It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, I could not wait to get in the Christmas spirit! I have always wanted to do a 1950ish vintage Christmas, and this was the year I made that happen. All my decorations were in pale pink, green and blue with accents of gold and silver. 

My decorations were pretty during the day, but they really came a live at night when the Christmas tree could really glow and the twinkle lights made all the glitter on the ornaments shimmer. I loved spending my holiday evenings basking in the low glow of the Christmas tree, there isn't a more magical type of light.

I had a fun time wrapping all my gifts this year. I put on a marathon of Christmas movies and went to town. I had the Griffin family this year, they share my love of kitties, so I found the cutest kitty gift tags to use on their gifts to make them a little extra special. 

I fan girled hard when I saw these dainty chandelier ornaments at the store, they were some of my favorite Christmas finds this year.

Louis and Dinah love when I put up a Christmas tree. Dinah loves to be naughty and climb up the tree and make all the ornaments fall off. Louis loves to sit and admire it from a far. They both love hanging out underneath it, I can only imagine how magical that must be for them.

I have been on the search the last couple of years for plastic crystals, and this year I finally found some! Hobby Lobby had an entire wall of plastic crystals, all different patterns, shapes and sizes, and for suuuper cheap. I loaded up on them, I am now prepared for any and all occasions that call for gorgeous, hanging crystals.

When I had gotten all of my decorations up, my cute parents said they wanted to come see them in person, so I had them over to dinner one evening. I don't often cook elaborate meals, since it's usually just me and cooking big meals is exhausting, hard work. But I do enjoy cooking, so I used this as an opportunity to try out some new recipes, and I must say, they all turned out rather delicious.

I added this rustic bar cart to my home collection a couple of months ago, and I am obsessed with it! It's perfect for serving drinks and appetizers.

We had cranberry, apple ginger spritzers with homemade ginger syrup and balsamic cranberry and goat cheese crust-inis for starters.

I also wanted to learn how to make sugared cranberries so I made a batch and used them as garnishes on everything haha

The Menu:

Balsamic and Thyme Pork Tenderloin 

Creamy Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes 

Buttered Green Beans with Shallots

Orange Lion House Rolls with Homemade Orange Glaze

Raspberry Mixed Green Salad with Candied Almonds and Cranberry Ginger Dressing

Chocolate Peppermint Cake

As much as I wish I could say I made this gorgeous cake, I didn't, I picked it up at Whole Foods. They have an amazing bakery and I always want to buy everything they have in their coolers. I was so excited to finally have an occasion to buy something from there! I picked this cake because of how pretty it was, they told me it was a chocolate vegan cake. I wasn't sure what that would taste like, but I went for it anyway. I bought some of that special, comes-around-once-a-year peppermint ice cream to go with it. Turns out chocolate vegan cake is amazing!! It was so rich and chocolatey and moist!