{ thursday thoughts...worth repeating }

A favorite "Thursday Thoughts" post from 2009...

and a perfect reminder of all that I hope to accomplish in 2010.

How about you dear friends...what is your wish for 2010?

Thanks to a last minute invite from friends, we're off to the snow for a few days.

Meet you back here Monday.

Cheap & Chic: for 2010

Hello sweet readers!
Melissa from Melissa Loves here, so happy to be helping hold the fort over here at my lovely friend Suzanne's for the New Year! I thought I would put together a cheap & chic oufit for a New Year's party. Something comfortable and a tiny bit casual but, with a little flair. Something inspired by this print by Sarah McNeil on etsy.


















~facinator here $19.95
~ top here $27.99
~ lovely earrings here (shop) $14.00
~ clutch here $7.50
~ boots here $47.99
~ pants here $12.80
~ necklace here $19.95

Total ~ $150.18

I sure hope you liked it lovelies and Suzanne, thank you so much for having me hun! I hope you are having a wonderful family break and enjoying every moment!

xo
Melis

A little Santa in all of us.

Sweet Suzanne asked me to share with you some of my favorite holiday traditions, and I must've started and stopped this list a thousand times. When I was little, really little, my favorite things list would've been about closing my eyes as tight as I could, squeezing them shut and listening to the sounds on the roof... is that him? is that? and then MOM WAKE UP I THINK SANTA'S HERE! That tradition would've been at the tippety top of my {littlest me} favorite things list.

When I got a little older... old enough to see that Santa's handwriting and wrapping paper were quite like my mom's... well, then my favorite things list would've been about wishing for snowfalls on Christmas day... watching A Christmas Story over and over and Ralphie-you'll-shoot-your-eye-out! over again... seeing my family open the cards that I'd made the night before with cotton balls and crayons and glue... and playing with my delicious new treasures for the next several days. These traditions would've been at the tippety top of my {medium me} favorite things list.

And then I got a lot older... old enough to know that Christmas was wonderful but also stressful. Families seemed to fight a bit more... it became a lot about money and less about thought and love... Christmas trees started going up a bit later... the magic of the holidays was around me here and there, but that tangible, prickly, glittery feeling? It was missing.

This year, though, something changed. Our little girl arrived: Devon Whitney. Stinky McStinkpot. Twenty inches and six whole pounds of giggly, warm, loved up and new. She's too little to understand now, but soon she'll believe in Santa, in reindeer, in the importance of cutting paper snowflakes and leaving out snacks for the elves. Sometimes you need a little reminder of that feeling... of waking up to the smell of pine and presents... of hot cocoa and sugar cookies in the morning... of realizing that maybe Santa isn't as big and red and ho!ho!ho! as you once thought, but that there's a little Santa in all of us. This feeling is at the tippety top of my {biggest me} favorite things list.

Psst: Thanks, Suzanne, for having me here. I hope you'll all come visit me at my blogs, The Lil Bee and Feather Report.

Big kiss,

Bee.

Images from top to bottom, all via We Heart It: Scream Colors; Katherine writes.; Inspirart; and unknown.

i believe...

hey, friends! it's me. karey of mackin ink and also one of the t.ruffle girls. i hope your holiday weekend was pure magic. oh, it was? good. mine, too.

so. my favorite holiday tradition sounds pretty simple. it's to believe. which, for me, gets a bit more difficult with each year. but that just means i need to try to believe harder.

i was a sick little kid. every christmas, mrs. claus sent a special letter telling me how proud she was of me. how she loved that i never complained when i missed trick-or-treating or the circus or birthday parties or playdates with other littles who had cats or dogs or peanut butter or dust or chlorine or hay in their houses. and that i was the greatest little sick kid ever invented.

long after i stopped really really believing in santa, i still believed in his wife.

i've tried to keep my girlies three believing, too. this entails making nine reindeer bowls of food every christmas eve. did you know they all love carrots, oats, beads, and buttons? did you know vixen also enjoys a sprinkling of pink glitter over her snack? blitzen gets an extra dash of something from uncle sugar's bar? or that rudolph never never eats the red beads and - in his typical passive-aggro fashion - positions the only one how-could-you-have-missed-it smack in the middle of his empty bowl? of course you did.

there's the torn piece of red velvet fabric hanging from the girlies' attic door, the red glitter footprint where santa landed, and usually one or two other details that always surprise even me.

uncle sugar and i aren't the tallest parents in the world, which means that the giant tree he bought this year in a panic because our other two trees hadn't arrived from jordan {but sadly showed up two short days after purchase. grrr.} would probably go angel-less. i'm not good with geometry or physics or anything else smarty-smart numberish, but that tree's width multiplied by its height and divided by our short equaled a very. bare. tippy. top. balanced out nicely by the three hundred and forty seven shiners adorning its bottom third. thank you, esmé.

lillie's the one who noticed it first. the angel! she squealed. oh. our angel. the one i bought just after my sister died. tulle and tiara and glitter galore and even a wand. easily one of our most beautiful possessions.

santa must've put her up there! he must've known! this from my grae-girl, who has spent most of the christmas holiday angry with her older sister for not believing hard enough.

we all sat in that magic for a moment. and even though i knew how it had surely happened...for a split second? maybe probably longer than that? i forgot i wasn't supposed to believe in santa claus anymore.

didn't realize how much i'd missed that guy.

warmest wishes and imaginary hugs and kisses to all of you. please visit me at the sweeterie or our etsy shoppe or even mackin ink. i'm always happy to see you. mary is, too. and thanks, suzanne, for inviting me over for the holidays. i will see you in dc soon, yes? say yes. gorgeous photos from for stars will rise again on tumblr.

{ all is calm. all is bright. }

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

May your day be filled with love & joy.

photos by moi. holiday card design by tiny prints.