From Halloween to Christmas Card in 3.0 Days

Sunday, November 4, 2012, in Wyckoff, NJ

Wednesday, November 7, 2012, in Franklin Lakes, NJ

Halloween at Our House

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and Eric is good about humoring me.  I mean, he likes it too, but I'm pretty crazy about it.  Normally, we do a huge party on the closest Saturday, and to decorate, I take down all of the regular stuff and put up all Halloween.  I have a ton of Halloween decorations; I do Halloween the way some people do Christmas.  The movers when we got married and moved in together were making fun of how many boxes of Halloween stuff I have.  To give you an idea.

This year, we didn't do the party.  I was a little sad about it, but I was sick for a week, then Eric was sick for a week, then we were sort of OK, then Eric was sick for another week, and by the time we were both mostly feeling better it was way too close to the intended party to have time to properly decorate and shop and all.  So no party.

We did do the front yard, though.  Can't not do the front yard.

We had a ton of fun doing it up.  I'm hoping it'll encourage trick-or-treaters, since we had so few last year.

I know we had one thing we didn't have last year.  Or for many years before that now.  The  past several years, Halloween's temps have been in the 60s.  I love it, getting dressed up and sitting outside to hand out candy.

This year?  Snow.

You can't even see the spider in that one anymore!

Snow does not go with our haunted graveyard motif!  Sigh.  We had fingers crossed that it'd be melted by Halloween night.

Though we didn't host ours, we did go to a Halloween party on Saturday night.  I wore my Renaissance Faire garb.  Eric?  Eric has this terrific Venetian mask from New Orleans, and wanted a velvet cloak to go with it.  We went with velveteen, but I got to work.  I checked out these instructions and these, and used primarily the second ones.  I also took some dimensions from my Harry Potter cloak.

I changed 'em a bit, and cut 3 pieces for the body, each 55" long.  The top of the back panel, I made 10".  For the top of the front panels, I measured 30".  I made the bottom of the back panel the full 44" of the width of the fabric, and did the same for the front panels.  Then I cut the front one in half lengthwise, for 15" at the top of each and 22" at the bottom.

I cut two pieces for the hood, basically measuring by eye.  I sewed them together and hemmed around the face opening.

Then, I sewed each front panel to the back, and sewed on the hood, then hemmed around the body too.

I added a hook and eye closure.

And then a couple of buttons for looks.

I somehow misjudged the size and didn't make it as big around as I'd have liked.  I have no idea how that happened, and as it is I didn't have enough fabric purchased to make it any bigger.  So it's more of a cape that a cloak, but it worked.

He wore it for Halloween night too, to greet unsuspecting trick-or-treaters.

I was Hermione.

The girl working the register at Walgreens when I raced there for more candy said I had the perfect hair for it.

And Meg was a witch.

Oh, and on Sunday night one of the other attorneys in my office had a party to go to, so she borrowed my clown costume and came over for me to do up her face.  I'll have full photos from her later, but this is what I got.

How adorable is she?!

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How We Celebrated

First, there was Chanukah.

We all met at my sister and brother-in-law's house for mom's brisket sandwiches (yum!) and latkes (yum!), and to exchange gifts.  My nephew became totally enamored with the dreidel, which my brother-in-law spun for him.  I can tell this kid is going to love tops.

I'll have to get him one ASAP, if I can find one for under-three kiddos.

At Chanukah, we gave my nephew his mooshy belly bunny and bear, as well as a See 'n' Say (remember those?) and a CD version of "Free to Be You and Me."  We gave my sister this travel tea infuser from Libre Tea.

And of course we gave her some loose tea to go with it.  She's been taking it to work every day, where people have liked it so much they've bought some too!  To be honest, I really wanted one also, and was deciding whether I should just get one.  Turns out I didn't have to.  I'll get to that.  This is gonna be a long post, so find a comfy seat.

My sis and brother-in-law got us a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant, which was funny because then our parents surprised them with one too, so now we can go together on a double date!  And they got me a beautiful paperweight, since I collect art glass.

Our parents gave us great stuff - the serving dishes and cereal bowls to our china set,  plus a remote starter and a gorgeous new Coach bag for me!

Then came Christmas.

On December 24, Eric had off from his day job, and I worked 1/2 a day.

Before we left, the office staff gathered us together to give us gifts, which I thought was really sweet.  I got this great set of pancake & biscuit mixes, preserves, and syrup.

