Holiday Table

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

I hope you are enjoying the season. If your holidays are anything like mine, your life was like a freight train for all of December, which crashed violently on the 25th, turning your house into a pile of rubble, leading you to hibernate in your pajamas with your phone off ever since.

The holiday recovery zone may be one of my favorite places of all time. Post 12/25 is truly when all is calm and all is bright. (Unless you count the near-constant sibling bickering of my children, which I am not, because I am totally ignoring it). I haven't left my house or my "eating pants" (pants with an elastic waistband, for those of you who didn't go to college with Dan Novak, who coined the term) in days.

I've read a book and a half, I've sat and thought, eaten left-over party platter cheese and crackers for lunch, talked on the phone (remember THAT?!), and generally been a totally happy and relaxed hermit.

The reason this vacation is so needed is because, as I said, December was bonkers. And I mean BONKERS. I find myself wondering how Christmas turned into such a three-ring circus. And how I can avoid that next year. It will take me the next 10 months to figure that out but SOMEHOW something must be done. The only thing I know for sure is that it is completely my fault. [Evidence]

At some point, we'll have to fully unpack my issues, which essentially fall into the category of thinking I can and should do all the things, when in reality I cannot and should not be doing all the things.

But for now, whatever, Pretty Table!

One of the things I had really wanted to do but just couldn't get done earlier in the month was participating in Minted's #MintedHolidayStyle contest. They asked me, along with a handful of others, if we would like to share a festive tablescape on our blog & Instagram featuring their new matched napkin sets. You have to understand, every word of that is like irresistible candy to a blogger. I had to say yes! But time, opportunity, and good lighting rarely converge in the best of months for this type of project, let alone in a jam-packed December.

So I'm sharing it now! I used the lazy afternoons this week to shop for, stage, set and shoot a tablescape, just. for. fun. This is probably not most people's idea of a good time, but to me, arranging flowers and setting out forks and napkins -- without having to actually cook food or put away the laundry on my love seat -- is luxury of the highest order.

And bonus, I got to practice my manual shooting skills! Ah, blissful vacation afternoon. And unlike a real party, I don't have to clean up the dirty socks my son threw on the floor, or the stack of broken- down gift boxes next to our table. I just had to crop them out.

Here's wishing you a relaxed and blissful end to 2016, and much joy in the New Year!