Post-Christmas Prettifying

A belated merry Christmas to you, my readers, both of you. This month has not been great in terms of blog updates, but has been pretty good in terms of life happening and keeping me busy. We hosted Christmas for my family, so that was a self-inflicted whirlwind of planning and execution. If I had it to do over again, I might chill out on a few elements of the meal, but I had to put the kitchen through its paces, right?

We had prime rib at Eric's mom's house on Christmas Eve, so I searched for a non-beef idea for Christmas dinner at our place and found it in a pork crown. It's a crown! Of pork! This photo was taken just as I was realizing that I had neglected to read up on how to actually carve a pork crown. So that turned into a crude hack job, and then once everyone was served we realized that despite my use of a meat thermometer and the newfangled oven, some cuts were still a little too pink. So they went in the broiler for a few minutes and everyone was chill. Thanks to my wonderful family for making it no big deal.

My family went totally overboard on gifts, but I'm not complaining because we scored some awesome stuff for la casa. My brother and his girlfriend gave us this groovy retro clock for the kitchen. I hung it above the fireplace temporarily for this photo but have plans to move it once we get the room painted. (Soon! Stay tuned!)

I also had a comforter and duvet cover on my wishlist, which my parents treated us to. I'm trying to tone down some of the bolder colors in the bedroom to go better with the wall color and curtains, so the new duvet cover was a big piece of that. It was also nearly impossible to drag myself out of bed this morning, so I think that means the comforter is living up to its name. Next on the list for this room: a new bedskirt and rug. 

Eric, vying for the Indulgent Husband of the Year award, picked up a couple of new pieces of gravel art for me on eBay. They are perfectly ridiculous and I love them deeply. 

Also in that vein: a new cardboard moose trophy, also a gift from Eric. We had talked about finding some kind of vintage mount for the basement to really embrace the cabin-y feel, but it turns out those actually go for serious money. So the cardboard is more affordable and also conveys that it is indeed a joke. "It is indeed a joke" is basically my decorating mantra.  

Not a joke: Eric's collection of ticket stubs, which he's been accumulating since... forever. He'd actually been keeping them in a teeny box that had basically become a brick and was at full capacity, so my gift to him was this shadowbox. Now he can see his collection a little better and it becomes cool art. Also, it's top-loading instead of back- or front-loading like most shadowboxes, so he can slide open a little panel in the top and continue adding to the collection.

It was a dorkishly great Christmas! I really loved hosting and finally being able to hang out in the kitchen with people. I am overdue on posting a kitchen update but we are aiming to paint it within the next few days, so I'm going to save it until then and post a bunch of the new stuff all at once. A preview: I am writing this post from our lovely new desk! My cup runneth over. Merry Christmas again, gang. I hope your holidays were just what you wanted.