Blogmas – Day 23 – Christmas Eve Traditions.

One sleep ’till Christmas!! Woot woot!!

This morning was just a nice and restful morning. Did some preparations for dinner later on in the evening. Our contribution to dinner was sausage balls, and it’s an easy recipe; it’s only a 3-ingredient recipe:

Ingredients:
– 1 lb of sausage
– 1 jar of Cheez Whiz
– 1 box of chicken flavored Stove Top Stuffing

Directions:
Mix the sausage and cheese together. Once all cheese is incorporated into the sausage, start adding in the stuffing, until everything is thoroughly mixed.  (***Pro-tip #1: put stuffing into a food processor to chop/grind into a finer powder. Easier to mix, and less chance of biting into a large breadcrumb later.)

Using a melon-ball scoop, or something similar, start scooping out 1-inch balls, and place them on a greased cookie sheet, or a cookie sheet lined with non-stick foil.

Have your oven pre-heated to 350°F, and cook the sausage balls for 20 minutes. (***Pro-tip #2: after cooking for the first 10 minutes, flip over sausage balls. Gets a nice toasting on both sides.)

After 20 minutes are up, let the sausage balls rest for 5-10 minutes so they can cool down and firm up a bit.

After prepping the sausage balls for cooking later, we were off to church for Christmas Eve service. The Christmas story, lighting the final advent candle, and closing with Silent Night, it’s definitely a favorite tradition.

When service was over, it was back home to cook the sausage balls, before heading over to my cousin’s house for dinner. This has become a new tradition for us the last few years, as this is when they exchange gifts with their dad’s side of the family. We do our exchange on Christmas morning.

Once dinner was over and we visited for a while, it was back home to do another tradition, which many people do on Christmas Eve, and it’s the last minute present wrapping! XD

For my 3 youngest cousins, I did a DIY Cookie Jar, that Zoë mentioned in her Last Minute DIY Christmas Gifts video.

It turned out pretty great, except my jars were a bit on the larger side. Oh well! The boys won’t care! LOL

Then once all the presents were wrapped, it was time to sit down, relax, and complete this blog post.

Today was the last day of my beauty advent calendars! T.T I forgot to include day 11 in yesterday’s blog post, so I’ll just include it here. 😀

Day 11:
– Benefit’s “They’re Real! Remover”
– feelunique.com: Salcura’s “Winter Skin Warming Hand Therapy”

Day 12: 
– Benefit’s “Rockateur” blush
– Nuxe Paris’ “Rêve de miel” ultra-nourishing lip balm

It’s now officially CHRISTMAS!! YAY!! Now, off to bed so I can open presents in a few hours lolz.

Blogmas – Days 17 through 22 – Of Christmas Cookies, Concert, a Belated Advent Calendar, and Other Miscellany.

It’s been a couple of busy days, that’s for sure. Let us catch up, shall we? XD

Last Thursday (Day 17) was a usual work day, followed by Christmas sweater shopping at night, in preparation for our Christmas luncheon at work on Friday. My work has what they call “over the top Christmas attire”; I don’t go over the top like some others like to (which is fine), but I definitely wanted to have some sort of Christmas-y attire for the day, so I was totally down with wearing a cheesy sweater, and let me tell you, it’s a GREAT one!

So, Friday (Day 18) arrives, and I’m all decked out in the BEST Christmas sweater EVER, at least in my crazy cat lady opinion.

Because this sweater was kind of on the thick side, and the weather has been surprisingly mild, I bought a Christmas-y t-shirt to wear under the sweater, in case I got too hot and needed to take off the sweater. Needless to say, my t-shirt is pretty awesome too!

I got LOADS of compliments on the t-shirt, more so than the sweater, which just goes to show that loads of people prefer the Dark Side to cute, cuddly, grumpy cat sweaters.

In addition to Christmas attire, some of the departments decorated their rows, and some even had a competition to see who decorated the best. As I mentioned in a previous post, my row is composed of some Scrooges, but two of the other rows did The Polar Express and some Gingerbread Houses.

