Happy Friday, friends! The company I work for is closed today and Monday, so I’m excited to be kicking off a four day weekend with 7QT and catching up reading my favorite blogs.
— 1 —
My husband’s side of the family celebrates on Christmas Eve. After Mass we all get together at his Aunt and Uncle’s house (who btw are the most amazing party throwers) and celebrate Jesus’ birth. One of my favorite parts of the family parties is getting to see our two sweet godsons. They are both growing up so fast! We don’t get to see either of them as often as we’d like (that’s everyday for the record haha), so we cherish these moments together.
I get so much satisfaction from finding and giving a gift the recipient loves. This year, I was most excited to give my husband’s Nana earrings with a medal of her favorite saint (St. Martin de Porres) from Annery’s Handmade on Etsy. It is rare to find jewelry or anything really for this lesser known saint, so when I found out Annery’s Handmade did custom orders, I was so excited. #notanad
More importantly, Nana liked them so much she put them on right away! It warmed my heart to make her happy.
We played some really fun games at my side of the family’s Christmas celebration this year. For one we had a race to unwrap a giant ball of saran wrap that had candy and other goodies stuffed in it.
For another we tried to unwrap a gift with MANY layers of wrapping paper using oven mitts. (Not our family in that linked video, just showing what the game is.) It was surprisingly difficult and not-so-surprisingly hilarious to watch when it wasn’t your turn.
This year several of the gifts we gave were crocheted by yours truly. I only know a few stitches, one taught to me by my sister and the others from watching YouTube, so most of the gifts were scarves. I did attempt to make one hat, and it turned out decent for my first second attempt at making a hat.
My first attempt looked a lot like a basket.
Then I took it apart and tried again. The final product isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is warm and resembles something like a hat. This is the tutorial I used if anyone wants to try it out.
My Grandma gave me The Diary of Mattie Spenser and I can barely put it down to do necessary things like go to the bathroom and take a shower. It’s about a woman from Iowa in the 1860’s who gets married and travels with her new husband to the Colorado Territories via wagon.
1/6 update: I enjoyed this book a lot, but could’ve done without the sexy scenes. Overall a good read if you skim past those though.
One of my most treasured gifts is from my Mom. She had one of my grandpa’s old button up shirts made into an apron. She actually did this for all of my sisters and girl cousins and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when we opened them up.
I’ve talked before about my family’s goal box tradition. This year I achieved 1 of the 3 goals I set for 2016. Not great. It seemed like everyone in the family with the exception of my youngest sisters fell short this year, so we assigned everyone someone to bug throughout the year about where they stand on achieving their goals. The rule was that your buddy couldn’t be your parent or your spouse, because we nag each other enough as it is. Haha. Two of my goals are:
Hopefully this time next year both of those will be done!
We’ve both had some time off around the holiday and my favorite part has been getting a chance to hang out with my sweet husband more. We’re so busy between work and other commitments; it’s nice to enjoy each other’s company without an agenda or to do list.
For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t The Lyceum!
Have a great weekend! 🙂
This is great Adri!!
Thank you! <3 Hope you are staying warm this week. So cold!!