Then we got together in Manhattan with a friend Eric hadn't seen since high school and her husband, who were down from Canada.  From there, we drove them back to her parents' house in Queens, and then went to deliver the Christmas present for our nephew on Eric's side, who lives in that boro.  The baby and his parents weren't home, so we dropped off the gift, and then headed to Eric's brother's job to surprise him.  It worked, too, he was shocked!  From there, we picked up some more of Eric's friends, and hung out for a bit.

It was really a great Christmas Eve, seeing a bunch of people we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see.

Then we came home, in a great mood, and hid from each other to wrap gifts and stuff stockings... and by then it was nearly 1 a.m.  Impatient Eric asked to exchange gifts since it was technically Christmas, and I relented.  He's so like a kid!

The biggest gift I got him was a 14.5 gallon stainless steel conical fermenter for brewing beer.  This is serious stuff!

Should I be concerned that he keeps giggling over it?  I also got him an organic cotton t-shirt that says on it "Save the Ales:  Support Your Local Brewery," which he loves.

In his stocking, in addition to every bag of Reese's candies I could find (his favorite), I put some funny books and a cute little game.  That bottom book is The Zen of Zombies.  Who doesn't love zombies?

For me, he outdid himself!  He got me a SodaStream, which I really wanted, but never mentioned to him.  And he was afraid I'd think it was stupid!  I love it!  I'm a big seltzer drinker, which normally unfortunately can mean lots of plastic bottles.  This is such a green substitute!  Plus, I can order all-natural & unsweetened flavors to add... for healthy and yummy seltzer all the time!  

It was apparently a really hot item, too.  He had to run to a lot of stores to find it, and they were all sold out.

As "stocking stuffers," he got me new Bare Minerals lip glosses.  I'm addicted to Bare Minerals, so that was perfect.

And they're in great colors for me!  He also got me - and this is why I don't need to get myself a Libre Tea  - a travel tea infuser from Teavana!  I swear, sometimes we share a brain, because I hadn't really mentioned that I wanted one of these either.  Instead of the clear glass, he picked a ceramic one for me, because it was blue, my favorite color.

But wait, there's more!  He also got me, allegedly as a stocking stuffer, only it wouldn't fit in my stocking, a kit and instructional book on how to do aromatherapy and hot stone massage!  

Of course, it's  more important that he read it and learn to do it on me than I read it to do on him.  Right?

Best gifts ever.

On Christmas Day, we spent a rather uneventful but satisfying day completely cleaning our house.  We put away stuff that hadn't been put away since we moved here in September, and cleaned to a state of "sterile" this house has never seen, probably not even when the owner was living here.  It feels great!  It was necessary because of our Sunday guests, one of whom was to be our one-year-old nephew.

And then came the blizzard.

Yeah, that's our wrought iron deck table and the umbrella that had been closed until the wind blew it open.  I righted the table and put the umbrella in the garage, but one by one, our friends and family dropped out of coming to dinner on Sunday, leaving just one couple to brave the snow.  And they did!

A good thing, too, since our 20 lb turkey was already defrosted and marinated.

And I had the green beans and honeyed carrots ready to go (which I served in our new serving dishes from my parents).

And of course we did roasted potatoes.

But first there was salad, served with a dressing Eric made and some amazing homemade croutons from my boss' wife.

All of this, though, was built around the main course, that turkey, which my kamikaze husband and his insane friend deep fried in the driveway on a rig Eric built!

In the blizzard.

Seriously.

When the turkey was finally ready to come in, Gina had to catch the oil on a pan.

While I got the stuffing balls ready for deep-frying.

The turkey looked almost as great as it tasted!  Eric and I both took turns carving it, with some help.

After all that, we were seriously stuffed.  But did you think we'd skip dessert?  Silly, silly people.  Of course there was dessert!  Who do you think I am?

I baked nut fingers!

Oh, and if you ever want to have some great guests?  Invite Rand & Gina.  In addition to a huge umbrella for each of us, they brought Eric a set of Mikasa Brewmaster glasses and me a great tealight holder.

The blizzard turned them into overnight guests, too.  I'm glad we have a guest room!

The next day, we had to deal with the snow.  Eric had already taken the day off from work, but then the governor declared a state of emergency, so my office was closed too.  I shoveled this mess, with some help from Eric.

Meg was happy, though.

Now Eric just has to break out that massage kit, since my muscles are all sore...