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This year my husband and I will not be exchanging Valentine’s Day gifts. The decision was mostly his. He doesn’t believe in the Hallmark holiday and would prefer to save our joint income than spend it on jewelry for me. It’s not that he doesn’t love me or that he is particularly frugal. We show our affection for one another daily, and when we go shopping together, he hardly ever denies me the things that I “need.” I think it’s the idea that a token gift on a particular day of the year is supposed to mean something more than it would on any other day.

Although I understand the reason behind his decision, I can’t help but feel disappointed. I would be happy with a simple bouquet of flowers, or even a card, but sadly I don’t I’m going to receive either. Me, the lover of paper, who already has several cards picked out for him! Yes, I do tell him everyday that I love him, but I enjoy having the opportunity to really let my thoughts loose on paper. My husband has stood by me during a number of challenges this past year, and I want to thoroughly thank him for his patience and his love. It may not be reciprocated, but I’m still going to give him a card (or three!).

I suppose I should feel a bit relieved that we aren’t exchanging gifts for Valentine’s Day because surprising your significant other with a present is difficult when you are married to somebody who checks the credit card statements nearly every day. When I know I want to buy my husband a gift, I need to be sneaky. Sometimes I’ll plan ahead and take a little bit of extra cash out of the ATM for a couple of weeks before I actually need it. If I want to buy him a gift online, I’ve been forced to ask my parents if I can use their credit card and pay them back after the gift has been given. When it comes to gift giving, having a separate credit card or separate bank accounts would be ideal.

I know I covered a bunch of topics in the post, but I’m very curious to hear from you. Will you be exchanging Valentine’s Day presents with your hubby? How do you go about buying gifts without him finding out? Do you have a separate credit card for that purpose?

Christmas is over and I’m finally settling back into my normal routine. I loved being home and spending time with my family, but by the end of my 10 day stay I just wanted to be in my own bed, with my fridge full of the food that makes up my regular diet, no longer needing to dig through my suitcase every time I needed something to wear. I’ve created a list of the gifts we received so thank you notes can be sent out because if I don’t write it down I’ll forget who gave me what. Yes, I was a very lucky girl this year.

Not to choose favorites but… I’m going to tell you which is my favorite. It’s the gift that makes me smile every time I use it. I think it’s also the gift I can’t stop talking about because I threw it on to my wish list at the last second when my mom asked for ideas. A few things I wanted/needed this year? A toaster. LaraBars. Accessories to dress up my black stretchy maternity dresses. And oh yeah, a robe since I remember making my dad a bit uncomfortable while I walked around in my towel when my parents came to stay for the weekend at the beginning of December.

Yep, my favorite gift this year, out of all the wonderful things I was blessed to receive, is a robe. This robe to be exact.

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This isn’t just any robe. It’s the softest, most luxurious, dreamiest article of clothing I have ever slipped into. Wearing it feels like a visit to the spa and I find myself getting excited to step out of the shower each day and slip into it.Thanks mom, this was one of my favorite gifts ever from you.

What about you? What was your favorite Christmas gift this year?

P.S.-Isn’t the model posing this way ridiculous?

Subtitle: When All Else Fails, Get Your Siblings Drunk!

You remember the extreme limitations imposed upon my family gift-giving this year, don’t you? After trying and failing at a few different ideas for my siblings and their SOs, our highly scientific thought process went something like this:

Without further ado, our Crafty Christmas:

To set the theme, I made booklets for each couple that were printed on cardstock, hole-punched, and tied with holiday ribbon. I forgot to take a photo of the finished products, but here are the jpgs. Read them vertically, and click for a larger version.

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I love getting Christmas cards in the mail. Photo Christmas cards are my ultimate faves and of course, anything handmade makes me squeal in excitement. So I decided that as long as I can muster up the energy, I will be hand making our cards each year. So far so good. Next year, with a 9 month old? Not so sure it will happen. But for now it’s one of my favorite projects each year.

In 2007, the year of our wedding, I had to use a wedding picture. What newlywed couple wouldn’t love to showcase a photo to family and friends once more? If you are a newlywed I say go for it….even if you think everyone is sick of seeing your wedding pictures, they probably aren’t:)

So I picked one black and white picture, then chose a bunch of fun Christmas printed paper and went to town:

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Not going to lie, this next craft is a labor of love.  It’s a bit time consuming, but it’s a great thing to keep your hands busy on a cold night in front of the fireplace!  These hand-embroidered cards make a great gift for friends (I made them for our holiday swap…hope you enjoy them, Cyd!) , not to mention that they are far cheaper than purchasing them in the store…

Materials needed:
-Kraft paper cards and envelopes (Michaels or other craft store), about $8 total for 20
-Embroidery thread (about $0.49 per color, which will be more than enough to make 10-20 cards)
-Crafting needles (found in sewing aisle)–try to find one that is long-ish and thin, with a big enough head to thread embroidery through
-Whatever you’d like to stamp the envelopes with. I used clear embossing powder to emboss them with a subtle evergreen stamp.

