holidays | kimberly ah

Dec 26 2012

champagne season

Tis the season for sparkling cocktails.

I’ve been searching for champagne coupes for awhile now. Goodness knows I don’t need anymore glasses. I have dozens of wine glasses and I have nine flutes, which are actually better for sparking wines because they contain the bubbles better…but there is really nothing more elegant than a coupe. It feels very 30s and chic. I found plenty of options on Etsy, but never loved anything enough to hit “BUY”. I had my eye on some at West Elm, but at $10 per glass, I was afraid that I wouldn’t use them for fear of breakage.

Well, I’m so glad I waited. Last week, when I met my parents, we stopped at the Goodwill to donate some stuff and I found these (pictured above) for…

wait for it…

forty-nine cents each! They are just plain glass (not crystal) and there are two different styles, but I loved them both, and at a whopping $2.94, I figured I could afford all six. I cannot wait to pop open our bottle of Adami Prosecco on New Year’s night!

Cheers!

Tagged cocktails, thrifting

Dec 21 2012

2 Comments

adventures, Christmas, holidays, Merry & Bright, Oh Tannenbaum

Oh Tannenbaum 5 – Road Trip!

In 2005 I was tired of work travel and itching for a good vacation. Naoto & I had taken several flying vacations before, but I wanted a road trip. I kind of hate flying, so sometimes the anxiety about getting on a plane is enough to spoil the relaxation in a vacation. Plus, road trips are a great way to see plenty of states.

We started in Iowa in Madison County. I’ll let you take a moment to giggle…I’ve always loved covered bridges, not necessarily because of the book or the movie, but because I visited one as a kid and I thought they were neat. Well, I probably didn’t think it was neat at the time, but as an adult, I grew to love them. I think Winterset, Iowa is just about the cutest tiny town in Iowa and I loved that the bridges held years of history…many initials and names were carved in the old wooden walls and the floor boards of the bridges were gorgeously worn.

Our next stop was Mount Rushmore. On the way, we visited the “required” stops in South Dakota: the Corn Castle and Wall Drug, the Black Hills, Crazy Horse, the Badlands. Mount Rushmore was incredible…breathtaking…it’s absolutely amazing to think that it was designed and executed without technology… I am not someone who gets weepy about my country (okay, I sometimes am) but seeing those presidents sitting on a mountainside just made me feel proud of their hard work many years ago…

Our final stop was…the SPAM museum. Naoto grew up in Hawaii from age twelve and is a huge SPAM fan. He ate it all the time growing up and he still eats it today (when I’m not around). The museum was great fun…the exhibits were interesting, educational, historical and hilarious. I think we giggled through the whole place. And we spent a fortune in the gift shop on crazy SPAM paraphernalia and “limited edition” SPAMs (that sit unopened in our pantry, yet still have a few years to go on their expiration dates…)

Tagged adventures, Christmas, holidays, memories

Dec 19 2012

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celebrations, Christmas, holidays, Merry & Bright, Peggy's Parties, Tea

Christmas Tea

Christmas is catching up with me…I have cards to finish, all of the wrapping to do, some last minute gifts to get and I was reeeally hoping to hand-make a gift or two. But work, the bathroom and other obligations keep taking over…and there has been some fun mixed in there, too…and clementines…about 500 clementines.

One of the fun things was book club on Saturday. We read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Have you ever read it? I hadn’t. Of course, I was familiar with the story. I think I’ve seen every version made and I am slightly ashamed to admit I’ve seen quite a few made-for-TV re-makes (Susan Lucci as Scrooge, anyone?) But reading the book was a new experience because of Dickens’ writing…it brought a more colorful picture of Scrooge’s overnight transformation to my mind than anything I’ve ever seen on TV or in the theater. And I have to admit, in such a busy month it was a pleasure to read something so short…especially considering next month we are reading The Count of Monte Cristo (which is more than 1000 pages!)

After book group Peggy had a few of us over for a Christmas tea. I wish I had taken more pictures (this phrase will be written on my grave!) but the photo above shows the festive table.

For the tea, Peggy served chicken salad and homemade egg salad sandwiches, homemade scones with homemade clotted cream, homemade lemon curd, homemade ricotta, homemade tomato jam and for dessert, homemade almond shortbread. She went overboard, in the best of ways…every bite was amazing and I drank so much delicious tea that I thought I would float away. After we ate we sat in the sitting room and enjoyed the twilight as the day faded into darkness. Peggy’s home is covered in Christmas cheer. She has a gorgeous assortment of Christmas dishes, ornaments, wreaths and lights–hundreds of twinkle lights! Being in her home put me in the mood for Christmas. Not in a let’s-go-shopping kind of way, but in a let’s-curl-up-on-the-couch-with-a-cocktail-and-enjoy-the-lights-of-the-tree-and-think-about-how-good-life-is kind of way…which is exactly what Naoto & I did when he got home from work on Saturday night.

