Christmas

Hello!

Welcome to Christmas break and almost the end of the year. I’m very excited for a new year, mostly because I can’t wait for this year to be done.

My family is over and there’s a lot of yelling, Nintendo Switch 2 playing, cooking in the kitchen, and always at least two ladies chasing Rainer with food.

Yesterday was very productive for me. I’m very bad at relaxing in the traditional sense, but I found time to buy vegetable and flower seeds for my garden and organize all the data into an excel sheet, which I found very relaxing. I still have to populate with planting info, but for now I’ve copied and pasted instructions from the websites. I ordered dahlias from Bear Creek (don’t you love the names of these dahlia’s? “OMG” “Show n Tell” “Diva”), vegetable and flower seeds from Johnny’s Seeds and Rare Seeds, and plan to order mums from King’s Mums.

I've also started a Figma for just general things I want in the garden:

• cherry trees

• plum trees

• persimmon tree

• apple orchard

• generally more hedges

• perennial border

• espalier something

• raised vegetable beds

• raised cutting bed

I am working with a landscape designer to create a general layout, but these are the elements I’m hoping we can include. We definitely do not have the land to accommodate all of this, let alone my dream Ina Garten formal-ish garden, but let’s see. I would love to know how you experienced gardeners out there organize your plans and thoughts. Also if you have any favorite sites for seeds and supplies. I just got some seed trays and covers. Can’t wait to start germinating next year.

ok back to Christmas! Dorian’s parents are over as well as my whole mom’s side of the family. This morning we watched The Snowman with Rainer and that was very cozy and special. I feel a deep nostalgic sadness when I hear the song come on and I am absolutely forever obsessed with the animation. When we were in London a few months ago we found a Snowman themed musical card at Harrod’s that we gave him today.

Here are some photos from today:

Watching The Snowman together in bed with Rainer is our first family tradition

I love this card so much. It’s definitely more for me than it is for him. I secretly ordered 2 more on Etsy while writing this post.

My cousin Esther made me these glitter sticker pictures!!!! She found the frames online and put all these photos of us in. She knows I love to scrapbook. I’m obsessed with this and must order glitter sticker printer paper.

All the presents under the tree with Timmy and some floor cushions laid out for present-opening in a bit. I had a lot of fun ordering ribbons this year. I want to be the type of mom who has like too many ribbons. Wrapping paper courtesy of Marshall’s because they have the best Hello Kitty wrapping paper (They did not gift me anything so I don’t know why I’m saying courtesy of).

I love any opportunity to wear an apron. Rainer’s Christmas outfit: Leggings I got him from Seoul (I will put Rainer in leggings for as long as I can because who doesn’t enjoy thick baby thighs and a juicy booty?), long sleeve T also from Seoul, vintage Patagonia vest from Ebay (have you noticed that he is ALWAYS wearing a vest? Welcome to being Chinese), and socks from Squid Socks.

LOL at our makeshift curtains. We are renovating the kitchen next year so we didn’t want to install curtains/blinds yet, but it gets soooo sunny. So I tied some tablecloths together and we stuck them up there. This is my uncle and two aunties cooking away. I love them so much and wish they could move in with me.

My cousin Esther got me this. I will need to buy a new container for these

Our Christmas hotpot