CHRISTMAS EVE SHENANIGANS

This year for sure will go down in our family as having the most interesting Christmas Eve. For one thing, we still have NO snow. Like not even a speck. Evidently that is going to change sometime today, as we are under the threat of a pretty huge storm starting this afternoon and extending into tomorrow afternoon.

My bossman was very nice and let me stay home on the 23rd so that I could get ready for the family Christmas Eve. All day Wednesday I cleaned and baked, making sure I had everything done so that all that would need doing on the 24th was the actual cooking of the dinner.

Around midnight, Tyler and I were just hanging out watching tv, and I decided I would actually do a holiday mani that took some actual effort. While I was doing that, Tyler started doing her gift wrapping. All was going great, and I was in the middle of putting rhinestones on my 6th nail, when we heard a loud "pop" outside, the lights flickered, and then the  entire neighborhood went black. A few minutes later we heard another pop, this crazy-ass wind kicked up and we had a downpour of what sounded like hail that lasted for probably 30 seconds.

I immediately grabbed my phone to go to the power company website to report the outage. It was 2:45 a.m. At that point their website gave an estimated time of 3:45 a.m. for the power to come back on. We saw the power company's truck go up and down the street a few times during the next half hour. My battery operated holiday lighted items were still on, of course, and I grabbed the one battery lantern I own so we weren't in complete darkness. Kev woke up when the power shut off, and he went out to the garage and came back in with a propane lantern he had picked up when he went downstate during hunting season. That thing was super bright, and I sat with that and finished the rest of my rhinestones while Tyler wrapped by the light of the smaller lantern.

I've never had the power be out for more than a couple of hours, and I had no reason to believe this time would be any different.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

When we finally wandered off to bed at 7 a.m., the lights were still out, and the website gave no indication as to when they'd return. I got out of bed right before 11 a.m. because I was freezing and got up to find still no power, which in my house also means no running water because there's no power to the pump.

The power was out in quite a few places throughout the Upper Peninsula due to high winds, but ours was the first to go. Unfortunately we were not the first to be fixed. I called my sister to let her know what was happening and to find out if we could move the festivities to her house since I obviously couldn't cook without power. We saw a truck head down our road with a new power line pole on it at about 2:30 p.m., so Kev hopped in the car to go see what was up. A ginormous tree had split in half and fallen on the power line, snapping the pole. Since they had to remove the old pole, put up a new one and then reattach everything, it was pretty obvious our power wasn't going to be back on anytime soon. We loaded up all of the food and headed to my sister's house where we were both able to take showers.

After dinner, we let my grandkids open their gifts from everyone, and by the time we got home at 7:30, power had been restored. It hadn't been on for very long because it was still only 62 degrees in the house, but at least life was back to normal, and my daughters and their hubbies were able to come over at 9 p.m. to open gifts with us before heading over to my mom's at 11 p.m. for more food and more giftage. We got home from there about 2:30 a.m. and finally got to bed around 3:00.

Christmas Day was nice and normal; dinner at mom's and present opening and then home at a normal hour. As usual, by then I was tired of all the running around and just happy to be home.

So here's my done-in-the-dark Christmas mani.

The green is a lovely holo I got from Anonymous Lacquer, Baby Vamp. I did the light strand with my Uber Chic Christmas 01 stamping plate and then used rhinestones for the lights.

I'm pretty amazed at how well this one lasted. I lost only one rhinestone, and that was when I was rough-housing with Seven who came to play with Zero on Saturday. I finally took it off yesterday.

I hope your holiday was merry and bright, and I wish for you all nothing but great things in the upcoming new year.

O' CHRISTMAS TREE

This will be a short post in the few seconds I have before I trot my happy ass back out to the kitchen.  I've been a baking fool the past couple of days, and I'm in the home stretch. My dinner rolls are shaped, and I'm just waiting for them to finish rising so I can bake them. And then eat them. Because they are a delight. 

Before I get to bake those, I have to finish dipping marshmallows in white chocolate for my brother. I think it was 5 years ago when he was saying how much he loves chocolate covered marshmallows and can never find any. Because I'm a genius, I decided I would attempt to make those for him. I think that year I just did milk chocolate. He went batshit for them so it makes me feel obligated to do that for him every year. At some point he decided he likes the white chocolate ones I did the best so I get to skip the brown ones. I already did one dipping on two bags of marshmallows, and now I have to go get the double dipping done.

