christmas 2015, phase 3 {us + christmas decor house tour}
Russ and I usually do three different celebrations of Christmas--one with his family, one with mine, and one just the two of us.
But this year, Christmas for us just never happened! We kept talking about when we would do it, or what kind of gifts we would buy each other, but we just never solidified anything. At one point, I proposed just giving "one thoughtful gift" to each other (because I hate the idea of saying "Hey I want that purple shirt in a size medium" and then opening that up on Christmas Day because it was obviously something that he had to put zero thought into). However, that kind of just made me feel pressure, so then we weren't sure what we were going to do and then we never did anything!
However, it seemed to work for us this year. We just didn't want the stress, and we had two other lovely celebrations, so I guess we didn't feel the need for it this year.
However, we're actually really smart about saving for Christmas, if I do say so myself. We save a certain amount (we currently do $35) to a specific account every single month so that by Christmas we have plenty to buy each other things and to buy things for our parents and siblings ($420). (You can read more about how we budget if you want to.)
So after buying things for our parents and siblings, we still had probably about $300 left, plus we got money from my parents and money from grandparents. So instead of pre-planning gifts and wrapping them up under the tree, we just went to work buying everything we had been thinking about wanting, even if the cost was high, until the money ran out! Haha it was fun!
We got several new pieces for our nativity (we had the essentials, but with my new big mantel, I had space for more!), some car parts for Russ's '66 Volvo restoration project, clothes, movies, a shop vac, and our garage shelving, among other things. We had fun going crazy haha :)
And in retrospect, Russ and I actually did each give each other one thoughtful gift, and it happened before I even made that suggestion.
I really hate making decisions. Sometimes I put things off for ages because they're not suuuper important and they'll require definite decisions. One of these things was what I wanted to do about computers. We've been talking for years about how I need a bigger screen to do any InDesign work. My 13" laptop screen just doesn't cut it! But I knew that desktop Macs were expensive, and I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted, so I just kept waiting to really think about it because it wasn't that important yet. Russ even asked me a few times what I thought I would need and I just didn't want to think about it. So Russ basically went and solved all my problems--he let me have his laptop (same as mine, only newer and better) and he bought me a monitor (like $100 compared to a $1000+ desktop Mac) that I can hook up to my laptop. It's a perfect solution because now I don't have to juggle things between two computers, but I still have the flexibility of a laptop OR a desktop. It's amazing. And he bought it without me knowing and brought it up to our office and showed it to me and it was just very sweet and thoughtful :)
My "thoughtful gift" to him was free, and actually it makes us money! I got a job, something that he had been not-so-secretly (but also not forcefully) wanting for a while. I wrapped it up and surprised him a few weeks before Christmas :)
So Christmas for us didn't turn out as sweet and wonderful and full-out as our first Christmas and third Christmas together (we can just skip over the second, since it went about like this year), but it was still great, and we still enjoyed a happy December together :)
And now for a Christmas decor house tour!
But this year, Christmas for us just never happened! We kept talking about when we would do it, or what kind of gifts we would buy each other, but we just never solidified anything. At one point, I proposed just giving "one thoughtful gift" to each other (because I hate the idea of saying "Hey I want that purple shirt in a size medium" and then opening that up on Christmas Day because it was obviously something that he had to put zero thought into). However, that kind of just made me feel pressure, so then we weren't sure what we were going to do and then we never did anything!
However, it seemed to work for us this year. We just didn't want the stress, and we had two other lovely celebrations, so I guess we didn't feel the need for it this year.
However, we're actually really smart about saving for Christmas, if I do say so myself. We save a certain amount (we currently do $35) to a specific account every single month so that by Christmas we have plenty to buy each other things and to buy things for our parents and siblings ($420). (You can read more about how we budget if you want to.)
So after buying things for our parents and siblings, we still had probably about $300 left, plus we got money from my parents and money from grandparents. So instead of pre-planning gifts and wrapping them up under the tree, we just went to work buying everything we had been thinking about wanting, even if the cost was high, until the money ran out! Haha it was fun!
We got several new pieces for our nativity (we had the essentials, but with my new big mantel, I had space for more!), some car parts for Russ's '66 Volvo restoration project, clothes, movies, a shop vac, and our garage shelving, among other things. We had fun going crazy haha :)
And in retrospect, Russ and I actually did each give each other one thoughtful gift, and it happened before I even made that suggestion.
I really hate making decisions. Sometimes I put things off for ages because they're not suuuper important and they'll require definite decisions. One of these things was what I wanted to do about computers. We've been talking for years about how I need a bigger screen to do any InDesign work. My 13" laptop screen just doesn't cut it! But I knew that desktop Macs were expensive, and I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted, so I just kept waiting to really think about it because it wasn't that important yet. Russ even asked me a few times what I thought I would need and I just didn't want to think about it. So Russ basically went and solved all my problems--he let me have his laptop (same as mine, only newer and better) and he bought me a monitor (like $100 compared to a $1000+ desktop Mac) that I can hook up to my laptop. It's a perfect solution because now I don't have to juggle things between two computers, but I still have the flexibility of a laptop OR a desktop. It's amazing. And he bought it without me knowing and brought it up to our office and showed it to me and it was just very sweet and thoughtful :)
My "thoughtful gift" to him was free, and actually it makes us money! I got a job, something that he had been not-so-secretly (but also not forcefully) wanting for a while. I wrapped it up and surprised him a few weeks before Christmas :)
So Christmas for us didn't turn out as sweet and wonderful and full-out as our first Christmas and third Christmas together (we can just skip over the second, since it went about like this year), but it was still great, and we still enjoyed a happy December together :)
And now for a Christmas decor house tour!
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| a mini nativity from argentina for our bedroom |
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| and a mini tree, too :) |
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| our nativity, complete with all the additional pieces we bought ourselves for christmas |
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| candy canes for the candy cane tradition -- you can hang a candy cane on the tree anytime you serve someone or someone serves you :) |
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| fritz the nutcracker and a santa plate of andes mints :) |
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| i change the contents of this bird cage seasonally, so for winter it gets pine cones :) |
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| our beautiful tree! I love how big it is!!! :) |
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| one of my favorite decorations -- these homemade trees! i'm also in love with my sequin table runner that i got this year . . . it was the perfect area for the trees! :) |
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| i loved elise's idea to frame yearly christmas cards . . . can't wait to add next year's card already! |
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| christmas card wreath! i got this idea from pinterest, but i've had to make several adjustments to make it actually work . . . this was the year it finally did work without falling apart :) |
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| mistletoe in the entryway :) |
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| peace |
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| stockings hung along the stairway |
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| russ's |
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| mine |
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| jesus's |
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| christmas cheer in our entryway! |
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| jingle bells to ring every time the door opens! :) |
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| my favorite wreath :) |
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| christmas ornaments in lanterns from one of our wedding celebrations :) |
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| snowflake slip covers and a cute winter teddy bear :) |
**ashleynicole
Okay, so cute! I love those Christmas trees you made for your table... speaking of which, where did you get that table? It's exactly what I've been looking for.
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