A Day Late and a Dollar Short

But better late than never, right? I know I'm a bit tardy with my Thanksgiving post, but I wanted to share our feast with all of you. Despite the fact that it was just the two of us for dinner this year, we wanted to make it special since it's the beginning of the holidays in our new house. We obviously didn't want to roast an entire turkey so we ended up buying a bone-in turkey breast which Travis prepared.

We had no idea what to expect when we opened the turkey breast package, but low and behold it looked just like a full turkey except with all of its limbs cut off. It even had a little cavity that Travis filled with bay leaves and seasoning. It may not look like much, but it was incredibly tasty.

For my part, I made my grandma's stuffing for the first time ever, and I must say it came out pretty dang awesome. It's not your traditional stuffing made with bread cubes or crumbs. As a matter of fact, it doesn't have bread in it at all. This stuffing has ground pork, ground beef, potatoes and a whole lot of other yummy seasonings and vegetables. I think it was our favorite part of the entire meal.

Another first for me was homemade cranberry sauce. YUMMERS! I never knew it was so simple to make, and it adds such lovely color to the table.

Here's what our feast looked like right before we dived in. As you can see, we also made creamy mashed potatoes, gravy, home style biscuits and had some pinot noir to drink. It truly was a dinner fit for a king (and queen)!

And here's a plate of our delicious meal.

Lastly, I snapped a quick picture of the two of us in the midst of our cooking extravaganza. I'm wearing my Christmas apron :)

As most of you know, we moved into our new house about five months ago. Having moved MANY times prior to this, I knew it was going to take at least this long to get the house in order and to sort through our stuff. I had a feeling it might even take a little longer this time around since a lot of our stuff had been in storage for three years. Over the course of those years, I wasn't able to decorate for the holidays, but that didn't stop me from buying holiday decor when it was on clearance in late December ;) Having said that, we had a *few* holiday bins to sort through the result of which was a purge-fest and a very early decorated house.

My first decorating mission was the dining room which came equipped with this interesting wall of built-in cubbies and a matching buffet underneath it. We didn't quite know what to do with it at first, but it turns out that this area makes for a very fun area to decorate!

As you can see, I merged both Thanksgiving and Christmas decor this year mostly for convenience's sake. Everything will stay up until early January. Here are a few shots of some of the cubbies:


On the buffet we have our little Christmas village set up. I love the soft glow that the lights give off at night.

To the left of the Christmas village I set up a little corner with fall decor. The pumpkin sunflower cookie jar is my favorite, and I love the scare crows (got them at Bed, Bath & Beyond one year at a super clearance price).

Moving along to the entry of the house, we have a glass curio cabinet and an antique phonograph that used to belong to a dear friend of mind who has since passed on. We normally have pictures and random house decor up there, but I thought it would make for a lovely nativity scene.

At night, I light the Yankee Candle and the three small votives inside the crystal candle holders. The tree and the garland also light up. It really looks nice in here when the sun goes down.

On top of the phonograph I put a glass reindeer and sleigh I got at Costco a few years back. The sleigh is filled with holiday candy that I all too frequently indulge in :)

In the kitchen/dining room, we have this really pretty baker's rack that I got from a friend right before we moved. It couldn't have fit better where it's at if we had planned it that way (which we didn't)! I wrapped some garland around the wrought iron and added a few other Christmas items. The "Cheer, Joy, Peace" Santa banner is my creation :)

Lastly, we couldn't forget the exterior of our house! This year marks the very first year that Travis and I have actually hung lights on our own house (and we've been together for a LONG time). Of course, it looks much better at night, but you get the picture.

I hope all of you are enjoying the season!