Real World Sara: Christmas is coming

I feel like everyone and their brother has started blogging about food and recipes and yummy things, and I'm sitting here like, "I like to bake, but not my own recipes soooooooooooooo..." So if you still read this blog despite my two and a half month hiatus, I'm thankful for you and happy that you haven't given up on me. Also, I'm still just writing about my life, so if you're looking for a blog about food you'll have to look elsewhere. But if food will make you stay, here's a picture of a pizza that I made:

It's pepperoni, naturally rising crust, in case you're wondering.

Growing up, my mom never did Advent calendars for us. I think it had something to do with the fact that there were 7 kids and 25 days, and 7 doesn't go into 25 evenly, so that would have resulted in a lot of fighting and stuff that you shouldn't do around the holidays because you're supposed to love everyone and Jesus, and you know, get along.

But then when we got to college, my mom was like "OH MY GOSH I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT MY KIDS" so she bought these cute little houses and filled them with goodies for us and our roommates and it was wonderful. I mean, I know she did it for my older sister Jenna and I, but the younger kids might have missed out since ~~Jenna and I are the favorite children and had the best roommates ever~~ my mom is busy and designates her holiday cheer towards things more important than deciding what 25 little gifts she should send to her kids. Like Christmas movies. And eggnog.

My mom started a new tradition when Jenna got married. For Jenna's first Christmas without the last name Vanderstappen, my mom sent Jenna a gift for each of the 25 days of Christmas. I hadn't thought about my mom doing it for Jenna 3 years ago until Saturday. On Saturday, I got a package in the mail from my mom, and I remembered what she had done for Jenna.

There were two packages wrapped in pink, one labeled "day 1" and the other labeled "day 2". So of course, I ripped open the package and found this:

And was like, "Awwwwwwwwww I have the sweetest mom in the whole world!!" And Peter was all pouty because there was nothing for him. Then I used more self-control than I've ever used in my life to wait until Sunday to open my gift for day 2.

On Sunday morning right after I woke up, I went to the kitchen to open my gift:

These are those things that you put in a vase and are supposed to be decorative and not touched, but then you can't help yourself and you submerge your hand in the vase and it feels awesome. Needless to say, I'm excited for my new springtime decoration.

Then, day 3 came along and I thought that my mom forgot about me because there wasn't anything in my mailbox. But when I went out to the front porch there was a really big box out there! And it was addressed to me! And I was SO happy and excited!!!!

And then I opened the box. And plugged this in. And stared.

But Peter was really happy, because he got his Advent gift, even though it was addressed to SARA Romenesko, not Peter. So. There we go.

In other news, we put up our Christmas tree over the weekend and it's beautiful and fun and exciting! And it makes our house feel all cozy and warm. But the problem is that it's a real tree and we don't have a watering can. Yesterday I decided to water the tree by myself, and I actually didn't water it. Because the water ended up all over the tree skirt and the rug. So now that's Peter's job.