The Good, The Bad, and The Moustache

Welcome to a post in two parts! One of my favorite things - Christmas - and one of my least favorite things - lip caterpillars! Christmas is The Good. The Moustache is both The Bad, and The Ugly. HA.

Christmas first, because it's my favorite!

Hey Buddy wanna pick some snowberries? NOT NOW ARCTIC PUFFIN!

It is Christmas time which means that it is now perfectly acceptable for me to quote Elf nonstop and walk around with a peppermint white mocha 24/7. IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR! (Because of peppermint. And Jesus. But mostly peppermint. [Just kidding, Jesus, I love you!]) I love Christmas. I love the decorations and the food and the wrapping paper (yes, wrapping paper) and tons of family time and the general feeling of cheer everywhere.

Peppermint everything, all day every day!

I am one of those people who decorates the day after Thanksgiving. While everyone was out trampling each other for a deal on a TV, I was waking up and excitedly interrupting my husband's morning cup of coffee to ask him to get the tree (artificial: I don't believe in chopping down trees unnecessarily!) out of storage so we could put it up IMMEDIATELY! We don't have a huge house or anything, just a small apartment, but I still love to decorate. Each year we do a different color scheme - the main color is silver, and then we also have blue, green, red, purple, and gold. This year we are doing silver, red, and green.  Here are some pictures I have of our decor so far this year:


Clockwise from top left: Tv stand, living room wall, dining room table, tv stand 2nd view, our dog's collar (you read that right, our dog has a special holiday collar), tree, tv stand 3, entry wall, entry table.



Nighttime tree!

Window decor



I even decorated my desk at work!


I'm also working on a wreath for our front door, but I haven't finished it yet. It's made out of red and white snowflakes and covered in shimmery glitter - I don't know why glitter is a Christmas decoration, but it is. Seriously, if you doubt me, just go to your local Big Box store and look at the ornaments. Oh, a fishing reel? Slap some glitter on that bitch and BAM IT'S CHRISTMAS! I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, folks.

One of my other favorite things about Christmas is that it is Fruitcake Season! Seriously, I know that it's gross and a lot of people just don't get it, but like I've mentioned before, fruitcake is kind of a big deal in my relationship, and so I just have all of this extra happy all the time this season because every time I am in a store I see fruitcake and it makes me just grin and grin. It is ridiculously heartwarming to be grocery shopping with my husband and see a display of fruitcake and just squeeze each other's hands a little tighter. This whole season is like a constant re-affirmation of how awesome we each think the other is!

I'm high too, Kitty. High on luuuuuurve.

There are even fruitcake features in my Food Network magazine!

Looks like a trip to Claxton, GA is in order.

I also love gifting - not so much getting (I mean, of course I like it, who doesn't?), but thinking of what to get people, honing ideas, coming up with creative wrapping. Not a ton of gifting being done this year - part of my family does Bad Santa (like White Elephant, but you can steal the gifts) and I do the same thing for that every year - a 2ft tree with scratchers pinned to it. It's always a hit and people always fight over it, so I see no reason to switch it up! With Clinton's family this year we decided to do a Secret Santa which I am organizing. I thought it might be fun to be able to really focus on one person instead of getting a bunch of weird small random things for everyone, and they were all onboard, so we'll see how it turns out! I'm doing a Secret Santa gift exchange/party on the 22nd so I'll update about it after that. The other 1/2 of my family is on a strict budget this year and not doing normal gifting, but I'm going to send them a little something home-made this year anyway. I'll post that once they get it so as not to ruin the surprise!

I'm reeeeeally excited about Clinton's gift this year - I put a LOT of thought and effort into it and I know he's never had anything like it before, so I can't wait for him to have it! I will definitely be going into more detail about it here soon!

