It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

well except for the fact that it was 60 degrees at 6pm today, but none the less, Christmas is almost here.

I am one of those people that doesn't start anything Christmas related until the first of December. The first major signal to me that the holiday season is upon us is the arrival of Band Fruit. We've order fruit from the SHHS band for as long as I can remember. Me and my older sisters sold it when we were in high school and I continue to purchase from friend's band nerds kids. It is seriously some of the best fruit ever. It is always delivered the first weekend of December and I get very excited about it's arrival. The navel oranges are my favorite.

My Christmas tree also went up the first weekend of December. A real one of course, because well nothing smells quite like a fresh-ish tree in the house.

I bake like a crazy person at the holidays. I can't help it. I just do. The holidays=baking in my opinion. In the past 2 weeks I have made 2 batches of peanut butter fudge, 1batch chocolate fudge, 1batch Dreamsicle fudge (and yes it is as amazing as it sounds), 5 batches of Oreo truffles, 3 batches of sugar cookies, 1 batch Chex mix, 1 batch gingerbread cookies, and 1 batch cloud cookies. I've used 2 bags of sugar, 3 pounds of butter (the real deal), and a bag of flour. (Erika I have aspirations of someday being known for my Christmas cookie/treat platters like your mom use to make!)

I officially purchased my last Christmas present today and am waiting for one more to arrive via mail so that I can declare myself done with Christmas shopping. I am not usually a last minute shopper, but this year I've had a little bit of a hard time getting in the Christmas mode, so I waited a lot later that I like to. In the past week I have braved Kroger (twice), Walmart, Target (twice), TJ Maxx, and The Mall (three times). It really hasn't been that bad. I am glad to be done though.

Let's see, what else have I been up to....

• I went to Richmond to visit my friend Alicia and her family in what is becoming an annual early December trip. It was a great weekend of relaxing, catching up, and lovin' on her sweet little boys. We also checked out some pretty awesome Tacky Christmas Lights. 
• I made another wreath off Pinterest using a wire hanger and ornaments from the Dollar Tree. Total cost $8 

• The hospital decided to decorate the outdoor space outside of the ICUs with mannequins that look like a whole lot like the ones from the Old Navy ads. It was a slow day at work and well.......this may have happened.