Christmas 2015 and Birthday Celebrations

Our December was busy with work and the holidays, just like everyone else. I worked on some special orders like I have mentioned in my previous post, and Caitlin just started her new job at Anthropologie.   We kick off our December festivities with Cyrous' birthday on the 17th. I met Cyrous 7 years ago on his 21st birthday! Seems just like yesterday, and now he is part of our family.
I, like many others, have big plans around the holidays. Per usual though only one or two creative things that I did have planned came to fruition. I have no one, or thing to blame for not getting more done this year! Perhaps dreaming on Pinterest sucked up too much of my time hahahah. Oh well, I did manage to make a boxwood wreath studded with red tea roses for our Christmas dinner table, and I had a lot of fun making it. Especially when total cost of it was five bucks for the roses, and the wire wreath form, which I got a steal of a deal on at Michael's, for maybe three dollars. The boxwood came from the front yard. The beautiful candelabra I had purchased from Anthropologie with birthday money back in October. I was going for an old world/old time Christmas. It's funny because I purchased this really cute snowball garland at Target, and had full intention of a more modern look in my living room. When we bought the tree though, I ended up going a different way because of the bough, which I think I already mentioned. My furniture and this house combined, lends itself more to old time more than modern I suppose, or maybe it's just that I like the coziness of it.
Christmas eve we went to visit  our dear friends near by and spent a lovely time with them chatting and having a few drinks before we went to dinner here. We had the most incredible paella dishes. One was more seafood with black rice, made that way with squid ink. The other had clams and rabbit. Really nice relaxing dinner.
Earlier in the day, Cyrous' mom dropped Caitlin's gift off. A car! She didn't see it until we got home from dinner. I made a video of her reaction, it was funny hahaha.
I love our small Christmas with just us four. I love entertaining, but at Christmas I love not worrying that things have to be perfect for company, and you can stay in your PJs for as long as you want. Since we are slower risers, our dinners are always closer to when we eat normally. When I take a break and look at Instagram, and see everyone already eating or relaxing, and I haven't even put our food in the oven, I start to have a bit of anxiety for some reason. I shouldn't but I always do!
This year I went with a prime rib. It's the second time only that we have had prime rib for Christmas dinner. The first time I had some assistance, so I almost don't count it as me cooking it. It turned out really good despite me freaking out that I thought I'd ruin it. I made a Jamie Oliver carrot recipe, which I think in it's simplicity, is quite genius, and I think from now on I will cook them this way. Here is the link for those( Jamie's carrots). Then Dave talked me into making mashed potatoes in the Scottish manner. You boil potatoes, rutabagas, onions together. Then mash by hand and leave chunky. Pour a little milk and butter, and chopped chives.  I tend to not make a lot of sides on Christmas, especially since it is just us four, and we really should be consuming so much!
Dessert, I bought an English pudding by my favorite brand, Tip Tree. Not everyone ended up liking it, I won't name names hahah. It was still a fun experience and fit into our loosely based English Christmas theme.
The last picture on here was a super sweet gift from my sweetie pie. He first gave me a subscription to Audubon society. A bird was adopted in my name, and the plant is a miniature pomegranate bush to attract humming birds! So sweet, and I can't wait to see it bloom, and hopefully visited by some birds.
Caitlin and Cyrous were so thoughtful and gifted us a new TV. Ours apparently is too small according to Caitlin hahah. It was a total surprise and look forward to all the cool features on it.
So, on that note, I'm going to jump off here to set up the new TV, or help rather.
Hopefully I will get to fit in an end of the year post sometime this week.
Have a wonderful relaxing time with friend and family, for the rest of 2015!