the holidays so far

IMG_9456 IMG_9464 I’m definitely not one of those folks who decorates every room of the house for Christmas and has a tree in several rooms and a colour scheme and all that (but if you are, more power to you!), but I do like to have a few lights up and a tree. We have a little mini artificial tree that was left behind by the previous owner of our house, and I put lights in the front window and around the side too. I think if Adam were more into decorating (he’s not at all!) we might do more, but where it’s just me doing it, I do a little bit and leave it at that. I just like to have lights on at night, it makes the living room so cozy!

IMG_9468 So school is done now for the semester, yahoo! It was a tough last month, I found myself struggling a bit to keep stress at bay and still complete my work. But, “inch by inch, life’s a cinch,” as someone helpful told me last month (the rest of that is “yard by yard, life is hard”), and I kept a daily calendar with what I had to do each day, and crossed each day off as it passed. And now the Holidays are here. I realized that stressing about things isn’t just for school, that it’s probably just a part of who I am, because now I’m stressing about Holiday things!

Well, not overly, but the thoughts are there: “Must get awesome presents for everyone!” “Must bake for everyone in the neighbourhood!” “Must visit everyone I know!”

Then I cut myself off at the pass and think, “No, actually must rest and relax and enjoy my time off.”

The picture above is of a stovetop simmer, the recipe I got from A Beautiful Mess. It is simple to make and makes the house smell amazing.

IMG_9470 A dear friend came over and for the fourth year in a row we made chocolate rum balls. Yup, that’s an entire pot of melted butter. In our defence it was a double batch.

IMG_9481 Dim sum at the Canton in North Sydney with friends.
IMG_9492 IMG_9493 I do love to send Christmas cards. I’ll probably still do it once the stamp prices increase next year, but perhaps send fewer. That’s a bit sad.

IMG_9495 The big storm on the weekend left a lot of snow, and got us talking about getting a snowblower.

IMG_9499 A basket of citrus fruit in preparation for making lemon squares later.

IMG_9500 A paper garland I made last year out of an old Chatelaine magazine.

IMG_9501 IMG_9502 IMG_9503 Decorations on our little tree, some from my friend Tanya’s sister, who was clearing out her stash. (She’s one of those aforementioned folks who decorates all the rooms in the house.)

 

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5 Responses to the holidays so far

  1. haya says:

    i am super sad about the postal increases. i guess maybe some of the not so special people will not get birthday or random other day cards anymore ;-). i do plan to stock up on a couple more rolls of 100 permanents from costco before they go up so i can feed my mail habit. that should last me a few years at least.

    i am totally making that simmer while i’m at home today! i have put up zero christmas decorations so far, but maybe at least the house can =smell= like christmas.
    lemon squares are my favourite, though i have not made them in ages!

    • leahcnoble says:

      Yes, me too, Haya – sad about the postal increases. Good idea to stock up on the permanent stamps before the price goes up, though! I know it would have to be a pretty major price increase (like, $5.00 a letter) before I’d stop writing letters altogether.

      I’m hooked on simmers now! I’ve made them pretty much every day since Saturday.

      Lemon squares are one of my faves too and this was my first time making them!

      • haya says:

        so i’ve had a simmer going in our teeny tiny crockpot that we never use for anything else (i think it is meant for dips, but we don’t really eat dip) because it seems safer than a pot on the stove. kept tricking jon into thinking something delicious was cooking because it smelled so good. yesterday morning before i went to the gym and out for errands, i plugged it in again. came home and as soon as i opened the door, i said “something smells yummy! what’s for breakfast?” turns out i fooled myself.
        apparently permanent stamps are no longer being sold. that was really sneaky of canada post. i did get a roll of 100 right before they announced so maybe i’ll just save those for after the increase and use normal 63 cent stamps till then.

  2. Sandy Foster, Grant st. in summer says:

    Beautiful group of snaps.

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