Dec. 5

I know I'm behind on my posts for my December Daily project. Here I am, catching up. I got some fun pictures the past few days, so here goes my recap of Saturday. First thing in the morning, after a waffles breakfast with Grandad (during which Emma learned how to say the word "waffles" and has been saying it multiple times a day since), James and Emma took off with Grandad to visit a family friend (see picture below of the two goofballs with their sunglasses. I stayed home to start putting up our Christmas decorations.

With our new dining room table, buffet and hutch ... well, my normal decorations did not work. So I did a lot of shifting and regrouping and finally came to the conclusion that it's time to retire the old Christmas decorations from the early 1990s that my mom had gifted me about five years ago when she got all new stuff for her house. The bright red, forest green plaid runner was just not cutting it on my new table, which is VERY dark cherry wood right now (it's supposed to lighten up over time).

I pieced together a few things randomly and I like several little pieces that I ended up with at the end of my decor journey. So I'm sharing a few of the things I am happy with ... and I'm planning for what I need to snag at the after-Christmas sales to complete our holiday decor for next year. I love doing things like this, but realize that no matter how fun and festive and happy pretty decorations make our home, they are definitely not a necessity and a budget item that I can justify when money is tight.

Love that candle above! My mom surprised my sister-in-law Jill and me by taking us to a florists' shop a few weeks ago and telling us we had a flat amount of money to spend picking out a few holiday decor items for our homes (and then took us out to lunch afterward!). That candle is one thing I picked out for our home ... it looks great with fall decor and winter decor and I will ALSO be able to use it year-round because we have a lot of beautiful browns in our dining and living rooms. My mom also got me that crimson table runner from Pottery Barn a few years ago and I've been using it in different ways each holiday season. I think it looks really pretty on our dining room table.

These glitter pots (above and below)? Anyone recognize them? Amy Hale? :) These are from a gala I used to help plan each winter at one of my previous jobs -- one of the best jobs I ever had, in fact. I have several of these "glitter pots" and used to have them in teal, silver, gold and fuschia too. They were part of the decor at the company gala in 2004. This year I added those huge poinsettia clips to the top of each pot. Actually, I'm cracking up because I just realized that those silver plates the pots/poinsettias are sitting on are ALSO from a company gala the following year! AND ... the round silver bowls in the first and third pictures of this post are ALSO from the SAME company gala, although they were from a year I was no longer working there. My dear friend and former boss Amy gifted the extras to me and clearly I still put them to great use! I use those things (the bowls and the square plates) all year long. :)

Here's that awesome picture of Emma and her Grandad, before they went out to play on Saturday morning. I couldn't fathom ending a post with decor pictures ... had to leave you on a cute note with footage of my sweet daughter cheesin' it up for Momma's camera.

So bummed that I didn't get pictures of our Saturday evening. We had a wonderful night with friends Lucas and Lauren, who came to our house for dinner. Lauren is my dear friend from Sea Gals (she's on the squad this year, too!) and I've been working with both her and hubby Lucas for the past year, doing some photos for their business, 4th Avenue Media. We ate some yummy food at our new dining room table and had so much fun catching up for a bit and letting Emma entertain us all. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures! Emma had a blast with them and even treated them to an impromptu dance routine in the family room to her favorite Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs. She wanted Lucas to get up and dance with her the whole time. :)

All in all ... great first half of the first weekend in December!