A Housemate Christmas Reunion

 The other night I was invited to a very special dinner with some important ladies in my life.

We had a reunion with all my former university housemates! (and our friend Mel, on the far right, who is an honorary housemate anyways). I lived with these girls for four years and absolutely adore them. We've all had an eventful year with moving to different towns, engagements and even a first house, so this was a nice chance to catch up on all the excitement!

It was also the first time that we had (almost) all of our guys together in one house. Even my friend's cute goldendoodle Gibson got in on the pictures.

He is one of the cutest, most cuddly pups I know. I just wanted to curl up on a couch with him the whole night.

We had a delicious lasagna dinner...with four different kinds. Between all of us we have a gluten intolerance, a peanut allergy (me!), a lactose intolerance and a vegetarian. We're quite the group to try and make dinner for! We also had a great salad and lots of delicious desserts. We were all quite full by the end of the night.

And where did our hostess sit the whole night? On a stability ball. As we all drank more wine, she started to sink lower and lower under the table. It brought back many fond memories of sitting around the table after a night out in university.

Amongst us we have two weddings to go to this summer, so we'll get to see more of each other in the coming months, but I still wish that we all lived in the same area and could see them more often. They're such a fun group of people and we spend the whole time laughing when we get together....and I'm sure we'll be laughing around the table for many years to come.

A Wonderful Christmas

I've taken a bit of a blog hiatus this past weekend to spend some time with the family. It all started on Friday with a lovely dinner with Garrett's family, then another dinner with mine, then a sleepover with the grandparents, a cocktail party with friends and another family dinner last night. Phew! It was lots of fun, but I'm looking forward to some down time later this week.

Christmas Eve night we had some of my cousins over from my mom's side. We're almost getting to all be too big to do the "stairs photo".

During our $5 gift exchange, my uncle got this "one size fits all" t-shirt that my Nana found. Look how tiny it is!

True to its name, it fit!

My littlest cousin (my mini-me) was very excited about Santa coming that night. She checked the Santa tracker on my dad's new iPhone about every 15 minutes. We were getting regular updates of where he was in the world (Ireland! Argentina! Greenland!)

The table was set with fun Christmas crackers (a family favourite), vintage tablecloths, polished silver and the fine china passed down from my grandmother. I love how special it is to get everything out for out big dinner.

We had so much food and it all tasted amazing. I counted about 12 side dishes available. I sampled a few, but kept plenty of room for my favourite part of the meal...

Turkey! There is nothing like turkey with some gravy on it and a little salt.

We had a big group this year with 20 people sitting at the table. I love that everyone still wears their paper crowns throughout dinner.

With all these people, my mom and her brothers were sent off to the "kiddie table" this year.

When all the desserts came out my sister showed up with these adorable reindeer cake pops. They not only looked fantastic, but tasted great too.

Before we knew it, everyone was starting to head home, with the littlest one far to excited to sleep with the thought of Santa on the way.

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families and that you're taking a well deserved break before ringing in 2012!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends. Nothing like the holidays to make you reflect on those who are near and dear to you, and for me that includes all of you too. I truly appreciate everyone who takes the time to come visit this little ol' blog. All your lovely comments brighten my day and I keep me doing what I enjoy so much. Many thanks and best wishes this Christmas.

Christmas Eve

I can hardly believe that its Christmas Eve today. I just have to finish up some work, throw the last few things in the suitcase and then I'm heading to my parents' for the next few days. I can't wait to see the whole family and celebrate. 

It feels like this month has just flown by! Here is a recap of some of my favourite Christmas posts from the past month:

Christmas House Tour of Our New Apartment

JOY Plates

Our Holiday Housewarming Party

Chocolate Christmas Treats: Pretzel Bark, White Christmas Crunch and Easy Fudge

Casa Loma at Christmastime

Whiskey Attacking the Wrapping Paper

Outdoor Christmas Decor

Family Christmas Carrot Pudding - which I'll be eating tonight!

Homemade Hand Warmers

Egg Nog Scones

Christmas Lights at Niagara Falls

Easy Salted Chocolate-Covered Caramels

Whiskey's Christmas Bow Tie

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve!

