Tag: Holiday

Christmas Candle Scent Round Up

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            I did a similar post for autumn and maybe I should have called this winter scents but let’s be real there are like four winter scent notes and I like all of them, vanilla, peppermint, cedar, and snow, whatever snow smells like. 

            I had a lot more holiday candles before we moved from Indiana but in an effort to not have to move so many candles because they are heavy I burned many of my holiday candles and I have yet to replace them so maybe this will be half scents of candles and the other half scent plugs of which I have two plug-ins in my apartment. I don’t know yet though so bear with me, let’s be real I never really know what’s going on, that’s just me as a person. 

            This post is probably going to be shorter than my autumn post with similar content but here we go.

Twisted Peppermint from Bath and Body Works, candle day was just a few short days ago and I of course skipped it because well I work during the week and I don’t feel like braving the mall in the evening this time of year, no thank you. I like the characters on this candle as well as the smell but for now it is going unburned on my bookshelf as part of a display of small stuffed animals.

            Evergreen also from Bath and Body Works, I love the smell of ever green trees and this one is great. I don’t really have much to say about this candle but I do really enjoy the scent and scents like it. 

            Several Bath and Body Works mini candles in Frosted Cranberry (pictured below), Fresh Sparkling Snow, and Fresh Balsam, I got these a while back actually when I was still working in Indiana during Secret Santa season, I bought some for myself while getting a gift for someone else and I haven’t burned them though I have had other mini candles from B&BW over the years and I have burned all of them. 

            My snowman candle holder, like my skull candle holder is from Yankee candle and I don’t actually know where all of my little votives are for this one the only one that I know where it is, is the one in the holder and that is North Pole. 

            Last but not least is my advent candle, I have had this one for probably 4 or 5 years now and I just don’t want to burn it, I know that burning candles is the purpose of candles but it’s the finality of it, besides I don’t actually have anything to put under it right now and I am still not allowed to burn candles so when I get a place that is really my own I will go back to purchasing and burning candles but until then they just hang out and are aesthetically pleasing. 

            Well I think that’s it for me for today, I know that this post isn’t long but they all don’t have to be epics in their own right. I have had a busy month and we only have one more week of school before break so there is always that to look forward to. 

            I will see everyone on Wednesday with another post but until then I hope that everyone has a great start to the week. 

            -MJ

Holiday Décor

.Reading time 9 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            So I had a post two years ago about my holiday décor in my old apartment and I have moved since then so I have new things, mostly the same décor but in different spots. 

            This is not going to be a long post, it’s going to be some words but more photos than anything else. I am not including everything in my place because I have a lot of little bits and bobs all over, mostly stuffed animals, candles, and random small pieces of décor that I am not going to bore you with here. There are also a few things that I don’t have out that I had out in my old place but space is kind of limited in this place. 

            So I know it’s before Thanksgiving, I have been decorated for over a week now and I don’t regret it one little bit, I needed some happy in my apartment and putting up my Christmas decorations and my tree (which I will not be lighting until the day after Thanksgiving) made me really happy when I needed some joy. Is everything in the world fixed after slapping some lights and ornaments on a tree and putting on Christmas music? No but if I can get my own corner of happy I’m going to do it.

            My tree is the same, mostly all Hallmark but with a few new ornaments this year than in years past, I wrote a post on some of my favorites you can check that out if you want to. Here, unlike my old place, my tree is almost right inside the door instead of across the living room from it. I don’t know which I like better. 

            Also in my living room with my workout DVD’s and on my TV stand are some cute little mice that my grandmother had for a long time before I inherited them and some polar bears that I found in a box (honestly completely forgot I owned them). 

            Also in the box was my grandmother’s nativity set that my aunt painted, I knew that it was in the box but I didn’t know there were other things in the box with it. I made room or it this year because it’s been in a box for a few years now and I wanted it out this year. It took some time for me to get everything on top of the bookcase but I got it! 

            A few more things, these are in my bedroom, I made the large piece in the back a few years ago and the snow globes in like 2017, I think? I don’t actually remember, it was before I left Indiana so it’s been at least since Christmas 2017. I love the Grinch it’s one of my favorite Christmas movies, and yes I do mean any and all of the iterations of The Grinch.

            Next up is my dining room table, I do a different thing every year and this year I put up my rose gold reindeer and red chargers, I just like having something festive on my table this time of year. 

            I have a small tree with even smaller ornaments on the work table in the kitchen which is cute. 