It's basically impossible for me to be mad this time of year. Had a bad day? Eat something peppermint. Watch Elf or Love Actually or Home Alone or Die Hard (totally a Christmas movie) or The Santa Clause. Go home and turn on the Christmas lights and light a pine candle and eat dinner by the glow of the tree. Done. Le fin. Happy.

- - - - -

The Bad, The Ugly. The Moustache! Dun dun DUN!

Clinton decided to do #Movember this year. Uhhhh. I, uh... was not a fan? Ha. Last year he did No-Shave November which is was A-OK with. I thought he looked quite handsome and manly with his beard! He liked it so much that he ended up keeping it through the summer. Something that I found really weird was that people kept asking me if I was going to let him keep it for the wedding. I just kept responding that I wasn't in charge of his face and he could keep it if he wanted to, that I would be fine either way. He decided to not have it for the wedding because he didn't think it was a forever thing, and he didn't want our kids to look at our wedding pictures and have it be like "oh yeah kids, that was the one year I had a beard". So with that in mind, he ended up shaving it in... June or July I think, so that his face would have time to get some color before the wedding in October.

Well this year when November rolled around, he decided to do actual Movember. (See here.) We sat around for awhile trying to come up with a team name somehow related to facial hair when it occured to us that one of our all time favorite TV characters (Ron Swanson from NBC's 'Parks and Rec') has the most epic moustache of all time.

Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you: Ron Swanson

And with that, Swanson's 'Staches was born. Clinton created a Movember team and tried to recruit his friends to join his team as "Mo Brothers". Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for all their lady friends), nobody in their right mind wants to grow a moustache, so it ended up being just him... and me. Yep. That's what marriage is folks, joining your husband's unsuccessful Movember as a "Mo Sista" and slapping a moustache on your profile picture for the month.

Boy, don't those two look handsome?

From that point on, it was all Ron Jeremy jokes from everyone all the time. Movember might have been the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and I have not had an easy life. Haha, seriously, not a fan. I've never liked moustaches - they just look creepy to me! Clint knows that but I figured since it was for a good cause, you know, whatever. About halfway through the month I got him to admit that he didn't like it either which is good, because I definitely don't want to go through that again ever in my life ha! But he stuck with it and made it through the month and got a few donations. I even promoted his team on my FB page promising a homemade moustache-shaped treat for anyone who donated over $10, but to no avail. Funny thing, people just really don't support moustaches, no matter how good the cause! Poor guy - as previously mentioned we spent a lot of time with my family last month and he got teased constantly, but he took it like a champ... which he should have, since he is the one who made that ridiculous choice. =P

Day 3.



Family photos on Thanksgiving. Happy Holidays from Clinton, Whitney, Emmy, and The Moustache!

Finally, at long last, it was time to say goodbye the the strange creature living on my husband's lip! I have to admit though that his moustache was pretty impressive. I've seen some other people's and they were pretty sparse and sad looking. Way to rock your masculinity right up front for everyone to see, babe. On December 1st, Clinton got up early to go golfing with his dad. Normally he would let me sleep in, but he decided to wake me up because he didn't think I would want to miss the ritualistic shaving of the 'stache. It was basically the best day of my life because he let me weild the clippers. I shaved that moustache with a vengance. Peace out homeboy, please evacuate the premises.

Before and after faces!



Best day ever, clearly.

A couple of days later I went over to my parents' house and my stepmom pointed to a gift bag on the table. "I saw this at the store and I couldn't resist. I had to get it for you."

My mom obviously has a sense of humor.

She could NOT stop laughing when she saw my face. She (and everyone else) knew how much I hated it and she said she thought of me immediately when she saw it. It was pretty funny. I told her I should change into it before going home so Clinton would see it when I got home, but then I had a better idea. I got home and we sat around watching TV for awhile, and then I told him I was going to go "slip into something a little more comfortable". Shoulda seen his face when I walked out of the bedroom wearing that baby. Poor guy. Hopes and dreams dashed. It was a cruel trick, but he loves me despite my terrible sense of humor. What a champ.