Our respect for the bird is slipping….

Sugarwings and I LOVE decorating for the holidays, but we try to hold back and wait til after Thanksgiving. Our reminder to each other is, "We must respect the bird!"

Last year, our home was on the holiday tour plus I was hosting a holiday workshop (A Snowbird's Song) and I had a great excuse to ignore our rule and toss tinsel everywhere on November 1st.

And this season, we started our holiday fun a bit early by attending the play, "Elf" at the KU Lied Center.  We decided to throw a mini dinner party before the show, and simply had to have appropriate decor to serve our meal, right????  Heck, it wasn't our fault that the date of the play was before Thanksgiving.

Sugarwings was in charge of the tablescape and made up this Candy Cane Forest, from the story.

Cocoa parties are a big part of our Christmas celebrations, and Buddy the Elf loves cocoa too. Typically, we do not have our first cup until the tree is up and lit.  We made an exception, and served hot chocolate with organic candy canes and marshmallows in both vanilla and peppermint.  She made a banner from one of Buddy's quotes.  

He does have some of the best quotes.

While she crafted a candy cane forest, I hot glued some felt and feathers into elf hats to wear that night.

I was kind of surprised that we were the only group decked out for the theme, but was proud of my girls for rocking the look.

We served finger foods and things we thought elves would like, although we didn't go whole hog with Buddy's list of elves' favorite food groups:

1- Candy

2-Candy Canes

3- Candy Corn

4- Syrup

We decided to compromise on our respecting the bird rules and leave our tablescape set up.  I dodged a bullet on breaking the rule even further by being very busy, and having a couple of trips come up to prevent me from pulling more yule goodies out of the closet.

But I'm twitching with the need to tear into the storage closet and fling lights and ornaments from one end of the house to the other!