Holiday Snips and Snaps (2012)

Good morning!

We lived through the hardest part of the holidays, folks! Still have New Years' on its way down the pipeline, but boy, am I grateful to have most of the seasonal cheer out of the way and done with for the year. Don't think that I don't love Christmas... I do, but with the year it's been, the bum's rush I'm ready to give 2-0-1-2 is almost in effect!

The one unifying effect of these pictures taken over the Christmas holiday is COLOR. Here's your humble blog author in front of our two, tiny, Technicolor trees and a little holiday display that went up just after Thanksgiving. We did have to move the whole kit and caboodle once, to a temporary home in the den, when we had folks over for dinner, but other than that, it's been nice to sit at the table, crunching on breakfast toast and staring eye-to-eye with a Christmas elf.

And that Christmas elf is "Jingle" (really, it's the name printed on his tag)! This elf was my mom's when she was a little kid and mine when I was little... I kidnapped him at some point around five years ago, and when he featured in a similar Christmas display on the same table four years ago, my mom negotiated his safe return to her house (the exchange went: Mom: Is that Jingle? Me: Yes. Mom: My Jingle? Lisa: Um...you gave it to me? Mom: I don't think so.) Only to give him back to me for Christmas last year. Needless to say, Jingle is comforted by the security this new arrangement and looks fine and dandy in this spread. I love his pert expression! His over sized feet! His love of embellishment! Those are three things we have in common!

Also included are an all-seasons light up glitter covered skull, a Charlie Brown Christmas snow globe, candy canes (a particularly vicious holiday vice of mine), the Chrisilizard (Matthew's contribution), and a Christmas be-decked Slimer (remember him from the back to school party?).

Slimer featured again in our holiday picture! I'm happy to have this good a picture of the two of us together, even if it does include a ghoster in a Santa hat.

I made the mistake of listening to the audiobooks of Skinny B-tch and Veganist over the dang break (I do this to myself! Why!), and now my newest diet fad (you know I'm always on one) is trying to include more soy-based replacement meats into my daily dishes (which were about 90% poultry-as-protein based anyway, so it's not the end of the world) and cut down my dairy intake (slightly harder, but I've been in tougher scrapes than this). Here, you can see a picture of me with my chipped nailpolish, one broken burner (aaaah! I NEED. A NEW STOVE.), and a panful of Vegan With a Vengeance's scrambled tofu recipe. I don't know how long I'll last without at least chicken, but a girl can dream!

This year, instead of gift cards (a household holiday gift giving staple of ours, as everyone in each of our families is IMPOSSIBLE to shop for), we made little artistic artifacts to pass on to our loved ones. Matthew did character sprites from vintage video games for Sus and Matt (which I forgot to photograph...Sus! Matt! Take pictures for us!) and I made whatever came into my head as related to the person for whom it was intended. Whether the recipient would rather have a Kroger gift card than a construction paper collage...well, we'll leave that to them, but it was fun making the pictures! My main gift to my dad was to dupe 10 unreleased-on-cd Barbara Mandrell records from his reckless youth to digital copies via my USB turntable, so there's a little bit of country when country wasn't cool in each and every one of these. 

For some "hot jazz" fans in the family who haven't received their gifts yet (oooh, I hope you're not reading this, you know who you are!), I made this oversized Boswell Sisters collage:

The Boswell Sisters were a singing group who rose to prominence in late twenties' and early thirties' for their revved-up harmonic renditions of popular tunes of the day. When they are hot, they are HOT. Martha, Connee, and Helvetia ("Vet") stopped singing together in 1936, and although Connee went on to have a fairly successful solo career on Decca records in the 1940's, that superfast thirties' foot tapping tempo is what they're best known for. I LOVE the souped up sound of their recordings, and thought a Howard Finster style tribute was the best way to show 'em off. I made this with black construction paper on white typing paper for the most part, with a little Sharpie edging here and there.

For my mom, I made this little pop art bird, and labelled him "the bird" in French. I think I liked how his feathers turned out the most!

Here's a picture of the Tenacious D collage I made for my sister. I wish to heck Jack Black had turned out better, but I think Kyle Gass pretty much looks exactly like Kyle Gass. The background is repeating lines of "WE ARE THE D", which reminds me of the summer after The Pick of Destiny movie and Sus and I committing its soundtrack to heart. You should see the t-shirts we made for the movie premiere (accordingly, I should take pictures of them sometime! Haha).

I'll have to share pictures of my received Christmas presents in the next fashion or recipe post, respectively (are you intrigued?), but let us simply say that I am a happy little fashionable camper! Who can now make recipes with speed and precision!

How was your holiday? Did you drink way too much egg nog? Did you get or give any particularly mind blowing presents? Tell, tell!

More vintage clips coming your way this week. Merry slightly late Christmas to you all! :)