The Holiday Bloat & Decorum Battle

Dear. God. Help. Me.

It’s been the longest non-winter ever here in California and I don’t even have weather as an excuse for my gluttony the past two weeks. I’m afraid to go near the scales. It’s the constant ying-yang of life for me. I’ve been regimented about my workouts but I know its 90% what goes into your mouth. What’s going into my mouth as of late is almost worth a confession. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned, with mom’s famous dream bars, cookies of every kind on everyday, pasta, lasagna, crab cakes and even Eggs Benedict at Bill’s. Now that I wrote that, let’s just avoid those scales and skinny jeans entirely. I’ll give it a week back of eating clean and light and see if I can offset some of the damage before I step foot on that scale. I’ve become a Martha of cookie making – super scary – and find myself now obsessed with piping bags, candy decorations, and learning all about meringue powder. It’s time to get back into a non-holiday rhythm. But I am finding my love for baking has grown, and so has my technique, and now I’m hosting full family feasts and events so I guess there is no turning back.

My helper all season

This season I was late to put up the Christmas decor and early to take it down. Not sure what is going on in my universe but this holiday season just crept up and disappeared as fast as I hung ole’ St. Nick up. I do have one tradition that I make sure happens every year which is a separate, small travel tree. I always collect an ornament, or something that could be an ornament, from anywhere I visit and then hang it on one tree. It’s super fun to see all the places you’ve traveled to, close and far, and think about all the memories of those journey’s. Not a glamorous shot here, but since this was the year of Hawaii for us you’ll get why Sandy Santa is at the top:

Side Note: Might I add the irony of the palm print curtains in my dining room tying in with this years staring theme? Total coincidence but I like where this is headed.

I also realized this season that I’m not a red person. I loathe the green and red decorum combo for some reason, I realize that this is Christmas itself, so I guess the artist in me wants something different in the color arena. I never realized this about myself until now, even though my entire life I had never gravitated or purchased anything “Christmas-y”, and therefore found myself gravitating towards blacks, dusty blues, and hunter greens. I guess I’m not about color for Christmas which is definitely a polar reverse from my normal aesthetic. I had the Mr. paint the tree a silver (hard to tell in some of these photos, and no, I didn’t get a video of him doing this but it was super easy & not flammable by any means) and it made me like the tree 100x better. So I did my best with flinging up a tree, strung some lights up, and then found black and white ribbon to tie all over it.

Can we just talk about the hideous trink factors of the holidays? I want to know who designs this stuff. Halloween just barfs orange and purple, Thanksgiving is still stuck in the 90’s with raffia bows and hay sticking out of every crevice, and Christmas just takes over the green/red market. I’m glad to see some of the retail lines out there are gravitating towards more neutral, sparkly, or metallic pieces but then the pieces themselves are so bad it doesn’t matter what color is smeared on them. I also find myself particularly disturbed by the Christmas Elf’s and Santa’s that appear. Does anyone else find these completely haunting and creepy? I just think of the Doll in Poltergeist under Carol Ann’s bed. There must be a way to design these creatures to look modern, cool, or stylish. Maybe I just need hipster Elf’s and Santa’s to appease my craving here.

Speaking of disturbed, I can share that we saw Santa (in sandals and PJ’s) who was more eager to have his smoke break (outwardly and loudly) than he was to see the children. I think he may have been still recovering from the night before. But, hey, this is a mall in America and you get what you get. Thankfully, no harm was done permanently and my child was so excited he didn’t miss a beat. Might I add that we found the ultimate holiday boys hat from Target, who continues to dominate my life in every way possible, and my child couldn’t get enough of it. Nor could we. Absolutely hysterical, particularly on school pajama day where it was so cold he even wore his plaid robe under his sweatshirt but that hat saved the day!

Christmas in the Park…a tradition but, please, trust us and stay away from the hot dog carts. Entirely.

And to sum up my month of holiday festivities, my dear friends who own the D’Railed Beauty Trolley in Willow Glen (some seriously fierce lady friends of mine who drive this tank with ease and can be seen at the Google campuses’ regularly) invited me to hop on for some holiday cheer in the peak of the season. We roared through WG and saw all the famous lights while spreading some cheer off the open back end of Fifi. Yes, it’s a mobile beauty salon and completely awesome.

My only selfie this season on the back of the trolley…thanks to Velia & Monina for this awesome night out!

Happy New Year! This year my resolution is to get back into blogging since I am now in the baby-toddler free zone and can think some of the time again and share more of my photos and adventures. The Winnie and I can’t wait to roll into 2018 with a bang and really show the world my flare. It’s a comin’ and a long time overdue, ya’ll. Brace yourself for impact.