            A Santa holding up another snow globe, my dad made the Santa, I made the snow globe. 

            Some penguins next to my mixer where the pumpkin was in my Halloween Décor post.

            The top of my comic book bookcase that has a penguin, a small candle, and a snowman candle holder. The rest of the stuff up there is up year round so nothing fancy.

            On my entry table this year is the stuff that was on my dining room table last year, I think that they will go back on the dining room table next year but I really don’t know yet because I just want to get through 2020 before I even start thinking about 2021. 

            In my office I have my small Christmas tree which I have had for three or four years now and I love so much. It doesn’t have a theme but if it did it would be plush things but also make it fashion because it’s just a cute tree. 

            I also have my third snow globe in my office next to a Boyd bear that I have had since I was a kid, this snow globe needs to be fixed because the deer and the tree have dislodged themselves from the floral foam so I think I just need to cut my losses and replace the foam. 

            Also a bonus: I made this arrangement for my mom and I absolutely love it, it’s at her house and I love arranging flowers but I haven’t done it in a few years.

            So that’s a lot of my bigger or more involved décor in the apartment and I am happy that I am decorated already. 

            I said this post wouldn’t be too long and I am trying to keep true to my word on that so I think that’s going to be it for this post, I hope if you celebrate American Thanksgiving that you all have a good, happy, and safe Thanksgiving even if we all have to celebrate it a little different this year. 

            I hope everyone has a good rest of the week and I will see y’all on Sunday with another post! 

            -MJ 

A Christmas Décor DIY

.Reading time 7 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            This is probably the easiest Christmas DIY I have ever done and I have done a couple now. A while back I was looking in the dollar section at Target, you know at the front when you walk in with all the cute cheap things well it sucked me in and I found two things that gave me an idea, a chalkboard sled and a vinyl cut decal that said ‘dashing through the snow’ and it gave me a cute little idea. 

            I thought this was going to take me five minutes tops but I had to pull out all the little pieces in the cursive so it took me a little longer than expected but I did it! 

            So what do you need for a project like this, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same but for a cute little DIY that is something like this you are gonna need some things. 

            Materials:  

            A backdrop (you can use wood, a piece of glass or whatever that you want to put words on)

            Vinyl die cut words (you can usually buy individual letters at most craft stores or if you have a circuit like go crazy!)

            A quote you like (I bought one that was already done)

            A paint pen (I used a Sharpie paint pen)

            Some paint (because I couldn’t find another paint pen or if you don’t want to use a paint pen you can use this.)

            The actual DIY: 

1.  Okay with this one, first of course gather your materials, this one is a little different than my Halloween ones because it was a lot of premade materials. 

2. I had to pick apart all of the die cut letters which I thought would take me like seconds, it took like ten minutes so if you can I would get individual letters but that would also present challenges. The reason I found this so challenging was the cursive lettering and the little pieces you don’t need were really hard to get out because I didn’t want to rip the letters.

3. I drew a straight line in pencil on my sled where I wanted the letters to go and with the words that worked out great, the letter’s not so much but it looks okay.

4. Put on some snowflakes, I did mine in gold because that was the pen I had at the time and I did add the white and silver snowflakes later (I seriously had it up in my house for a few weeks and it wasn’t actually finished.

5. Display, I have mine sitting in my office but you could hang it on a wall (depending on what it is and your quote) or display it however you want, it’s your craft. 

            Guys, let’s be honest with ourselves I am not great at writing DIY posts, I was better at making small DIY videos but I don’t feel like doing that at the moment, but sometimes it’s just the simple things that can help you get inspiration for a DIY. The Target dollar section is really good at that around holiday times. 

            This post isn’t long and to be honest I have been sitting on this one for a while half-finished because I have been focusing on other things, like decorating my apartment, helping my parents decorate their house, and work so this has kind of been taking a back burner; a lot of DIY and craft ideas are at the moment and that is alright.

            So it’s a cute little craft when it’s finished, that I can say because I have been staring at mine for a few weeks now and it’s not hard to do just to have a simple DIY somewhere in your holiday décor. 

            I hope everyone has a great start to the week, we are off this week from school because it’s Thanksgiving Break so I plan on writing several posts but I will see y’all on Wednesday with my actual updating Holiday Décor post, fingers crossed. 

            Hope everyone has a great start to the week!

            -MJ 

Merry Christmas!

.Reading time 11 minutes.

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! Happy Holidays! Here are some puppies to brighten your day!

Mr. Oz and Miss. Ginger wish you Happy Holidays!

