It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I'm still here!  Sorry for the lack of posts...I feel like I'm apologizing a lot lately, but I truly do feel bad.  And welcome to my new readers!

Once we got home from my parent's cabin after spending most of Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving week with them, J helped me set up our new faux Christmas tree that we bought on Black Friday.  We didn't get up super early and go with everybody else shopping, but we still got 20% off the tree.  I wasn't crazy about the idea of not having a real tree, but it makes more sense for us since we're never home on Christmas morning.  Once we have kids, that could change though.

I took the Monday after Thanksgiving off to give me some extra time to get some decorating done.  I got the tree decorated as well as our mantle and the table in our foyer.  As I was decorating I noticed that we don't really have that many surfaces to display things on! (That's probably a good thing though)

Our Christmas tree!

 Here are the elements to the mantle as well as the overall finished product -

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

We don't ever use our fireplace so I wanted to spruce it up a bit.  I found an idea similar to this on Pinterest -

I bought some pinecones from Target and layered them with a strand of white lights.  Then I put fresh fraiser fir clipping in the basket with them.  I think it needs a little color to it so I'm going to wrap a red ribbon around the basket.

The whole fireplace

I also found on Pinterest (you see this is becoming a pattern, right?) a very cute red burlap wreath, and I knew I wanted to try and make one for our front door.  Last year I had a major fail trying to make an ornament wreath, so I had my fingers crossed that this one would work out much better...and it did!

 And here's the completed look for the front door -

I'm still in the process of hanging wreaths on the windows.  I got the two downstairs done last night and will get the two upstairs hung this evening.

And here is the table in the foyer - 

I'm trying to convince J to put a couple of things in the yard, but no such luck yet :P

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I've signed up for a couple more races for next year.  While we're in Hawai'i, I'll be running a 10k on Ford Island, which is part of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base.  I'm really looking forward to this race as it will help me prepare for the Princess half marathon that happens two weeks later!

I've also signed up for my very first Warrior Dash!  It's next May, and since they had a Cyber Monday deal, I jumped on it.  I'll be running with a couple of friends and while I'm a little nervous about it, I think I have plenty of time to prepare.

Next Saturday I have a Christmas 10K that Sharon and I are running in.  I've been working to put together my outfit and found the perfect socks - 

I think I'll pair them with a red sparkle skirt, black shorts/capris (depending on the weather), and a green running tank.  Just need to decide if I want to wear anything on my head and I'll be good to go!

Some of my fellow bloggers have gotten together and come up with a photo challenge for Instagram.  It's called the Holiday a Day challenge.  Each day you take a picture of whatever item/theme matched up for that day, post it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc, and make sure you use the hashtag #holidayaday.  It's been fun to see what everyone is sharing!  Here's the schedule in case you're interested in joining in a little late -

 

I've got a 5 mile run on the schedule for this weekend.  It will be my last long run before the 10k, and I'm hoping to shave some time off my 10k for a better corral placement in the half marathon.  Fingers crossed!

Until next time,

Jen