It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Things have been a bit hectic around here with holiday mayhem added to the normal why-did-I-take-on-3-books-this-season mayhem and a dash of annoying master's program application stuff. All of which is to say, I'm impressed with myself for staying with my (admittedly worse than before) track record of posting every other week. I'd like to think that now that I'm nearing the end of writing and applications (1 book + 1 application to go!) that it means that I'll have more time to blog. Then I remembered that theoretically I will actually be spending time taking classes next month, so we'll see how it goes.

At any rate, setting aside the boring GRE taking and book writing (unless you want to learn more about the Neolithic Revolution, as I am now a fount of information), holiday parties and get togethers have been aplenty. We were also excited to decorate the house this year. Hard to believe this time last year we were just seeing it for the first time and it was still several ugly paint choices away from being our home! We decorated the inside with the usual assortment of Santas plus a few additional ones that were donated to us this year (thanks, Barrie, for letting us raid your Santa stash!). While in our small apartments, the numbers of Santas seemed to fill the space quite nicely, in the house, I feel like the decorating seems almost a little too subtle. Nevertheless, I resisted the urge to buy more things. I'm liking the fact that we still have empty storage spaces right now and am in no hurry to fill them with Santas. Our two holiday decorating purchases were a wreath for the door and some twinkle lights. A modest display, but they turned out nicely.

You can't really appreciate the wreath or the twinkling, but I think the fact that our house is already painted in Christmas colors adds to the effect. 

In addition, to decorating, we've been doing a fair amount of eating and drinking. I've now attended a gingerbread house building party, a cookie swap, a Hanukkah brunch, and a holiday dinner party. It's been filling to say the least, and we're still only gearing up for the true onslaught of food that is Christmas proper (or any meal really) at Sam's parent's house. 

You may remember I made this bread last year. But this time I made it with 6 points instead of 8, to be more on theme for the Hanukkah brunch. 

Our finished house. For the record, he did the side with the candy canes. 

To theoretically counteract the eating, I signed up for the Trail of Lights fun run. Actually, the reason I signed up was there was Groupon deal for it back in September, and I figured it would be a less crowded way of seeing the Trail of Lights. Turns out, that's not the case. There were 6,000 people in the fun run, so it was just as crowded and involved just as much walking as normal Trail of Lights attendance. Our first clue that this 2 mile run was not at all competitive (other than the fact that it was called a "fun run" I guess) was when one man was carrying a plate of fried potatoes at the starting line. One friend, who was more dedicated to running led us in dodging and weaving through the crowd during the first mile, but at some point we gave up. We at least traveled the whole 2 mile course though, so some exercise did happen. 

During a more competitive run, we would not have had time to stop and take photos. 

Now I'm done with my holiday shopping and many of my other assorted tasks and I'm looking forward to enjoying a little rest and relaxation before the next batch of to-dos.