And the thing that made this day even EPICALLY better was the fact that we had REINDEER!! What. EVEN?!? :O

I even got to PET one! Day was MADE!

And if that wasn’t the best thing ever, Friday was my last working day before taking vacation for Christmas! Awww, yiss!!

On Saturday (Day 19), I started my day off with a bit of pampering. Got my hair done, toning down some of the brassy Balayage sections from previous appointments.

After that, I went and got my brows done at the Benefit Brow Bar at my local Ulta Beauty, followed by some more Christmas shopping. Later that evening, we went over to my cousin’s house for dinner, and then decorated Christmas cookies with the kidlets!!

Sunday (Day 20) was mostly just church and resting. Evening service was a musical concert, as both the youth and adult choirs sang. The kids were adorable and funny, as usual. The adult choir were awesome! When a choir is on point, my most favorite Christmas hymn to hear is “O Holy Night” and they did it perfectly! *two thumbs up*

Monday (Day 21) was the “official” first day of vacation. Both my mom and I took off the entire week, so that worked out well, considering I’ve been using her car. We went and picked up my insurance check, so now it’s time to start car shopping.
*

After getting the check, we went and did some Christmas shopping for family members. We decided to go to Sevierville and Gatlinburg, instead of going out to West Knoxville because traffic has been so horrible out west. Sevierville and Gatlinburg can have crazy tourist traffic, but it was not bad at all, so that was a good call! *thumbs up* The Village area in Gatlinburg is one of my favorite places, so here are some Christmas-y decorations from there!

When we finally got home, I got another surprise. I FINALLY received my order from feelunique.com with the 12 Days of Unique Beauty Advent Calendar. \:D/

Because it’s SO fun playing catch up, here’s everything from days 1 through 9!! XD

From left to right, days 1 through 9:
Day 1: Monu’s Illuminating Primer with SPF 15: Can be used alone, or as a base before putting on makeup.
Day 2: Philip Kingsley’s Elasticizer: A super-conditioning, pre-shampoo treatment.
Day 3: Grown Alchemists’s Hydra-Repair Day Cream with Camellia & Geranium: A hydrating facial moisturizer.
Day 4: Roger & Gallet’s Fleur de Figuier Gentle Shower Cream.
Day 5: Fleur de Force’s Quad Eye Shadow in 010 Cosmic Bronze.
Day 6: Phyto Paris’s Subtil Elixir: An intense nutrition, pre-shampoo shine oil.
Day 7: Redken’s Extreme Length Primer: A rinse off treatment for distressed hair.
Day 8: thisworks sleep plus+ pillow spray.
Day 9: Gatineau’s Collagene Expert Ultimate Smoothing Serum.

I like how there is a lot of hair items; since I’ve started coloring my hair, it’s important to keep it as moisturized as possible.

Then there’s also the Benefit calendar to catch up on.

From left to right, days 5 through 9:
Day 5: They’re Real! Mascara
Day 6: lollitint lip and cheek stain in candy-orchid.
Day 7: the POREfessional pore minimizing balm.
Day 8: Watt’s Up! Soft Focus Highlighter
Day 9: BADgal lash Mascara

I intended to post this last night, but feel asleep before I could. So I just decided to post it today, which brings us to…

Tuesday (Day 22), wherein I woke up feeling poorly, like I had gargled shards of glass and swallowed cotton. Not a fun feeling, so I went to a walk-in clinic and got diagnosed with THE CRUD. Basically, a cold, I guess. Pretty sure there’s a sinus infection going on, due to the colorful mucus (too tmi? Maybe!), but the doc loaded me up with some meds, so hopefully I can kick this because it totally sucks being sick on vacation. Not much else happened today, so I will leave you with the items from today’s calendars, and head on off to bed! XD

Benefit, Day 10: Hoola Ultra Plush Lip Gloss
Feelunique, Day 10: A black, no-dent hair tie, with sparkly star charm from popband london… >.>… ooooook?! (That star is gonna get tangled in my hair, I just know it! XD)

*(gif credit: mashable.com)