Deck the Halls with Boughs All Nerdy

I'm always an advocate for being yourself, for letting your nerdy flag fly high. I apply that code to my life, my writing, my cooking, and my decorating -- even my holiday decorating! What's the point of decorating if it doesn't feel like it is comfortably "you".

This drive has developed into a bit of a theme on our Christmas tree. Perhaps this handful of ornaments just might amuse you. Care to take a little tour?

Salted Dark Chocolate Figs

Serendipity is finding the right Pinterest inspiration on a day when you can actually use it.

Every year, instead of Christmas cookies, my family has the tradition of making chocolate-covered candies.

While gathering ingredients and preparing a batch for dipping (read as: procrastinating on Pinterest), I stumbled across a picture of gourmet figs covered in salted dark chocolate. 

Why order a box, when I already had chocolate ready for dipping! 

DIY Our First Christmas Tree Ornament

In a budding relationship, there are so many important little moments to remember: the first date, the first dance, the first holiday. In all the hustle and bustle of such life-changing events, I love finding little momentos to cherish and save the story behind the memories.

On our first Christmas as a married couple, my husband and I joined my parents and my brother's family for a tractor ride out to Strathmeyer farms, braced against the cold with the comfort of free apples, to search for our first Christmas tree. We made our cuts and waited for the tractor's return to carry our trees back, as my little nephew helped by carrying his own little evergreen branch. My husband marked the trunk with his initials, now a part of my initials, so that our tree would not be lost among the others on the back of the wagon. When my husband trimmed off the bottom of the trunk, I saved the little disc with his initials and turned it into a Christmas tree ornament to commemorate our first tree.

DIY Stuffed Hobbes: The Rebirth of A Childhood Friend

How ever were children of the 80's and 90's to learn a good dose of fantasy, sarcasm, and an impressive vocabulary without the stories of Calvin and Hobbes?

Hobbes was a part of so many of our lives growing up, and that homocidal psycho jungle cat is just as cool now as he ever was.

As children, my brother collected all of the books, and together we mourned the tragedy of the comic's discontinuation from the local funny papers.

Now that my brother has little sons of his own, I felt the time had come for them to have their own adventures with dinosaur-flying spaceships and suicidal snowman while accompanied by their new best friend Hobbes.

However Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, chose not to license his characters for distribution, so you won't find a Hobbes doll sitting on the shelf at your local toy store. So the best option is to make your own*.