Five Fandom Friday- Favorite Songs to Get Me into the Holiday Spirit

Happy Holiday season everyone! It has been a very long time since I have done a Triple F, but I do love Christmas music, so I couldn't pass this one up! (Even though I'm posting this on a Monday...better late than never!)  Here are my five songs to get me into the holiday spirit. (And if you look at the one I did back in 2014, you may see a familiar face or two. What can I say, I like what I like!)

1. Don't Be a Jerk (Its Christmas)- Spongebob Squarepants

Sure this little yellow guy can be annoying sometimes, but this song sure is the truth! Just because you're busy this holiday season doesn't mean you have the right to be a jerk to everyone else. This video is the shortened version of the song, the full length is just about a minute longer and I'm sure they'll be playing all the Christmas Spongebobs on Nick this month, so look for those if you're interested :)

2. Christmas Eve/Sarajevo- Trans Siberian Orchestra

To me, TSO can do no wrong in the Christmas song department. They remind me of Christmases of my youth so much that I just love them. And this is one of my favorites.

3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen- Pentatonix

This is one of my favorite Christmas songs. Its one of the first I learned to play on my violin and that just made me love it that much more. Also, Pentatonix reminds me very much of Christmas now (just like TSO), even though they aren't just a Christmas accapella group, so they'll be on my Christmas playlists for a very long time.

4. The Whole Soundtrack of A Charlie Brown Christmas

When I was younger, I would pop this into my CD player before bed, and fall asleep to it every night. I think its one of the best soundtracks ever created.

5. Jingle Bell Rock

(Apologies, the video above doesn't just show the dance, but its all I could find *womp womp*) This is a new one, because one of my little nephews just loves this song and listens to it over and over. I told my sister it reminded me of Mean Girls, which is why I posted this video and didn't try to find the actual song.

Bonus songs!
Coldest Winter- Pentatonix

So this isn't a Christmas song technically, its a cover of a Kanye West song. But look at this video! And its winter themed, so......yeah. It totally counts.

Hallelujah- Pentatonix

Be prepared to feel all the feels. I blame it on movies always playing this song when someone dies and the fact that this group is amazing. The song is wonderful. Grab a tissue.

So there they are- my go to holiday songs this year (and mostly every year). I also a deep love for Carol of the Bells  and Troy and Abed's Christmas rap from Community (which I mentioned in the 2014 Triple F). And here's a playlist I made just for Christmas last year (because I really feel like sharing Christmas music today!).

What songs get you in the holiday spirit? Let me know in the comments!

Merry Christmas!!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas or just a wonderful day if you don't partake in the Christmas festivities.

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Here's a playlist I made for the day, I hope you like it. And side note, I think the whole Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack is fabulous, I would've put the whole thing on here, but I think that defeats the purpose of a playlist :) Also, Ariana Grande's Christmas and Chill EP is a pretty fun. I'm not much of a fan of hers, but its a quick listen and holiday-esque. 

What are you listening to right now to get you through the day? 

Personally...The Holidays

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I have been a little absent from the blog. The holiday season got to be a little overwhelming- and it isn't even over yet! In addition to New Year's, I have four birthdays to celebrate over the next few days. Today is my father-in-law and my youngest niece's, New Year's Eve is my mother-in-law's, and New Year's Day is my oldest niece's. Crazy busy time. Down below are just some snippets of my past few weeks. I'm sorry I haven't been around much, but that will be changing soon- promise! New year, new blog resolutions :)

First up, on December 6th, I became an Auntie one more time to a very handsome boy. I would love to share a million pictures of him, but I don't know how my sister would feel about that :) So now between my sisters and I, there are four girls and three boys. My parents like to joke that we can now start a softball team with the grandchildren. My sister (the one who just gave birth) also celebrated her birthday on December 11th.

Since I was late to the Advent calendar party, I did a twelve days of Christmas countdown with my kids. Above are some of the presents they received. They didn't really get that they were Advent presents, so they called them bonus presents instead. It really worked with distracting them from their actual presents.

So I won't lie, I didn't put up my Christmas tree until about six days before Christmas. I hadn't planned on that, but I had a procedure done on one of my toes that limited my mobility for a while, so that hampered my tree set-up. I felt bad for my children, but we had our mini pink Christmas tree up in our bathroom since the beginning of the month, and I put up new Christmas lights in there, so at least they had some festive details. I also added a garland to our fireplace mantle, along with the Elf of the Shelf Pop! Funko and I wrapped some sparkly garland on our mailbox outside. So it wasn't completely Grinchy here, but next year will be better.

Christmas Eve morning we took the kids to see Frozen (finally).I liked it, although it was pretty sad. And *tiny spoiler ahead if you haven't seen it* I really hate that Disney always kills the parents off in their movies. But visually it was stunning, and Olaf was my favorite.