Almost Ready for Christmas

Today is the last day that I have to get stuff done before I head to my parents' home for Christmas. I'm working at home today and have lots of paperwork to do, but I decided I'd rather get up early and get my fun chores done first.

I made a batch of White Christmas Crunch, using dark chocolate swirls instead of crushed candy canes. I've already sampled the corner of it and can confirm that it tastes great!

 I (finally) finished sewing the new velvet stockings that I made for us this year. Looking forward to filling them with goodies tomorrow!

and lastly I made a batch of my Mom's Homemade Macaroni and Cheese to take to Garretts' family Christmas tonight. Its one of our family's favourites and is always a crowd pleaser.

I've still got all that paperwork to get done, but its much easier to do it with Christmas music playing in the background.

I hope that you're all having a nice Friday and are enjoying all this Christmas cheer!

Whiskey's Christmas Dog Bow Tie

This year we have quite a few family Christmas events to go to and I thought it would be cute to dress Whiskey up a bit for the festivities.

Doesn't he look handsome with his little Christmas bow tie? It only took 10 minutes to make it and I was able to do it all with some scraps I had in my fabric bin. You could use the same bow pattern for just about anything - headbands, tops, its up to you.

 Take a rectangle of fabric that is twice as wide as the bow you want.

 Fold the fabric in half with the good sides in and stitch along one side.

 Turn inside out and then move the seam to the centre.

 Fold the top and bottom edges in.

 Press with an iron for a couple of seconds.

 Fold the bow in half with the good side on the inside.

 Fold each side over again. This is what the back will look like.

 And here is the front view. Pin and set aside.

 Take another scrap strip of fabric and fold it in thirds.

 Wrap around the bow and secure with a couple of stitches at the back.

I attached it to Whiskey's Christmas Collar with a couple of stitches that I can remove after the holidays

 Now Whiskey is all ready for the festivities to begin!

Funny Christmas Videos

I have a mountain of projects to finish up before Christmas and a stack of recipes that need to be made, but I can't help but procrastinate with some funny videos. Here they are to help you procrastinate from shopping, wrapping, decorating, baking, napping.....

Funny Or Die - Drunk History: Twas the Night Before Christmas

with Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and Jim Carrey

This is by far one of the best funny Christmas videos I've seen in quite some time. Click Here to Watch!

This North Carolina family found a snake...in their tree! And they're kids wanted to keep it and name it Tinsel.

And lastly, here is a video of a house in a small town in Ontario that timed their lights to the music from Christmas Vacation (one of my all-time favourite holiday movies)

Now its time to pop in a Christmas CD and get back to work!

Niagara in Lights

Yesterday I headed over the border with my family to do a mad dash of last minute Christmas shopping. Its always so fun to go shopping in the US because they have different stuff than we do and sometimes at a great price too!

As tired as we were, we decided to head over the Rainbow Bridge on our way back into Canada and drive through Niagara Falls. They have an annual light display during the holidays and it seemed like a festive way to end our trip.

 

The lights were even more amazing than I thought they'd be. I wish these pictures would show you how they all moved. The "fountain" of lights was twinkling the whole time. 

 A big rainbow sign to welcome you to the parks.

Giant trees lit up, with little trees throughout the park.

Our trusty Mounties!

Toy soldiers lighting a cannon. You can see in this picture how the cannon ball would move and the smoke would rise up.

There was also a massive series of Disney characters, like a waving Snow White and all the dwarfs.

 

Mickey and the cast from Cars.

My sister's favourite was a "Candy Cane Forest" in one of the parks. As we drove around, we saw all these huge trees wrapped in red and white lights.

They also had many wildlife displays set up in the park. A moose and buffalo squaring off.

A beaver chopping down a tree, while deer hang out by the water.

They even had some dinosaurs across on a little island. I love their reflection in the water.

One of my favourite displays was Noah's Ark sitting in the big pond.

There were many more displays there, but most of my pictures came out looking like this. Its hard to take pictures of lights!

After a lovely drive around Niagara Falls, it was time to head home with all of our shopping bags. As exhausting as it was going around the mall all day, I'm so glad to have almost all of my gifts picked out. Now its time to find fun ways to wrap them :)