Tagged Christmas, food, holidays

Dec 17 2012

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Christmas, holidays, Merry & Bright, Oh Tannenbaum

Oh Tannenbaum 4 – Childhood

When I was little, I wore these knitted red and green bells on my coat every December. They were a gift from my great-grandmother and they were out of rotation for many years. In junior high, it’s not exactly “cool” to wear knitted Christmas pins! Once I moved out on my own, I decided they would make a good ornament for the tree. This year I might borrow them for a day to use them in my childhood Christmas pin rotation.

The green angel ornament is a gift from my grandmother. The angel is one of those painted wood ornaments that were everywhere in the 80s. I have a box of tiny ones that I pilfered from my mom’s collection. My grandmother and I picked it out together. Her wings are dated 12-21-1982, and though that was long ago, I remember this rare shopping day and how excited I was to have my own ornament to put on the tree.

Today, I am finishing my Christmas cards. Hopefully I can get them all in the mail tomorrow and my international friends get theirs in time (crossing fingers!) I still need to finish some last bits of shopping and all of the wrapping, and I need to poke through the closet to make sure I don’t forget anything I had tucked away during the year…so much to do before Christmas and so much to enjoy before Christmas.

Tagged celebrations, Christmas, decorating, holidays, memories, vintage

Dec 12 2012

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Christmas, holidays, Merry & Bright, Oh Tannenbaum

oh tannenbaum 2 – Avon calling

When I was five, we moved to town into a home of our own. Soon after moving in, a strange women carrying bags full of make-up, perfume and costume jewelry appeared at our door. It was the Avon lady, Linda Lee Laible. Linda Lee dropped by our house twice a month to show my mom all of the latest jewelry and various shades of blue eyeshadow from the Avon catalog. She always wore at least five Avon rings (on each hand)–she was like a walking display case. Linda Lee had a fancy gold metal box where she kept her money and I can still hear the coins inside rattling around as she made change for my mom’s purchase (in cash, always, because no one paid with a credit card back then).

Christmas time was the best, because that meant new ornaments showed up in the catalogs, and my mom always picked some good ones. Lucky for me, I have a few of them. These are a few of my favorites. The Precious Moments angel (above) is tiny and sweet. Because the angel is so petite, she is always near the top of the tree (next to Charlie).

This one (above) is pretty enormous for a Christmas ornament. It’s about six inches across and yes, it is a little retro-ugly, but i love that about it. I use it to fill in the “holes” in the lower branches…with an ornament this bold, no one notices a little space between the branches!

The Christmas gift was one in a set of three, and my mom had two of this one. I love the mirrored red and the fabric ribbon and fake holly…it seems very late-80s Avon to me.

Linda Lee retired quite awhile ago, and now most Avon sales are done online…which probably makes more sense…because really, unless you lived in a small town, would you let just any over-accessorized woman in your door?

Sadly, Linda Lee passed away this year and Avon was listed in this article as a business that won’t survive through the end of 2013. It kind of makes me want to start hoarding their hand lotion…

Tagged Avon, Christmas, decorating, homemaking, memories

Dec 11 2012

5 Comments

Christmas, holidays, Merry & Bright, Oh Tannenbaum

Oh Tannenbaum 1 – Charlie Brown

My favorite part of Christmas decorating is rediscovering my ornaments. I love that they make an appearance once a year, and I never have time to get tired of admiring them. Most of my ornaments have sentimental value, so unwrapping each ornament is like untucking a tiny memory. Back when I had my other blog (which is no longer online and was pretty much only read by one person–Hi Mom!) I did a little series about my ornaments. I’m going to revisit (and rewrite!) those old posts and share them with you here…

Charlie Brown is the first ornament on the tree every year. And he’s always front and center. Like most American children, I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas on TV every holiday season. I have a soft spot for Charlie Brown–his awkwardness, his continued faith in a humanity that tests his will, his kind demeanor… And I have a softer spot for this ornament. It was the first ornament I purchased for my first (skinny, fake) tree after graduating from college. I was newly on my own, newly employed and newly dumped by my college boyfriend…but it was a good Christmas, full of family and friends. Charlie Brown is a good reminder of all the bright spots in the holidays that year…and every year.

