it’s beginning to look a lot like christmas

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This evening has been magic. It’s been one of those evenings where the company is good, the food splendid, the atmosphere just feels like home. And I’m left just sitting here in awe of the rightness of the world.

Let’s just say that I have a wonderful, thoughtful grandmother who was perceptive enough to know that a bunch of college kids, away from home, would be craving some proper Christmas decorations around this time of year. Thanks to her, I had a box full of holiday goodness hand-delivered to my front door, just in time to cure our itching for tangible evidences of the upcoming season.

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So this evening we ordered Chinese takeout, as only the best domestic, housewifely college students do, turned on the Michael Buble holiday Pandora station, and dove into said box of decorations, plus some snowflakes that my roommate had stashed away. A Gilmore Girls episode happened in the middle of the party when the food arrived, and that Chinese was an excellent decision, indeed.

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^^^This is Santasaurus, our apartment mascot.

When everything was up and plugged in, and the overhead lights turned off, the four of us sat around the living room with homework and a dose of comfort food (hot chocolate for me…duh), and just soaked it all in. There’s just something about the soft, golden glow of strings of Christmas lights all around the living room, and the quaint row of stockings hung on the wall, and the multicolored tree in the corner, and the snowflakes in the kitchen, and the candycanes strung above the window…and guys, it’s almost Christmas! We may not even have gotten to Thanksgiving yet but who cares about that. This season is the greatest. It’s the time of the year where the world is overflowing with strings of lights, and joy, and anticipation, and magic, and I count myself lucky to have such amazing people around me to celebrate it with.

I say it all the time, but I am just so incredibly blessed. I have a wonderful family, wonderful roommates, a wonderful place to live, and so many other blessings. It’s on nights like these that I am filled with gratitude, and complete awe of how life works out perfectly. I go through normal life every day – school, work, sleep, running, etc. – and then every once in a while it’ll just hit me how truly beautiful life is. Sure, parts of it may not be pretty, but when you step away from the mundane, and the difficult, and the negative, the view is completely glorious.

It’s been a good day. Happy decorating, and merry early Christmas!

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putting away christmas + the wonders of target

today has been a nice, good, winter saturday. although the thermometer speaks of chilly temperatures, the sun has shone all day and the sky has maintained a perfect light-blue color. there’s still a bit of snow on the ground, leftover from a week ago

today we said goodbye to christmas. the tree was taken down and its branches have since been used for the growing bird habitat in the backyard. all the stockings and pictures and ornaments and lights were boxed away until next year. the living room feels bare and far too large without that enormous tree.

putting away christmas is always bittersweet. i’m sad to see the time of year go where everyone is a bit nicer and the world is all lit up and classic christmas songs are heard everywhere, although i do enjoy looking forward to the new year after christmas. this one was a real solid christmas, so i’m okay with moving on past it. it was a great christmas for relishing family and traditions and cozying up at home in the evenings with hot chocolate and yummy baked goodies. those always seem to be the best type of christmases.

in other news, i betook myself to the wondrous store of target today. i was in need of some public socialization after staying at home most of this week, so i deemed a target run necessary. i’m pretty sure target has almost everything. and ladies and gentlemen, the lip color obsession is back in full-force. after a significant amount of time spent in the make-up aisle, i finally waltzed out of target with these two little beauties.

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two new tubes doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you add that to the other twenty-five or so i have hanging out in my make-up drawer, mmm yeah it’s a slight problem. oh well…i’ll be shamelessly obsessive anyway.

also, there’s lots of excitement going on over here because i still get one more week of relaxation without school! one more week of staying up late watching netflix, one more week of sleeping in as late as i want to, one more week of living by my own schedule. happiness!