Decorating and delirium.

It has been crazy busy around here, and I realized that with all the fun stuff, I took NOT A SINGLE picture! We had family visiting, lots of food, kid party, choir performance, just to name a few ... and it might as well have happened in my head since I have basically no documentation of it. Fail.

When I realized this, it ticked me off so much I just decided not to write anything at all. But that's not the least bit helpful, so here's a recap.

Bug's Choir performance at the Bass Hall:
On the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, most of our family converged on the house in order to attend the school district's choir and theater program at the Bass Hall. For those of you not from Fort Worth, this is the Bass Hall:


Obviously I had to steal borrow this off Google - thank you, IgoUgo!

I worked downtown when the Hall was being built. We've been there for concerts and plays, and it's just incredible. That my daughter got to perform on that stage is mind-blowing. The 3 district high school varsity choirs and 5 middle school choirs performed a couple of pieces each, and the high school theater departments did scenes from their respective plays, including The Wizard of Oz and Hairspray. They did such a great job -- oh, and we were on the second row!

Leading up to that event, I had a house to clean and decorate. It's not ever often that our family comes to our house for the holidays, so it sounded fun (!) to have all the Christmas decor up -- in four days. If you don't know me, let's just say that Christmas throws up all over my house. It's a sickness, I'm sure, but it's just for one month, so I'm not gonna worry too much. Just a sample:

Yes, I got this idea from Pinterest.
And yes, I most likely emptied those bottles all by myself.

My snowmen, collected over the years.
This bookcase is very hard to photograph - maybe next year I'll add lights!



Entry table -- those pumpkins were out for fall,
and got a new sparkly coat of paint for the holidays.

I love my tree!I don't think you can see it, but there are ornaments hanging from the curtain rod on the windows.
That was my new thing this year.

Since this was taken, the lights in the middle of the banister have gone out.
No idea how half a strand goes out, but that's how it's been this year.

Of course, being under a deadline, the house decided to wage war on us just for kicks. For example, the attic decided it wanted to keep the Christmas trees up there this year, and fought back:

Game room ceiling, Monday night.

The body attached to the foot that made this hole was a little banged up, but not badly hurt. The words flying out of the mouth from the body attached to the foot are not suitable for print. The woman married to the body involved was probably a tad more worried about the damage to the ceiling than to said body, but I was on a deadline. He fixed it - good enough for the time being, anyway.

The house was finished in plenty of time, food was prepared and eaten, and 16 of our family and two friends enjoyed the concert immensely!

Youth Event
I always say if you're having one party, have two. You'll already have the house clean, and might even have leftovers to use for the second party. So, family left by Friday, and Saturday night brought the teenagers from our church over for the dessert round of a progressive dinner. About 40 adults and teens sat around eating great amounts of sugar and drinking apple cider. Oh, and it was about 80 degrees outside, so of course everyone was in a Christmas mood.

Another stolen picture - notice the shorts and lack of winter wear.

This weight loss thing meant I would be making desserts and not eating them -- always fun! I adjusted the menu at the last minute to include an apple dumpling recipe that the family (who had been here) unanimously swore was the best dessert ever. I had no idea until I googled the recipe that it was originally from my baking idol, Pioneer Woman. I found a version of the recipe here (thanks, Pinterest):

You've got to try this one. I'm not even kidding.

The food theme was southern food, so we also had chocolate chip cookies, Texas chocolate sheet cake, pumpkin roll, and pecan pie squares. I did finally eat an apple thing, but managed to stay out of the rest of it. Nope, no pictures of the table.

The Wizard of Oz
This particular event doesn't involve me directly, but bears mentioning anyway. Bug has been in rehearsals for this musical for about a month, and the shows start tonight. This week she had dress rehearsals on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and hasn't gotten home before 10pm or so. Have I mentioned we share a car? I had to use it on Monday, so at 10:15pm I'm sitting outside the school waiting for them to get out of practice. I've gotten totally spoiled to her independence! Anyway, we're going Friday and again on Sunday for the final performance.

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Now on to the rest of the holiday festivities - music program at church (and associated practices), travel to see family, and of course the shopping. I'd like to say I'm done, but that would be a lie. Or a delusion.

What do you have coming up this month?