household to always put up this crystal Nativity.
We lost a few pieces but it still goes up! lol
Right next to the vintage taxidermy frogs, of course.

We had Santa for a long time, the elf is a new find a few years back.
Now, we put them both up every year.

A year ago we found this old lady at the store--she reminds me of La Befana,
so we put her out with the Christmas stuff. She is my Christmas Witch!

Another haul--mostly for the doggies.
We got them some outfits and a Christmas stocking full of raw hides.

I couldn't pass these up--much too cute.

We let them wear their costumes a few days before the big day--just to get comfy in them.
They loved them, especially after I gave them their baths.

Sadly, the Santa was much too small for big fat boi.

But Lily loved her Christmas dress.
Sorry she looks like a mongrel. I had to trim up her thick fur and she ended up looking all choppy.

They kept tossing their kibble around in their clothing.
Which is something they do all the time, but moreso now that they got new clothes. lol

All night long, on Christmas Eve, Charlie kept staring up at our tree.
It was a cute Christmas thing...

...or maybe he just wanted his Christmas Stocking of Raw Hides. lol

Yep, definitely wanted his Raw Hides.

Still cute to see, though.

After running errands, gathering more gifts for each other--we also got more dog gifts for the pups.

He hates hats. He is okay with certain clothing but hats are a NO DEAL.

Pouting boy and cute girl.

It looks nice on him, though.

Lily has such horrible fur, I'm not even going to sugar-coat it.
Her fur is so thick and it grows so rapidly. It has a curl to it and combing it doesn't do anything but keep the knots out.
But, she still looks cute, though.

This was another new find, the little candle snowman dude.
We used one of those LED lights to light him up. He is adorable.

This shot was to show the stars he had in the back. Lovely.

As the gift wrapping was being done, the tree was growing in size. lol

More gifts. The tree is being consumed. lol

If I was a mouse or an insect, I'd sit right on top of these gifts. Let them swallow me whole. It'd be so awesome! hahaa

Little gifts around the feet. hahaa

And the last shot, because I like how when all the gifts get arranged around the tree. It's a mountainside of greatness.

This was Georgie's time to have a bath and trim-up.
So, say goodbye to the stinky stink and fluffy fur.

The sight outside on Christmas Eve Morning.

Another shot, because why not? lol

She came back to say hello again~
We gave her Christmas Salmon and let her be on her way.

Georgie after the trim and bath.
If you didn't know, he is my little blind boy
and it's very hard to get a good photo of him because he moves his head around so much.

I mostly wanted to get the knots out of him and make him less stinky.
So he can wear his new costume without smelling it up. lol

Among many different traditions we have, one of them is doing this every year.
Cloves inside oranges, and using that as a natural deodorizer.

I also got some nice Star Anise--I needed to bottle it, so I was doing that, as well.

Taking out all the fragrant things and bottling up most of it.

Just a closer look at my new babies~

Pretty little spices.

Sticking the oranges with whole cloves smells SO GOOD.
But it kinda hurts the thumb after a while, so I suggest in using a metal thimble.

I did two, my brother wanted to do two.
So, I put mine on top until he decided to do his.

This was Christmas Eve Night, the last photo before the morning!

Christmas Eve Night.

The very last image before the big day, we all were going to bed and I took a few for good measure.

Christmas Morning. We decided to wait a bit before opening gifts. Just to save the day and not have it go by so fast.
The best part of the day is opening the gifts, so we didn't want to be animals until everything was perfect.