it's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Last night we went to our first Christmas event of the year.  It was an hor d'oeuvres party with a few close friends.  It was a great way to kick off the holidays season.  I tried a new recipe this year that I've seen a few times posted on Pinterest, Toasted Ravioli with marinara sauce (I added a garlic cheddar biscuit).  Here is the link if you want to try it from Just A Taste blog, Deep Fried Ravioli on a Stick.  It was ok but not sure if it's a re-do.  I guess it's always a risk with new recipes.  Definitely better fried than baked.  We got Most Creative.  I'll take that.  

Today we started decorating the house.  This is the earliest we have ever decorated for Christmas.  I usually wait till December 1st but it seems like the holidays are starting earlier and earlier every year.  Is it due to busyness?  Or commercialism?  Either way we needed to do it early because Trevor starts five days of a firefighting course every weekend till mid December.  Not ideal timing but must be done.  It makes me sad that's it's taking away our family time on the weekends because I love doing Christmas stuff with the kids.  But we will make the most of the time we have all together.  

I LOVE decorating for each season.  It makes me happy to have the house decorated special for the kids and to really get into the festivities.  We put Christmas music on and we transformed the house.  The kids loved putting the ornaments on the tree.  For the past two years we decorate an artificial tree and closer to Christmas we visit a tree farm and get a little real one for the kids.  
I'm calling my decorating style this year "vintage glam".  I always use red as my primary colour at Christmas and then add different accent colours each year.  This is definitely the year of all things GOLD.  I try to add a few items each year to my rather large (eight totes plus 3 boxes) of Christmas decor.  

My favourite detail this year was adding candles to our fireplace.  Why didn't I think of that before?  So pretty!

Gold spray paint is my best friend this year!