Photos © 2011 Curly Girl Design, Inc./Leigh Standley. all rights reserved.
Hello and Happy Holidays to you all!! I am back after taking a handful of much-needed days of unplugging. No Facebook, no blog, no Twitter only a tiny bit of email and mostly just eating and hanging with my family. This Christmas my Mom and Dad made the long drive to Boston from St. Louis and my brother flew up to be with us. This was an enormous gift in itself as this year has been a little bit hectic for us with the new shop and Coach's school and basketball schedule.
The girls and I worked until mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve before we shut the doors at Marmalade. We said goodbye to our last customer, locked the doors, popped champagne and cranked Mariah Carey's “All I want for Christmas is You” and danced around the shop! It was a very busy and fun first season at the shop and though we were bleary-eyed, I had an incredible team and they made it an absolute blast!
With all of this, my own personal Christmas tree was not even purchased until December 20th. Coach and I had not had a moment together to get one, and when we popped out 5 days before Christmas to our local Lion's Club where we get our tree every year, we pulled up only to realize that they were SOLD OUT!
SOLD OUT OF CHRISTMAS TREES.
I nearly burst into tears convinced that we had waited too long and now nothing would be right. Coach calmly suggested a few other spots where we might find a straggler. We went to the next place, and though they only had about 20 trees left, we found one that was a good fit and brought it home and put lights on it.
It then sat there for another 3 days until, only moments before having company over, we quickly (but festively- Thanks Coach) put our hand full of ornaments on it and a big star on top.
All of this is to say that I could have used a few more weeks of “Christmas time” to get all the decorating and festivity in. I made the house cozy in as many ways as I could and am pretty sure nobody noticed but me. I did a little holiday house tour last year after we first moved in, so some of this will look familiar. I try to change it up every now and again as I add to my collection of grown-up Christmas decor.
I made the winter beds for the guestroom and set out the bar for a little cocktail party for friends. Of course, somehow most of my photos from Christmas Day were of the dogs. My parents drove in large part so they could bring their dog Maddie and while they were not wrestling or tearing around the house, I took approximately one million photos of them. They got an equivalent amount of treats, so they didn't seem to mind. All of us are hitting the treadmill this January.
So here are the photos I managed to get between cookies and movies and opening gifts. I am so grateful for having this time with my family, for having this time to rest and for all the blessings that came with this year. Among those blessings is you. Thanks for reading and sharing and just being out there. It is such a lovely thing.
I am so looking forward to a brand new year!!
xoxo
