Deck the Halls

The Priestley's have officially decked the halls for Christmas! I just love our house at Christmas. My favorite thing to do is just sit on the couch and watch the tree blink. I think Mac is starting to get in that spirit as well. Check out the photos of our house as we transitioned to our full holiday mode.

 So, who knew you could return a Christmas tree? Well, I didn't either. Our first Christmas tree just wasn't right. It was split almost in two, wasn't taking any water, and was dropping needles like crazy. After hearing the pure panic in my voice, the lovely Christmas tree place agreed to take it back. More importantly, Mac agreed to wrestle it out of the house, on the car, and back to Cordova to get another tree. I love my husband.

A little duct tape, string, and an old sheet and we were in business! Back on the car it went.

 

 

 You can see my bookcase and mantle here. The bookcase has been the same for the past few years, but my mantle is all new. I love love love it! I painted the chipboard trees with gold chevron, spray painted the brass candlesticks red, and used the gold mercury glass votives from the wedding. The two gold bells are from my florists' shop in Jackson, TN. We got our stockings at Target, and still need to get our names embroidered on them!

 I really wish I had a video of me putting this garland on the staircase. It was quite an interesting solo project.

Oh yeah, and while I decorated for Christmas I also sanded, primed and painted the wooden hutch that has been in our kitchen. So half of our house looked like this for a few days. However, I could not be happier with the way it turned out. I will do a before and after post on the hutch soon. 

Here are a few photos of the tree. It turned out beautifully! It is a bit taller than last years, but not near as fat...which is just perfect. It is also drinking lots of water and has dropped just a few needles. I know it will last all through Christmas (unlike a certain other tree).

 

Hope you enjoyed the photos of our holiday house! Stay tuned for photos from the Tacky Christmas party we hosted last Saturday! It was awesome!

Still there?

Whew! So sorry it has been a week since my last post! I have a ton of photos to upload and catch you up on. Mac and I had a Tacky Christmas party on Saturday, so last week was filled with party prep! We had such a great time getting the house ready, prepping all of the food, and especially our outfits. I also took some time on Saturday morning to cheer on the runners in the St. Jude Memphis Marathon. Wow...what an experience. I will post photos from both events soon.

This week should be pretty quiet for the Priestleys. The only thing on my agenda is the grand opening for the Kate Spade store on Thursday evening. I plan on catching up with my blog posts as well as start on our Christmas cards.

Much love to you all!

Last Week in Review

Last week I....

Saw White Christmas!
Went to Kate Spade on opening day!
Bought, set up, returned, and bought another Christmas tree!
Baked a delicious apple pie for Thanksgiving.

Work in Progress

As many of you know, I am a complete and total Christmas nut. I love the holidays. Growing up, we always had some Christmas decor up before Thanksgiving...but never the tree. I am following suit. Our house is a wreck right now, as I have just been decorating a little bit each night. Look for some finished photos soon.

 

End of DTDW

Happy Thanksgiving week! We have started it off in Memphis with LOTS of rain. Yesterday and today have been pretty gross. Mac and I had a great weekend...so let me go back to Friday and tell you about our last Downtown Dining Week restaurant.

After work on Friday, Mac wasn't so sure he wanted to go eat dinner. The quote was, "I think I am just tired of eating three course meals." I don't know how that is possible. haha! We went to Lowe's right after work to pick up some stain for our new fence. I also picked up a poinsettia in the process. We headed back downtown to enjoy our delicious meal. Our reservations weren't until 8 p.m., but we got to the restaurant around 7 p.m. and they went ahead and seated us. Our last DTDW experience was at one of the newer restaurants downtown, Bleu. It is located inside of the Westin hotel. It. was. delicious. I snapped photos throughout the meal (to Mac's dismay)...but it was just delicious. 

After dinner, Mac and I went to Beale and listened to music for a little bit. It was a really fun night!

 We were ready for our yummy meal!

So ready, that I forgot to take a photo of our first course, oops!

Mac had pork pot stickers and I had a zucchini soup. The soup was awesome, but I was not prepared for the spice! My mouth was on fire!

 My entree was a delicious piece of chicken with a seasonal veggie hash.

 Mac had catfish, veggies, and rice cooked in a paper packet.

 This was heaven. I had smores in a skilled for dessert. It was just the best thing ever.

 Mac had an apple pie tart thing...I was too busy with my own personal smore to pay much attention to his dessert.

 As you can see, we were both pretty pleased with our desserts as well as the whole meal.

Definitely give Bleu a try if you are downtown. The Westin is located right across from the FedEx Forum, so it would be a great place to grab a pre-concert or pre-game meal.

Zoo Lights Preview Party

Well, Mac and I had a delicious dinner at Paulette's on Wednesday. So delicious, in fact, that I did not take a single photo! Oh well. We have one more reservation tonight at Bleu, a new downtown restaurant. Hopefully I can remember to snap a few photos. 

I did remember to take photos at the Zoo Lights event! Unfortunately they were all on my iPhone, so the quality is lacking. I ended up getting tickets to the Zoo Lights Preview Party through work, so I took Whitney! There were crafts and cupcakes involved, so Mac decided to sit this one out. This was my third annual Zoo Lights trip, and they were just as beautiful this year as in the past! I highly suggest you visit the Zoo during the holidays for a festive activity.

At the GiGi's Cupcakes area you could have pre-decorated delicious cupcakes OR...

 Decorate them yourself! Go Whitney! Martha would be proud.

 Linea warms up her piping skills for the upcoming holiday baking season.

 If you have ever been to Zoo Lights, the Singing Christmas Trees are an exciting thing to see. It is about 15 Christmas trees on three levels that light up to the Christmas music that is playing in the background. They used to be at the entrance of the Zoo, but they are now hidden in a back corner. This gave me the perfect opportunity to pose as a tree. I totally blend in, right?

 We chose not to ice skate on this Zoo Lights trip, but it is always a fun time! I caught the blinking lights right as they changed to a festive red and green!

I know it is not quite the holiday season, but visiting the Zoo sure got me in the spirit! I can't wait to pull out more of my decorations this weekend. I also got word that 104.5 has (finally) switched to continuous Christmas music!! Tis the season!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I know I am looking forward to it!

Downtown Dining Week

Every year downtown restaurants have a very special promotion...a three course meal for $20.11 (2011-get it?)! Mac and I kicked off the week with a delicious meal at Felicia Suzanne's. It was amazing. We both started off with the butternut squash apple bisque. He had the redfish and I had the pork tenderloin as an entree. Photos of those are below. For dessert, he had a dark chocolate fried pie with whiskey cream sauce and I had an apple crisp! Yuuuum. Tonight we are headed to Paulette's at their new location on Mud Island. If it wasn't going to be freezing cold tonight we could easily walk or ride our bikes! I will try and remember to take more photos of our meal this evening...