In hope that St. Nicholas soon would be there...

 Well, the stockings have been hung by the chimney with care here at our house. The tree is up, the mantel is decorated and we even got the buffet up the stairs, decorated and (gasp) finally hung something on our walls. I'm even almost done with all of our gift buying!

First things first, the tree. It is the big symbol of Christmas, right? We were very happy with the tree we found this year, she's a beauty. I even found a coupon in our local Pennysaver for $10 off. Who knew tree lots put out coupons? That's what you get for leafing through the junk mail while eating your breakfast.

The tree itself was the only money spent here. All the decorations are old (well, 3 years old) and I got them from my Mom.

And just to the left of the tree is my ridiculous mantel.

I think my plan here was "add more greenery!" I really like to decorate with natural greens at Christmas time, mostly because THEY'RE FREE! The tree lots here throw all the cuttings into a big wooden crate and you can take whatever you want. They even put the crate outside the gate so that you can come after hours and get your free cuttings (which I've been known to do since I like to start my household projects at, oh, 9pm).

Yes, our cats do get stockings, but note how tiny they are. I usually just get them each a bag of treats and a new small toy. Don't mock me. 

Then there's the front door wreath, which doesn't go with the rest of the house AT ALL, but who cares. I think it's very Dr. Suess. I added the black twigs (which have little crystals on them, you just can't see them from here) and the red bow (IKEA ribbon...of which I should have bought about 12 rolls because I LOVE it).

And last but not least, the big reveal of the night, the $20 yard sale buffet is finally out of the basement! Here's the before:

Pardon the haze in this photo, I had just finished the first bit of sanding and wiping down when I thought, "oh, I have blog...I should be taking before and after photos" so there's quite a bit of dust in the air here.

This buffet was not in terrible shape to begin with. But, the veneer was chipped big time on the sides and the top was in bad shape. The chipped veneer meant that staining the thing would not work out. I wanted to paint it a taupe color, Adam convinced me to paint it brown. So, after bringing home lots of paint chips, choosing the right brown with Adam and painting the whole thing while he was on a business trip, we decided the brown was a terrible idea.

So, she ended up being black. At some point I decided all our furniture in our apartment (when we lived there) should be black. I think I did that so that the whole place wouldn't be "girly girl central" since I would be living with Adam. So now, black is kind of our go-to color. I am hoping in the future to change this.

Anyway, here she is now, in our living room, where our TV used to be.

Ignore that cord on the floor...that's the cable from when the TV was here. We need to pull that sucker back into the basement. I'll distract you from it....Look, we finally hung pictures on the walls! I mean, we've only been here 3 months, we can't do it ALL people! I mean, hanging those photos took 20 whole minutes, where were we supposed to find that kind of time? I love those stair pictures. We bought them at the big art festival in Baltimore (Artscape) a few years ago.

Oh and last (possibly least) is a photo of my little "thing" on top of the buffet. Mom got me this deer antler candle holder when we went shopping one day in October, I think, and has been holding on to it for Christmas. I love it...why I covered it up with more FREE GREENS and dollar store faux flowers I don't know. And yes, there is a spot for a third candle, and I would swear up and down that I bought 3 tapers at the dollar store the other day, but I think the girl only put 2 in my bag.

So that's it for holiday decor around here. I'm hoping to soon show off the side tables which are 98% finished. And this weekend we may be making the trek up to Pennsylvania (or as we call it Pennsyltucky) to peruse the Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and Calico Corners outlets. My parents are going up with us and saying that they'll buy us a Christmas present while we're there. The weather men are calling for beaucoup snow on Saturday, so we'll see.

Projects abound...

So, it's been far too long since I've posted. I know, I'm the worst blogger ever. As one of two moderators for the school play at the high school where I work, my weekends have been taken up building a fake forest for the past several weeks. Blog posts were taking a back seat to...well...all the stuff I don't have time to do because of the play. But the set is built, the show starts tomorrow, and I'm free! Until Sunday when we have to disassemble the whole thing and pack it away until the Spring musicial. I have been able to get a few household projects done. no. 1: My mother helped me get the 2 of 3 sets of bedrooms curtains done. The last set is...coming. I wanted to get the first 2 (larger) windows finished before I started the 3rd window. no. 2: We shortened the curtains from our apartment, where we had 9 foot ceilings, to fit our 8 foot ceilings and hung them. no. 3: I re-matted and framed an Audobon print of Baltimore Orioles I found in an antique shop and hung it over our bed. Wanna see? Here's the bird print before: And here it is after: (I know this is a terrible picture, I couldn't get one without a glare from either my camera flash or our ceiling fan in the bedroom) I've loved John James Audobon ever since I took an early American art history class in college. I love that he was both a scientist and a wonderful artist. When I found this print in an antique shop, I had to buy it. Audobon, Baltimore Oriole AND in our bedroom's color scheme? How could I not? And here's the wide shot with our new bedroom curtains: The curtains were plain white cotton tab top curtains from Target, and I added the yellow stripe down the inside using this fabric from Joann Fabrics: I'm kind of in love with these curtains and they were pretty darn easy to make. While we're here, remember the old bedroom? There's still a lot to do in there. If I were to turn the camera around to the opposite wall you'd see...not much. We also want to replace the dresser in that room with something shorter and longer, and get new night stands. I'll be painting the current ones and popping them in the guest room. So, that's what I've been up to! No pictures of the living room yet, because I'm working on making roman shades to go under the drapes. I'm also in the process of painting our $20 yard sale buffet. A lot of new projects should be popping up in the next 6 or 8 weeks because (drum roll please) I'll be hosting my Mom's side of the family for Christmas this year. Holy moley! About 25 people will be descending on our house, ready to eat drink and be merry. I hope we can pull this off. Project goals in preparation for the Christmas party: 1. Swap living room and den furniture (this will include possibly cutting our couch in half from the inside in order to get it into the den through our rather bendy, narrow hallway...we may end up with a new couch before all is said and done). 2. Get the den somewhat decorated 3. Buy a rug for the dining room 4. Paint buffet 5. Paint side tables 6. Make over the brick fireplace 7. Paint the guest bedroom bed 8. Buy a mattress for guest bedroom bed 9. Get the house actually decorated for Christmas! So wish us luck! We may need a Christmas miracle before all is said and done...or a panicked phone call to mom saying "you have to host Christmas, we can't do all this!"