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I might be a little behind in getting on board the glitter house boat (I believe they became re-popularized in 2006 by Martha), but some people still haven’t heard of them so…  Here are two little houses I made.

“These quaint little decorations, known as ‘putz houses’ or ‘putzes’, were found on tables, mantles and under Christmas trees in homes across America for many decades starting around the early 1900’s.” (-LittleGlitterHouses.com). The blue one above as an attempt at a model of my own home.

I think glitter houses are adorable for Christmas and a fun craft project.  You can check out Martha’s instructions and templates here.  The pink, yellow, and green house I made is from LittleGlitterHouses.com.  It’s simpler than Martha’s, so it’s a good one to start with if you want to give this craft project a try.

A few things the tutorials didn’t mention: For the windows, I use red clear cellophane that’s like the stuff you wrap Easter baskets up in.  For the light inside, LED tea lights work perfectly.  If it won’t fit in the house, stick it in the base and make a hole for the flame part to come through.  You could also run a string of twinkle lights across your mantle or wherever you have your houses set up, but I couldn’t bear to see the cord. I’m trying again on my house soon – with lollipop sticks for the porch railing.  Wish me luck!

If you like these but don’t want to get quite as involved, check out Martha’s Train Station kit, available in lots of craft stores (I’ve seen it in Michael’s and AC Moore).

Have you tried these before?  Any tips?

P.S. Bonus – I’ve started blogging about the Baltic cruise Ami and I went on with our husbands over on my travel blog.  Come visit!

Where did we leave off on the house hunting story? Oh, yes. We lost out on our #1 country house choice. And Me and Mr. D didn’t see eye-to-eye on our 2nd and 3rd choices. We were dying to get back to our lives in New York. Since we were at a stalemate over the house, we acted on the one thing we could both agree upon. We rented a little City apartment!

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Last week, we moved. Again. Not for the first time, but for the third time this year. Three New York City apartments in one year! Don’t forget our 4 month sabbatical in the Mid-West – Can you believe it? I literally left the gym yesterday evening and could not remember where our apartment was. I am not kidding you!

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Our very own ABCD has created the most perfect holiday cards that I just had to share with ya’ll (heads up, they are not kid friendly)!

Amy says:

A few weeks ago, I started working on our personal holiday cards. I tried sayings like “Season’s Greetings” “Happy New Year” and “May your season be bright.” Nothing seemed right. I decided to wrap things up on the computer and go clear my head with a good workout. Right before I closed our holiday card file I wrote this:

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My family is a crew of perennial over-gifters. We love giving gifts; in fact, we can’t quite control ourselves. Our Christmas Eve extravaganzas are infamous. Presents begin in neat piles under the tree, but not two feet later are stacked to dizzying heights, toppling over one another, and spreading out half-way across the living room floor. We have a ritual for opening the gifts, too: one at a time, oldest to youngest. It takes hours. There is applause and fanfare after each gift is opened. As I said, it’s a ritual.

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But 2009 has presented itself as that fateful Christmas that would belie tradition, for reasons of scheduling and economy. First, we’ve moved our usual Christmas Eve extravaganza to Christmas Night so that my niece’s maternal grandparents finally get a chance to host Santa (they’re three hours away). With that being the case, Trevor and I realized how much money we could save by traveling on Christmas morning instead of Christmas Eve, so we jumped on discount airfare. (Christmas Eve all alone with a boy? What ever’ll I do?!) Oh, and did I mention that half of us are looking for jobs or desperately hanging onto the jobs we have? Yep.

So with everything so in flux this year – and our family focus becoming increasingly grandchild-centric anyway – the family matriarch put her holiday-socked foot down and issued a proclamation*. In the spirit of simplifying and treading lightly while Ye Olde Economy is still kicking our butts, no gift can cost more than $10 per person.

What the…?!

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I’ve always been a fan of crafty projects and what better time of year to bust out your inner Martha than with the holiday season? There’s nothing like personalized touches in your home and a lot of times I choose to make our decorations instead of buying them because I love having full control over what we display. Saving money doesn’t hurt, either:)

For instance, both my husband and I grew up in homes that celebrated Christmas with yearly ornaments. That means that every year of our lives, from birth until we were ‘on our own’, is well-represented via ornaments. My mom and mother-in-law gave us all of the yearly ornaments last year and it is SO much fun to go through year by year and relive the memories. This is something I want to do for our family, too, and so beginning with the year of our wedding I’ve made a family ornament to hang on the tree. I just used a picture, some cardboard, glittery glue, some string, and any other little details I can find and voila….a yearly ornament!

2007:

2008:

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