a very bethune christmas mix | 2014

Happy Monday morning, here's a present! Our second annual Christmas playlist has arrived, & we took time to make sure that it's just as all over the place as last year's. Yaaay! Jared is pretty proud of his mandolin-heavy Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy find & I'm pretty excited to share Beyonce's take on Silent Night, so there's a lot of treasures along the way. Enjoy!

A Very Bethune Christmas Mix | 2013

Feel & Flourish's Christmas Playlist

wearing - 42/50

top - H&M // leggins - Gap // booties - Old Navy // over-the-knee socks - Urban Outfitters

Truthfully, this outfit ended up being a little more matchy-matchy than I was going for. In my head, those socks were way more cream than pink. But some days, comfy is really all I want, & this shirt is perhaps the comfiest that I own. It has a little bit of structure & pleating to it, which combined with the wedged booties, give the appearance of "trying" without actually trying at all. Or at least in my head, it does. If it looks like I'm just wearing pajamas with shoes, please don't tell me. I could literally eat 17 burrito bowls & this shirt would hide all of it, which makes it the shirt equivalent of a best friend. It's got my back. Well, & my front. *ba dummmm chee*

wearing - 41/50

top - H&M // turtleneck - Forever21 // skirt - J. Crew // Flats - Target // earrings - Rocksbox

So excited to show off some of my Rocksbox digs from this month. I am not an every day jewelry sort of girl. My engagement ring is actually the only piece of jewelry that I consistently wear. I tend to buy a piece & wear it nonstop/with every outfit for a few weeks. At some point, I take it off (or lose it -- Lookin' at you, midi rings) & it gets moved to my jewelry box & potentially never seen again. The alternative scenario is that I know I have, oh say, a holiday party for Jared's work coming up that I'll be getting dolled up for. I usually panic the day (or hours) before whatever the event is & spend a dumb amount of money on a piece of jewelry that I'll wear once & only once, then hand it off to a younger sister the next time a closet purge comes around.

Enter Rockbox. Indiviually curated jewelry (three pieces at a time) based off of my style that I can wear for however long... Mail back & get more. SOLD. I will say that my box had more silver jewelry in it than I anticipated, but I've been working on incorporating it into my work wardrobe anyway, & it's going pretty well. Anyways, it's worth checking out!

Alright, I'm tragically behind on getting to my 50th outfit before the year ends so guess what. You're getting an outfit post tomorrow, too. Loveyameanit.

christmastime in DC

I went home to Virginia for a very brief trip the weekend before Thanksgiving with the intentions of squeezing my niece & nephew, loving on my parents' dogs, saying Happy Almost Thanksgiving! to my parents & (the most important of all) (I'm kidding) (but it was important) picking up our Christmas decor that lives in my parents' attic for 11 months out of the year. 

It won't surprise you to know that I nearly walked out the door to head back to Washington without said Christmas items, even though I remembered that I needed to grab them no less than 15 times over the 48 hours I was in town. So, up to the attic I darted, climbed into the very back of the lowest crawl space sort of area that I've staked out as Bethune Christmastown & grabbed: one box of white baubles, a tree skirt, our stockings, a box of string lights & my nutcracker. I somehow managed to also choose the bag that had the ornament hooks in it, so 46 serendipitous points to meee. In retrospect, it was a pretty comprehensive grab job, beings that I was so rushed. I did forget a tree topper, so we cut a star out from Anthropologie gift wrap paper & taped it on. A little odd, but also entirely endearing. Add in a recently gifted polar bear ornament from one of my dearest friends, & our two souvenir ornaments from Europe, & it's perfectly personalized for 2014.

At the last minute, we decided to ditch our half-hearted idea to get a mid-sized artificial tree & stay true to our love of real Christmas trees. On the way into the grocery store around the corner from us, we realized that they, in all of their wisdom, were selling tabletop trees that came equipped with a miniature tree stand. My, do they know their demographic.

So, on a strangely warm December 1st, in a break between torrential rain, we walked to the grocery store to get ourselves a Christmas tree. The cashier was appropriately excited for us as we asked her to ring up a mini tree while we laid our apples, tortillas & eggs on the counter. We had about six trees to pick from, but it was still Christmassy & romantic. Our little tree's 3 ft. stature was the trade-off for the authentic fir tree smell. It took us all of 15 minutes to decorate. But its tiny presence is just right in our tiny apartment - A perfect addition to this chapter in our lives. 

It took me all of 5 minutes to "decorate" the rest of the apartment with our two stockings & a nutcracker, so this will act as the bits & pieces of our Christmas post for this year. Just trying to keep it fresh ;) You can see our past Christmas posts here: 

2013

2012 + bonus Christmas Tree video

2011

Now excuse me, but I actually need to go water Little Baby Tree.

this month - december

EATING - More bread, goat cheese & wine that I have ever consumed in my entire life, a true sign of life after Paris. #nobueno

DRINKING - one sip of the eggnog that Jared insists upon buying, & then I'll be set until next year.

PRACTICING - self-control as the desire to buy allll the Christmas ornaments rears its ugly head.

MASTERING - all of Mariah's classic vocal runs during this wonderful holiday season.

LEARNING - how to do Christmas on the smallest of scales.

PLAYING - NSYNC's Christmas album, which I finally bit the bullet & bought on iTunes after the 5th song on my original CD started skipping.

FINISHING - a writing project that has been in the works aaaall year. Cannot wait to share.

READING - Refinery29, who always manage to keep my informed & entertained, but especially so during the holiday season.

WATCHING - our stack of Christmas movies. So far, we've watched Elf, The Holiday & Die Hard.

WALKING - with a little more pep in my step, now that the weather is acting a little more wintery.

WEARING - my blanket scarf baaaaasically everywhere I go. But my Madewell coated denim is a closed 2nd.

COOKING - up a plan for our very odd Christmas Day this year, our first spent away from family.

WORKING - on editing our Europe photos. It is slooooow goin'.

TRAVELING - to Richmond & maybe somewhere fun for Christmas, but mostly just exploring DC at Christmastime.

WANTING - Amelia's salted caramels, a maid to clean up my clothes that have been scattered throughout the apartment since ohhh, Europe? & the nativity set I forgot to grab from my parents' attic. Meh.

 Whatcha doin' this month?

As an aside, this marks the twelfth This Month post that I shared this year, & I'm more than proud that I actually followed through with at least ONE of my monthly post goals ;) I'll be continuing the This Month post series going into 2015, so please feel free to join me & share your links in the comments!