It's December 8, and I am sitting in my Christmasy-decorated house.  By that I mean, I have my hot cocoa, a Fraser fir candle burning, my nativity from Feed My Starving Childrenon the shelf, and my Grump Tree from Trader Joes in our bay window.

 

If you don't have a Grump Tree and you need one last thing or the first thing to make your house feel festive, I suggest this one thing.  My girls and I keep commenting on how cute it is.  Because it is gosh-darn cute.  And man-approved cute, so my husband is okay with it, too.  Best $10 spent at Trader Joe's and you can get a lot of great stuff for $10 at Trader Joes.

 

While most of the holiday festivals are concluded, we curated a list of hometown Christmas communities where you don't need a festival.  The whole community is in on the Christmas spirit.  

 

We have also put together  information on the upcoming Ice Castles returning to the Twin Cities.

 

Need a quick gift idea?  You can either use our Gift Guide or pick up some gift cards, some empty jars, and some fillers (like tissue paper or that crinkly paper stuff) and put the gift card in a jar with the filler and voila!  I got this idea from The Minimal Mom, but I pared it down even more than they did!

 

Here's a festive 5- minute laugh.  I don't know these guys at all, but my kids and I were rolling on the floor laughing at them.