Christmas in the City

Christmas is by far my favorite holiday because it's more than a single holiday, it's a season. I love all the things that come with Christmas - cheer, lights, music, hot chocolate, decorations, family time, giving, and a sense of magic. 

Neither my husband nor I have put up a Christmas tree of our own since leaving home. We've both lived in dorms or apartments and returned home for the actual holiday so we passed on the decorations. Last year, I got a little crafty and made several decorations for the holiday, but still skipped the tree. This is our first Christmas together EVER (in 8 years!) and our first as a married couple, so we wanted to do it up right. We live in a condo so space and storage is at a premium. I didn't want a mini Christmas tree, so I did some searching online and found this six foot tree. I paid $30 + $6.99 in s&h so if we decide we can't spare the space to store it, I won't feel guilty tossing it. You can find it here (note, prices have gone up since Thanksgiving, so now it is just at $40 with shipping). It's a great deal. I was super impressed with the quality and fullness. The top is a little shaky, but we used light plastic ornaments and it's held up just fine so far.

In addition to a tree, we needed all the trimmings. Again, I didn't want to invest a fortune since I'm not committed to the tree, so we picked up some ornaments from Target. You can find the ones on the tree here and here. We added lights (here) and tinsel (here) then topped it with a gold star (here). Don't mind the white extension cord. :] I think I might get a skirt for the tree to help hide it. Overall, we're thrilled with the way it turned out!

I purchased our stockings on sale from Pottery Barn last year after the holiday and had them monogrammed, but they're still available (here). The mini stockings are for the animals and are available here and here (depending on the letter you need).

I made the santa hats (tutorial here), snow globes (tutorial here), and mini tree last year (no tutorial - I just used a left over cone from the santa hats and covered it with balls like these from Michaels).

We decorated the tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving while listening to holiday music and we had an absolute blast!

On Sunday, we saw the Nutcracker at the Kennedy Center. We're hoping to make it an annual tradition; last year we saw it at Warner Theatre. It was so fun to see a different rendition of the same Ballet. Not to mention, I love getting dressed up! I got this dress last year intending to wear it to the Nutcracker, but I didn't take note of the sizing guidelines and failed to size up so I had to exchange it. I'm so glad I did and I was able to wear it to a company holiday party. It is still available here. Be sure to size up 1 to 2 sizes.

Other holiday outfit ideas (for work and play) I'm loving: here | here | here | here | here | and see a full post here.

Wedding Registry Review

Tyler and I celebrated six months of marriage on Monday (we didn't really celebrate), and I thought it would be a great opportunity to do a review of some of our favorite items from our wedding registry. 

When registering, I tried very hard to only register for items I knew we needed and would use regularly. We did register for china and although it remained in boxes for months before eventually finding a home in a dining room sideboard that lives in our bedroom (hubby had fun explaining that to the delivery man), I'm glad we have it and can't wait to host friends and family.

Some of our favorite and most used items are below. 

Crate & Barrel Bennett Dinnerware. Before we got married, I had Corelle plates which I loved because they were white, lightweight, and chip and break resistant. I actually seriously considered registering for an additional place setting of Corelle and sticking with it for our every day dinnerware since I wanted fine china. But, I was interested in swapping the square for round dishes and finding a more substantial, dressier dinner set. 

We ended up decided on the Bennett dinnerware set from Crate & Barrel. I was worried it wouldn't be as durable as the Corelle - no matter how hard I try to be careful - I always manage to bang and clang the dishes, especially when loading and unloading the dishwasher. But, they have held up exceptionally well despite how hard I feel we've been on them. Pictured with Caesna silverware. 

Please excuse me while I proceed to gush about these drinking glasses (here). I hate (as much as one can possibly hate glasses) heavy drinking glasses. So much so that I've typically just used plastic cups. But, we wanted to up our game and enter adulthood as a married couple with real glassware. So, we walked around C&B endlessly while I picked up and pretended to drink from every glass in store looking for the lightest possible. These fit the bill and then when we added them to our registry we realized how incredibly cheap they were, we worried that they would be cheap and breakable, but decided to give them a try. They are THE BEST GLASSES. We love them. We have very little cabinet space and given the size of these we can stack them two high which saves us a ton of space. They're lightweight, the perfect size (holds a can of soda), and hold up well in the dishwasher and to all of my banging and clanging.

These coasters (here). I know, it's silly to get excited about coasters, but I love the shape of these and the fact that they blend in given their marble appearance. They'd make a great hostess gift for the upcoming holidays.

 When it came to bedding, I knew what I wanted (basically the white version of this), but then the mister didn't want white so we settled on the tan version (here). I'm not a fan of duvet covers (the down inserts are also falling down), so the search for a cotton bedspread was on. I'm convinced that the world is against cotton bedspreads so this was a rare find. 

What you can't see pictured above are the best. sheets. ever. (fitted, flat, pillow cases). They're expensive, but totally worth it. They don't show any wear after weekly washings. I'm tempted to pick up a second set (my only hesitation is that means I'd have to fold sheets instead of just putting them back on the bed). 

Lastly, I can't forget Roomba. She works very hard for us cleaning up all the dog hair and city grime. 

We were very lucky and received  so many wonderful gifts in celebration of our marriage. They've help us turn our house into a home.