christmas card - runners up!

 

It should not surprise me that I opened my computer to pull up the address list that I've been breaking my back to compile this past week so that I could FINALLY finish addressing our Christmas cards, & instead ended up blogging. I figured the least I could do is post about our Christmas cards if I'm not actually going to work on them. A FOR EFFORT.

Big, fat, giant thanks to Amelia for taking 6,987 of us, even though I make it really hard by tossing leaves in to the air & TALKING SO MUCH the entire time. Seriously, I don't realize how much I talk until I go through pictures from a weekend & see my mouth gaping open in a perpetual, "& then SHE SAAAAAID..." shape in 90% of them. Womp. God bless the Jared Bethune that lives with me. He is a good man, people.

Okay, I'd love to chat more, but the Kelsey in the super secret photo that is gracing the front of our final card is glaring at me from the box. xo!

my mother's daughter

My mom started us young with craft shows. She was sneaky, too. Her favorite craft show during my childhood took place in a rec center, & there was a BARBIE DOLL DRESS MAKER who was always located on the 4th floor of the whole dang place. Me & my sister would dutifully march behind her through the endless maze of craft vendors, knowing that at the end of this dark tunnel filled with twinkling lights & wreaths was the Mecca of Barbie outfits. (Then we’d get home & realize that there was a reason Mattel was making Barbie’s outfits. Year after year, Barbie was swallowed in her new crushed velvet & faux fur "ballgown", which were maybe the world's first miniature snuggies?) It was during this phase of my life that I started becoming my mother’s daughter. I see this in small ways, like when I get twitchy because I haven’t rearranged furniture in the last month. Or when I get really excited about slippers being on sale at Target.

20ish years later, there is a now a craft show hosted down by the beach every year on Black Friday. & when I say craft show, I mean CRAFT EXPO. Because what better way to work off the gravy-covered carbs from the day before than to power walk your way through row after row of homespun goodies? It’s become a bit of a tradition around the Essmann home, & even Papa E. has begun to look forward to it. (We've gotten good at using BBQ dives as a means of positive reinforcement with the menfolk.) We are absolutely addicted to this vat of hot glue, glitter & hand dipped candles.

& it’s wonderful. There is absolutely not one thing in this place that we need. But it’s all so fantastic, & the atmosphere is buzzing with ladies wearing Christmas sweaters FOR REAL who are not kidding when they thumb through tie-dyed scarves, bedazzled belts or the 19^th pillow in a 20 ft. radius with “God Bless This Mess” cross stitched into it. It's infectious! A giant wire turtle for my garden? Why, yes. I do want that. I don’t even have a garden, but if I did, I’D WANT THAT IN IT.

We find ourselves drawn into each & every booth, & after awhile, you start picking up the least offensive piece in the shop & declaring it SO CUTE. It’s not. But the scent of potpourri & dried rosehips gets to you, & before you know it, you’re leaving with a figurine of two snowflakes kissing. (To be fair – They’re very darling snowflakes.) Suddenly, you’re walking around, blessing everyone’s hearts & wishing you had more time to scrapbook. It’s like a spell. A dangerous, wonderful spell. ("GLITTERMENTI!")

But there are a select few vendors that I’d pay big money for, wherever I happened upon them. Our favorite is a wood craftsmen’s booth that I don’t think even has a name. We have a “partridge in a pear tree” trivet (pictured above) that I’m sure you’re supposed to use in the kitchen, but I end up hanging it somewhere every year, going all sorts of MacGyver with some ribbon/our peephole this year. He’s provided our nativity scene, the cutest Christmas tree you ever did see (also pictures above) & many a Christmas gift over the years. Then there’s the wool vendor – OHHH, THE WOOL VENDOR. They have these bears that legitimately make you wish you were 4 so you could walk around snuggling with it. There’s real maple syrup, & some guys that make pretty mediocre salsa, but they put on such a show that you buy it anyway. There’s beautiful jewelry that’s way too expensive & more spoon rings than any girl could ever need... But definitely wants.

This year, as we passed by a bookshelf full of mugs featuring different names for grandparents, complete with definitions, (Memaw – A piece of heaven, created for snuggles, cookies & angel kisses), the fire alarm started going off in the building. The vendor in front of us muttered something about “Just like last year…” & there was nary a break in concentration on the faces of the attendees walking down the aisle. When the voice came over the loudspeaker, asking everyone to please proceed to the nearest exit, it was like Christmas was cancelled. Or the power went out during the Superbowl. Or Taylor Swift was playing on both Christmas radio stations. One unanimous groan that sounded an awful lot like, “I WAITED ALL YEAR FOR THIS.” We shuffled outside & watched the fire department arrive – In no hurry, reassuring everyone that there was, in fact, NOT going to be incinerated Elvis Presley Nutcrackers. Not today. NOT ON OUR WATCH.

People started getting a little grumpy, especially after a staffer came out to tell everyone that they still had to have the building checked out before allowing everyone back in. As an event planner, I wanted to run forward & hug her, over-zealously reassuring her that I understand & it’s not her fault & we’ll be fine. But it was immediately after her announcement, when the crowd started grumbling, that my mom turned to us & said, “WELL! The best way to spread Christmas cheer is…

“SINGING LOUD FOR ALL TO HEAR!!!” I shouted, probably a little too loudly. I maybe jumped around a little, too.

& so we sang. You better not pout, you better not cry… Nobody joined us. A couple of people turned around with their eyebrows raised before resuming their disgruntled stance. The 6 year old on his ipad didn’t even look up. But we sang it. The whole thing. & I was reminded once again that I am so totally my mother’s daughter.

Bless her heart.

this little blog of mine

Alright, so here’s the thing.

(Pardon the ME! ME! ME! nature of this post.)