Tagged Christmas, decorating, memories

Dec 07 2012

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Christmas, holidays, home is a 1970s apartment, homemaking, Merry & Bright

calm & bright

I pushed my Edgar Allan Poe candle to the side table to make room for my favorite candle of all time–the Paddywax Woodland candle. Hands down, the best winter-smelling candle of all time (especially if you love real pine-y scents, as opposed to Pine-Sol pine-ish scents). Placed next to my bowl of silver, gold and pearly Christmas balls, it brings a bit of Christmas to the coffee table. And, I am not lying when I tell you that the living room is the only place of calm and bright in this Christmas house…the rest of the place is a complete, dusty disaster thanks to the end of the bathroom project and the temporary relocation of ourselves and an entire closet of stuff.

This weekend we are painting the bathroom, and hopefully we (well, I) will be cleaning and making our home presentable again. I’m looking forward to the normal life the end of construction promises! Normal things like searching for the missing Christmas decorations and not sleeping in the guest room and playing fetch with Presley without feeling like a crazy cat lady in front of the contractors… And, we have a turkey hanging out in the freezer begging to be cooked up for a mini-Friendsgiving/Friendtsmas…or something like that…plenty of time to decorate and enjoy more Christmas cheer, right?

Tagged Christmas, decorating, holidays, home, homemaking

Dec 05 2012

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Christmas, holidays, homemaking, Merry & Bright

shiny & bright (& leaning to the right)

Our tree is up and I’ve stopped moving the ornaments around (for now)! It’s slightly less crooked from this angle (the front angle), but from the side you can tell it is leaning into the room. As long as it leans (and doesn’t topple), I’m good.

This year we chose a White Pine. It has long, soft needles and it doesn’t seem to shed as much as our other favorite choice, the Fraser Fir. Unfortunately, I bought our new lights last year with the skinnier Fraser Fir, and I think I need at least one more strand to brighten this fluffy tree up a bit…maybe next year. For now, it’s providing the required Christmas glow of the season…

Tagged celebrations, Christmas, decorating, holidays, home, homemaking

Dec 04 2012

2 Comments

celebrations, Christmas, holidays, homemaking, Merry & Bright

the stockings were hung…

…on the liquor cabinet with care…

The tree is done, but I’m still fussing with it…I ran out of ornaments, so when I say I’m fussing, I’m pretty much just moving ornaments around on the tree. It’s a total waste of time. I don’t think this tree is bigger than trees we’ve had in the past, but for some reason, I feel like it needs more ornaments…it’s probably just me being all perfectionist with my crooked tree.

In other news, the bathroom is speeding right along! Tomorrow, the sanding of the drywall begins…the messy job. I’ve been holding back on the Christmas decorating because everything will be covered in dust. After tomorrow, I can go to town with my cleaning and decorating (in that order…must. clean. first!) I feel behind…but that’s nothing new around here.

And, Presley could use a new stocking, don’t you think? A little felt one that matches ours better…must think about that…

Tagged celebrations, Christmas, decorating, holidays, home, homemaking

Dec 03 2012

6 Comments

adventures, Christmas, holidays, homemaking, Merry & Bright

Beep, Beep from the Tree-Mobile

We got our tree Saturday! It was almost sixty degrees outside and we bought it from the Menards (home improvement store) parking lot…it wasn’t exactly a Norman Rockwell painting, but we got the job done.

When I was a kid, we always got a real tree. We bought ours each year at a Christmas tree farm. It was always freezing and the child-me felt like it took forever to find the perfect one. Conditioned to be tree-choosy, I used to make poor Naoto hold up dozens of trees each year for full inspection. I’d be cold, he’d be cranky…it wasn’t fun. So for the past few years, we’ve grabbed one, gave it a once-over, and as long as it was green and had branches, we bought it. And bonus points for the year we decided to stick it in the back seat instead of tying it to the roof of the car. I highly recommend the back seat method…it works for trees up to seven feet (even taller if you’re driving something larger than a Corolla!)

So, each year our tree is less than perfect, but I think that makes it more charming, right? When we put our tree up this time, we noticed that it looks straight from the front of the room, but it’s leaning desperately to the right if you look at it from the side…as long as it doesn’t topple over (crossing fingers) I’m going to be okay with a leaning tree. (If I keep lowering my standards, I’ll be satisfied with using a fallen pine branch for a Christmas tree by 2015!)

I tossed the lights on the tree on Saturday and I’m working on the ornaments today, so hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with some pictures of the finished tree. It is almost seventy degrees here today, so I’m going to have to really imagine those snowy scenes from the Christmas music!