Since he is even more obsessed with white chocolate covered Oreos which are only sold at Christmas, I decided I'll try a package of those this year, too. Hopefully I do not regret this decision. lol

In the meantime, here's a mani I did with striping tape for CNS back in October. I almost forgot to post it.  I guess it's now or never because I won't have any time tomorrow for a post.

Painted them red, slapped on some striping tape, painted them green and called it a Christmas tree.  I used a yellow rhinestone for the top and called it a day. It turned out the way they wanted it, so that's good. I think if I were to do it on my own, I'd jazz it up a little, but whatevs.

So now I'm off to finish the baking. I really want to wrap it up so I can at least make an attempt at a Christmas mani for tomorrow. Late last night I just slapped on a coat of red, but I want something a little more interesting than that for Christmas. Sheesh. A plain color for a holiday? 

I think not!

SOOO TIRED OF WRAPPING

OMG, we (in other words, I) buy waaayyyy too many presents at Christmas time. We buy for everybody in the family, and I have a tendency to get just a smidge carried away. Growing up I probs didn't realize it so much, but my siblings and I were pretty damn spoiled. My Christmas morning always had wrapped packages from the tree all the way to the middle of the living room for the three of us kids. To me that was just normal.  Even though I knew it was more than my friends got from Santa, when you're 7 or 8 you don't make the "spoiled" connection.

Once I got older, got married and had the girls, the going overboard with gifts just continued on. Hell, it still goes on. I cook Christmas Eve dinner, and everybody comes. It's wonderful even though my house isn't really big enough for 10 adults and 3 grandkids. When we're finished eating, my mom and siblings give the grandkids their presents to open, and then they head off to church while my daughters and their families head out to their dad's.  A bit later the girls and hubbies come back and we exchange gifts, and then we all go to my mom's usually around 10 p.m., we eat some snacks and then we open our gifts. The packages still go to the middle of the living room. 

We always take turns opening, and there are 10 of us adults doing it, and there were many years when it took until 3 a.m. to finish up. We try to do it a bit quicker now because my girls have the other sides of their respective families to be with the next day. Lack of sleep is always an issue. For myself, I don't care. It's once a year, and I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can. My mom is 85, and I don't want to take a minute of our traditions for granted. That being said, she's a very young 85, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if she outlived most of us. lol

It's excessive and ridiculous and I love it. I love, love, love buying for everybody.  Ever year I say I should cut back, but it never happens. This year I spent more than ever before. I just can't seem to help myself. It's just so much fun watching them open! Griffin is 3 now so he should really be fun to watch, and Peyton is 8 so she'll be a joy, too. Treyson is 14, so that childlike attitude is switching to a bit more grown up. He is a freshman in high school; I guess he wasn't going to stay little forever no matter how much I willed it.

Now that I'm probs going to be jobless, we'll see what happens next year since I won't have the money I usually set aside every week specifically targeted for Christmas shopping. I'll try my damndest, tho.

Now, as much as I like the gift giving, I do not particularly care for the wrapping. It takes hours and hours, and I always end up with a very sore back from sitting on the floor doing it.  

CNS requested this mani, and doing this wrapping was a lot less work.

This was another one of those "quickie" mani's before my surgery so I didn't even bother taking note of what I used. They asked for red, green and purple. So that's what I did. Pretty basic. I had to do the bows freehand, and as you probs know, I am not a fan of my freehand work. So for me it's just kind of "meh".

For some reason last week my right index nail came loose. Apparently all this sitting around took its toll. Weird. I pulled it off and set it on my end table so I could reapply it. A few minutes later Baylee wanders over to the table and for some reason decided she should steal it. WTF? I look over and she's chomping, and it took me a minute to realize what she probably had. Luckily she decided it didn't taste so delish and dropped it on the rug. Thank God they are guaranteed to not break because even though I saw her chewing, there wasn't a mark on it. I'm glad she didn't swallow the damn thing. I have an extra one, but still....

And I don't think Kev would have appreciated me having him "search for it" in the snow, if ya' know what I mean.

Hey! Don't forget to please go vote for my snowflake mani over at the China Glaze contest if you haven't already! :)