Also on Christmas Eve, we made reindeer food to sprinkle on the lawn. Its just Grape Nuts, glitter and star confetti- but my kids enjoyed making it, and really had a blast tossing it all over the yard. I let them put it out during the day since I knew we weren't going to be home later that night. It was so sunny on Christmas Eve, so the glitter really sparkled on our lawn.

Christmas was great. A very long day, but it was good. My husband and I bought our children the Wii U Zelda edition (which was really hard to find), and that was easily their favorite present. I'm excited to try out Wii U Fit, if I can ever pry the controllers from their hands lol. I received an Asus tablet from my husband, which I love. And pretty much everyone else got me gift cards, which is okay by me! I bought my husband some new shoes for him to play Airsoft in and some 49ers PJ pants. I was pleased with myself because I didn't have to use any of his money to buy it (I'm a stay at home mom with no income of my own). I always hate buying him presents with his own money, it just feels wrong. But I sold some stuff earlier in the year and made enough to buy some gifts. He did buy himself one gift that I gave him though- it was Killzone for the PS4. We bought it in a bundle from Target- it was buy any two games, get one free. And we had bought two games for our kids' Christmas presents in the same bundle. But he was the one that told me to wrap it up and give it to him lol, so I did.

Here is Pentatonix singing my favorite Christmas song Carol of the Bells. I didn't know who they were until I started watching The Sing Off this season.


How was your Christmas/ holiday season?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great and wonderful day! Here are some video snips of some of my favorite Christmas things. 

Didn't I tell you you'd be seeing this again this month? 

Troy and Abed's Christmas rap. 

Dick in a Box!!

Schweddy Balls!

This is a little long, but A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of my most favorites. It goes from when Linus explains the meaning of Christmas, all the way to the end. I tried to find a clip of my favorite line "Hark! Then Harold Angel starts to sing," but was unsuccessful.

Other favorites include:

*How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon original, not the Jim Carey one)

*Homelessville (Justin Timberlake and Will Forte SNL sketch)

*the commerical for Norelco with Santa riding an electric razor

*the original Coca-Cola bear commerical (they started as a Christmas only thing)

*All I Want For Christmas with Ethan Embry (when he was Ethan Randall) and Thora Birch. 

*Carol of the Bells- favorite Christmas song ever! I once had a playlist dedicated to different versions of this song....but then my computer crashed and they all got lost...

And one not so favorite:

I'm sorry Kmart, but I thought this was kinda gross. Guys shaking their balls around like bells? Not cool. Would you have ladies shaking their boobs around like that? Probably not. 

Skills to Pay the Bills: (Mostly) Handmade Advent Calendars

Boy, you know that saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade? Well, I could make a lemonade distribution center with all the lemons life has been throwing at me lately. I finally feel well enough to sit here and type out this post, that I had originally wanted to do earlier. I mean, Advent calendars are for Christmas countdowns, and here we are, already seven days into December. If anything, maybe it will inspire you to do a smaller countdown (which I may do with my children), or its something to keep in the back of your head for next Christmas. I love Advent calendars, even though I wasn't raised particularly religious. It was always fun to pop out a little piece of chocolate as I counted down Santa's arrival. I've bought them in the past for my kids, but my daughter isn't a huge chocolate fan, and my son isn't as impressed with candy as he used to be (which is good)- so I didn't buy any this year. But I did see a few blog posts about homemade Advent calendars that I thought were so cool, and I thought I'd share them with you.

The first one is from Kaelah at Little Chief Honeybee. I really admire her blog and also how well she's done at being a great stepmom to Toby (stepping into a parenting role is no easy task). She makes me want to do more creative things for my children!

This one is from Kristin at rukristin. Its an Advent calendar filled of reasons why you love your spouse. This idea can easily translate into why you love your children. So clever.

This is from a post last year on A Beautiful Mess, but still completely relevant. Its an Advent tree!

Also from A Beautiful Mess is this year's Advent calendar. This is so adorable. 

I love the handmade envelopes.

And if these aren't enough inspiration, there's an e-book to help you out!

Found through Skunkboy, you can purchase it here.

Also, this isn't at all handmade, but I love this Advent calendar stocking from Pottery Barn Kids.

Buy it here.

Monday Mix Up #12

I've had Christmas on the brain ever since I saw the Christmas decorations sitting on the edges of the Halloween decorations, like they were ready to pounce and have a good old fashioned holiday throwdown. There will probably be a lot of Monday Mix Ups from now until Christmas Day dedicated to all things Christmas. So here's the first of many :)

These are some things I've been eyeballing for my personal Christmas list:

These locks from Marla Aaron Jewelry. I love how they're just carabiners, but fancied up. And those heart ones are super adorable.

Kawaii Marvel Leggings from welovefine.

This camo Hello tee by Hello Apparel. 

One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book
 Found on Amazon (I've also seen this in the notebook section at Target); a fun, low key way to keep track of life's little happenings for five years.

The 20/20 Experience: The Complete Experience
 I love me some Justin Timberlake.

What's on your Christmas wish list?