ChristmaHanaKwanzika: Lisa of Craft My Life

Lisa is the second, awesome guest-blogger in the series, ChristmaHanaKwanzika. The series is meant to shed some light on what the holidays look like, smell like, feel like, taste like and are like in different families and homes. I hope you enjoy the series, and you follow along with other ChristmaHanaKwanzika posts if you want to read more. If you don’t know Lisa, I’ve previously threatened to physically harm you if you don’t read her blog. So that’s just not acceptable any longer. She draws, yes draws, recipes, gives awesome DIY projects and craftiness, participates in Mixtape Masters and is genuinely a freaking delight to talk to. Without a second longer of delay, the fantastic Lisa of Craft My Life.

(sorry, I don’t have access to any childhood christmas photos at the moment so you will have to settle for a quick (lopsided) drawing of teenage me, complete with my pac sun shirt, jnco jeans and awful silver ball necklace.)

When I think about Christmas what I really think about is Christmas Eve. When I think about Christmas Eve, I think about the Christmas Eves of my youth. These were nights chock full of activity and parties and early presents and to know them is to know why I love Christmas so damn much.

I cannot recall how the morning would start. With a pretty high level of excitement I’m sure. There was no school so that was an automatic bonus (I liked school but I feel like no matter how much you love school, you loved days off more). Bonus points if it was snowing. I always felt like it ought to snow for most of December.

Before we went to our annual parties, we were allowed to open one early gift. When I was young, I always went for the biggest gift. One year, this ended up being a set of golf clubs (Clearly this was the last year I used that method. My father desperately wanted me to love golf like he did. I did not. My sister was a really good golfer but gave it up because it wasn’t cool, I think that broke my poor dad’s heart). As I grew older, I learned to strategically size up the presents and pick those which contained clothes so I could wear a cute outfit to the aforementioned parties. Not to impress anyone mind you, the party goers consisted mostly of group A: 90% of the people being 50+ years older than I and group B: stylish middle aged couples not likely to be impressed by my new sweater from Deb or 5-7-9.

Anyways, with the gifts opened, my mother, father, sister and I would go to my mother’s best friend’s house. There we would socialize with the kids of my mom’s friends (you know those kids who you were friends with since your parents were friends). I would eat meatball sandwiches, lasagna and deviled eggs. My friend and I would exchange gifts (whatever we could afford with our allowances, usually some kind of stuffed animal or box of chocolate, whatever it was I feel like it was usually from CVS). I remember sitting on her bed and talking about boys and listening to music.

The next party was our next door neighbors’. This is where I ate ham and fancy deserts. I also played with their cat and dog. I was lucky too because a good friend of mine’s family was friends with the neighbors so she was always there. At the end of the night, we would walk through the woods through the pathway back to our house. Then I would lay in my bed overwhelmed by excitement (and kept awake by a stomach aching from such a weird mix of food).

This feeling is what I think of when I think of Christmas: this amazing mix of anticipation and happiness. A complete whirlwind of emotions, thoughts of what the next day holds. Also, I was psyched to eat candy for breakfast. Since those years, more parties have been added to the mix (my cousins, Ryan’s dad’s) but those two original parties are the core. I feel like its not the holidays until a couple things are checked off my “list” like the first snowfall, hearing that Waitresses song and/or frantically making gifts….but let’s be honest: its not Christmas until I eat those freakin’ delicious deviled eggs.

Happy Holidays all!

*PS. I bugged Lisa for another photo and she gave me this one that they photoshopped. Lisa took out Ryan’s sister and put herself in instead, which cracked me up and her up as well. They used this adorable photo for their holiday card 2 years ago…which I, of course, thought was epic and fantastic. Don’t you think so?

Also, check out today’s candied walnut label template, I posted it first so as not to hide Lisa’s blog deep in the forest of earlier posts. Enjoy your day…do something generous…quit being so selfish, jeez. Just kidding…kind of.