I love this week.

Let me tell you why:

I've been listening to a lot of Christmas songs, and that always puts me in a great mood. Our favorite local radio station has been playing Christmas music nonstop, and last night I may have downloaded 55 Christmas songs... Here's the ones I got: A Very She & Him Christmas by She & Him (after listening to it for months on Spotify), The Christmas Sessions by MercyMe (maybe my favorite... it's got all the classics), Hey! It's Christmas Vol. 1 and 2 and Carol of the Bells by BarlowGirl (my favorite version of this song right now).

My sister came up for a surprise visit last night and was able to spend the night with us. We ate really good food, drank coffee (umm... three times... I'm a little embarrassed to admit that) and had really good conversations. And tomorrow, I get to drive down to her house to stay a couple of days.

On Friday, my love and I are going out of town for the weekend to visit some of my very favorite people. I'm so excited. Our weekends at their house are usually spent around the campfire, making s'mores and eating great food, shopping and thrifting, discovering new movies, talking about old times and having really wonderful late night conversations.

Tonight my little sisters, our mom and I finally saw Hugo. I thought it was brilliant and so beautiful! And it was the best 3D movie since Avatar, if you ask me. I can't wait to see it again already.

On Saturday, we spent the morning serving our city's unfortunate families, providing Christmas gifts and food to help them make it through the holidays. Serving others is so important to me, and the whole thing was very humbling. After, we met up with my Grandmother and lots of ladies from her hometown at Crystal Bridges, and then Mom, Richard and I discovered a really great new coffee place. I'm obsessed with their vanilla honey latte!

I hope your week is going as well as mine! I'm so happy and thankful right now. It's a good point in time for me. :)

It's been 13 days since I last posted? How did that happen? I guess time flies when you're as busy as I've been these past few weeks. I've been busy with school work and finals, family events, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, a short road trip and just all the things that go along with day to day life.

Tonight I downloaded 54 Christmas songs. I guess you could say I'm really in the Christmas spirit this year. Last year, it just seemed like Christmas snuck up on me and then flew by. I loved it, of course, but I just didn't get very into it. So I'm making up for that this year by keeping up with old traditions, starting new ones, spending every day with loved ones and making every moment special. There are so many things I want to do this season! It feels like it's moving by so quickly, but I'm determined to squeeze in everything I want to do. I'm really, really happy right now.

Here's a peak at my Christmas tree. I never thought I'd be one of those people with a themed Christmas tree, but purple and silver sounded like a great idea, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'll show you the details of our tree and some other Christmas decorations around our apartment soon!

I've been sick this week, but my family's pretty Christmas trees (yes, that's trees with an "s." One tree is not enough in this family) made me smile yesterday when I popped in for a visit. Our family does Christmas really, really big. My mom is big into decorating the inside of the house, and my dad, brother and Richard go crazy with Christmas lights around the house and yard. There is something so peaceful about Christmas decorations. I love the look of a lit, decorated tree with presents piled underneath, garland, ornaments and all of the creative decorations my mom has put around my family's house. Everything looks so cheery; this is truly my favorite time of year!

I'll post about my Christmas decorations this week, too. Do you celebrate Christmas? If so, do you go all out with decorating?

1. What you see when you walk in the front door!

2. The big living room tree. 

3 & 4. Cute ornaments from my childhood.

5. Stockings on the mantel for my siblings and I and our pets. 

Red cup.

I'm officially in the Christmas spirit, thanks to this little red cup and A Very She & Him Christmas. We've finally started our Christmas shopping, and I love bundling up, grabbing some coffee and heading out into the cold with my love to shop for our family and friends. It's such a happy time of year!

If you're wondering why I haven't been around lately, let me tell you. I had four tests and lots of homework. I have been working on three articles for the paper. My best friend came to visit for the weekend. We went to the opening of a world-class art museum, which opened in my town last weekend (more about that later); went to Eureka Springs; ate lots of good food and shopped for books; spent hours in my bed, talking and laughing about old times and reading David Sedaris stories to each other and drinking wine; and just had a really great time together. Basically, I've been super busy. It's that time of the semester when everything starts getting really stressful, and hard tests/projects/papers become a daily occurance. Sigh! Thankfully I will be done with this little thing called college in May.

How are you?

love tree

so, maybe i never took down my christmas tree.

i'm not terribly into football,

so tonight during our little super bowl party

(which i made some incredible blueberry cupcakes for!),

i turned my tree into a love tree.

it makes me so happy!

i just love it.

christmas tree!

Do you find the weeks following the holidays as depressing as I do? I don't know if it's the end of the holiday season or my return to school that has had me so gloomy, but it's been increasingly hard to be productive this week. It's so hard to get used to studying textbooks in the library after weeks of studying nothing but magazines next to my record player with a giant glass of iced coffee. I've left my Christmas tree up to keep from being entirely depressed, but I know that baby's gotta come down soon.