I’ve been dutifully writing to a diary since I was 10. It started with being told by my mother to keep a travel journal during our summer vacation in 1999. This included trips to everywhere from Florida, to Europe, to Missouri. Somewhere along the way, chronicling my experiences stopped being an assignment & became… duty. A personal duty that I obligated myself to. At 10, I worried that somewhere between Pensacola & Hamburg, I wouldn’t write down a moment & it would be lost forever. I’d never remember to tell my grandchildren about the doll in the window that I fell in love with in a Belgium town square. I would forget about the time that we visited the Arch & it was so windy, I thought it would blow over. & so I wrote. Maybe out of self-induced guilt. But the diary from that summer is a great read, nonetheless.

For awhile in high school, I was able to maintain an actual written diary that lived under my mattress while I also kept up with the trend that was sweeping the halls at school – Xanga. The actual diary held all of my secrets – Abundant boy troubles, drama with friends (& “friends) & frustration with parents or teachers. A typical teenage girl’s end-of-the-world problems. It also held my poetry, love notes to a future husband, verses & sketches. My soul. Xanga started fading amongst friends, but I kept writing under my anonymous pen names, eventually moving to LiveJournal as I started college.

When college began, I tried to make an effort to write in my real diary once a month. It didn’t last long. Between homework assignments, new friends & a new long distance boyfriend with whom I spent all of my free time talking to on the phone, LiveJournal became my outlet. I vented, I waxed poetic. Stream of conscience entries written to an invisible, online audience was the therapy that got me through college.

I’ve forged a long cyber path of my thoughts over the last 10 years. When I began discovering blogs & blog communities, I was obsessed. I think DesignSponge & Oh Joy! were my first doses of what a blog could really be. As such, I moved into the design focused realm of the blogging internet, which helped shape (& justify) my then-recent shift to an event planning major. I started a pathetic attempt at a wedding blog, because OnceWed took over my life as I looked forward to getting engaged & started coordinating weddings on the side. It’s really embarrassing. In fact, I think I deleted all of it ;)

Sitting in Our Tree started budding in my mind the summer before we got married. The guilt of not writing in a diary kept me up some nights, especially as we planned our wedding. But the stress of a new job on top of planning a wedding had kept me from doing much of ANYTHING. I, like everybody else, discovered Cup of Joe, Rockstar Diaries & The Daybook blogs (along with many more than I care to admit to) & dove headfirst into the PERSONAL blog realm. How lovely – Somewhere to document our life as a married couple! & so Sitting in Our Tree was born. An effort to document our lives, for us to look back on & remember some of those little memories. Bottling up conversations & adventures & sealing them tight.

It’s been weird writing here, though. It’s difficult to find a voice that’s approachable, easy-to-read & non-controversial. I’ve ended up censoring myself because of a fear of personal circles conflicting with a public blog. It’s easier to present the nice & shiny - To throw up some pictures, write four sentences & call it a day.

But the truth is – I’m an awkward, sarcastic, wordy person. I talk a lot & write even more. (As demonstrated by my 800+ words on this post alone.) & that’s just the way I've always been. (My older sister’s travel journal from Summer ’99 involved sentences like, “We took a carriage ride through the misty English countryside, drawn by a beautiful, dappled horse named Dill.” My experience was more like, “We were STARVING & it seemed like sitting in a box pulled by a horse was only making me hungrier for another apricot pastry like we’d had on the train.”) I've only just realized that THIS is my corner to write, rather than post my broody, dramatic pictures, or 140 characters worth of absolute Kelsey nonsense.

So, THE POINT IS that I’m going to start writing more often on this little blog. WHAT A NOVEL IDEA, I know. Sometimes, it may just be some pictures & 4 sentences. But I think this is a step in the right direction for me right now. The FORWARD direction. & I am all about some onward & upward, friends.

This post was more for me than it was for you, I suppose. It's just time for reflection & changes, you know?

ohhhh, christmas tree!

Apparently, I just can't get enough of making videos right now! We finally got our tree up last night & it feels (& smells) like Christmas has arrived. (I say "finally" as though 4 days after Thanksgiving is late. Honestly, it's hard for me to even wait until Saturday after Thanksgiving.) It's pretty funny watching yourself decorate a tree in 1:09. IT'S LIKE WE'RE REAL CHRISTMAS ELVES!!!

We totally flaked out on the whole hacking-your-own-tree-down once again this year. I will be OHHH, so happy when we're finally able to trot our way out to a farm & hereby-declare-this-tree-BETHUNED, but $24.95 from a parking lot sounded right up our alley this year. That may or may not have something to do with the Great iPhone Massacre of 2012 that took place on Sunday.

Really, truly, I think making Christmas in an apartment is half of making an apartment home for me. It's just cozy, & familiar, & ours. & I like ours. Ours means it's full of love.

on the cusp

So, here we are! On the cusp of Christmas. It's my last day of Thanksgiving Break from work, & I don't really know how to make the most of it. I made a pretty big dent in my to-do list this weekend, so staring at a wall or playing a video game with the neighbor's cat sounds about right for today's activities. I also made a pretty big dent (crack?) in my phone yesterday, & I feel like a trip to the local apple store has wandered its way onto that very same to-do list that I thought was so to-done.

I don't know. I get all jittery this time of year, worrying that I'm forgetting a tradition we've tried to start over the years or not being tradition-y enough. That's the curse of this Internetland that we dwell in. & you wonder why I don't get on Pinterest. HA! I get hives! Every time!

Today is probably a good day to think, make lists & take a deep breath(s) before the blur of December begins. But also to decorate the naked tree in our family room & hang some stockings on our fake mantle.

Santa Claus is coming to town, ya'll.