            I can’t believe that we are a week out from 2019, there were so many things that I wanted to do this year that just fell by the wayside but I will talk more about that in my New Year’s post which I started writing in early November because this year, it’s been a year. I just wanted to take some time with today’s post to take a break from beauty and lifestyle and everything else that this blog usually is and reflect on the season.

            I’m going to preface this, this post is probably going to be more “stream of consciousness” than my usual posts because I don’t really have a set intention for this post, no razor sharp focus today because I just want to get some thoughts out.

            I hope that this holiday season finds you well, I hope that you are spending time with family or friends. I hope that everyone has too much food and laughs too much around a table with people who make you feel whole inside and for some people I know that’s not possible and I am sending love to all of the corners of this place for all of those people. 

            I don’t expect this post to be super long because I am just going to talk about my holiday, in my family it’s just my mom, my dad, our dogs, Ozzie and Ginger, and me. We don’t have a big family but this is this year since we moved from my hometown it’s going to be a small Christmas; normally we would be surrounded by my cousin’s family so there would be about 10 of us, this year that is not the case. I doubt that we even really get out of pajamas this year and I am not mad about that. I’m not making a big deal of Christmas this year because this year has been, I can’t sigh over the internet but that is about the emotion that I tie to this year; just one long sigh. 

            It is something like 50˚ or a little bit below as I am writing this post so that means there is not going to be a white Christmas and that to me is such a strange sensation, I was born and grew up just underneath Lake Michigan and we had snow. We got the lake effect and that meant that usually we got plenty of snow and there is a part of me that doesn’t miss that, I hated driving in it, I didn’t like shoveling, because once you grow up there are no such things as snow days unless it’s a state of emergency which we dealt with more than once because of snow. Or you are in education and then it just means another day on at the end of the year, I’m not complaining, days when they closed school meant that I didn’t have to drive 45 minutes to school. I have been walking around in a sweater, I had my windows open last week, it’s December and I’m just not used to that. I was hardened by the north and all that rot. 

            This year is my first year in a new place, it’s not in the house I grew up in; no someone else owns that now and from what our neighbors have said about the new neighbors who now live in our old house, they are not well liked. (I’m not here to pass judgment on them, I don’t know them.) If I was still in Indiana Christmas would be different, we are still going to be doing many of the same things but it’s just different down here, new house, new town, new everything, and I don’t feel very jolly this year. That is not the fault of anyone but my brain, it’s been a really up and down year for me and I think my mind and body are just exhausted with this year and I know when I wake up on January 1st, 2019 it’s not like I get to press the reset button but I am going to do what I can to make that reset button a real thing, even metaphorically. 

            On a lighter note with no transition because I am not having a very easy time having this post pull together as a flowing piece of prose, but here it is. A brief of Christmas traditions in my family: Christmas Eve is just appetizers, we used to make a full dinner because it would be the three of us, my grandmother (God rest her soul) and my Godfather but several years ago, I think I was still in high school when we started to just have appetizers because it was just the five of us. My grandmother passed away in 2015 and that holiday season was hard because her birthday was Thanksgiving that year, she only missed it by a month so that season was hard and even now I am getting a little teary because Christmas was her favorite time of year, my grandmother and I had a rocky relationship from the time I was about 12 so Christmas was the one time a year when nothing was ever said because we were family and it was the holidays. So lighter note my behind as I fall into a pit of needing a therapist and that is not what this post is for. (I am super scattered this morning, I’m sorry but I am not going to censor myself to say that everything is sunshine and rainbows when that’s not how life works.) 

            Back to traditions, appetizers on Christmas Eve, then we all go do our own thing, I normally watch A Christmas Story and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, if you read my Top 10 Christmas Movies post, or if you would like to do that you can click the link and see my reasoning and recommendations to what movies I love to watch during this season. Christmas morning is presents, breakfast, coffee, and it used to be watching the WGN morning show because that is just a weird tradition in my family. Then it was starting to cook, cooking all day, and then having family over in the evening, and topping it off with right before falling asleep I would watch Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown. This year however, we are still having appetizers, our Christmas will just be us and maybe my mom’s best friend, I’m going to try to squeeze in movies because by the time this is posted I’ll have been at my parent’s house for over a day. It’s odd to have to drive somewhere for the holiday but I am excited to do it, even if it’s only about half an hour away. 

            I don’t really have all that much else to say, I hope that your holiday is merry and bright. I will see everyone on Saturday with another post.

            Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

                        MJ