The 2015 Chateau de Liz Christmas Tree (By the Numbers)

1. Height: 7'5" (8'5", if you count the star)

2. Hours invested from start to finish: 3.5 (3 if you count numerous wine breaks)

3. Glasses of wine consumed: 2.5 (3 if you count the generous pours)

4. Number of scratches on my arms: countless (next year, I'm wearing long sleeves)

5. Number of broken branches Macgyvered with scotch tape: 1 (I am nothing if not innovative in the face of a Christmas Crisis)

6. Spiders that made ornament boxes their home this year: 1 (I let him crawl OUT of the box of glass ornaments before I smashed him, duh)

7. Notre Dame Annual Collectible ornaments on the tree: 9 (one for every year since I started college)

8. Versions of "White Christmas" that came on my Spotify while decorating: 7 (out of the 10 on my playlist)

9. Falls taken while attempting to get the star on: 1 (I don't recommend standing on windowsills to place the star, for future reference)

10. Number of times I've looked over at it and smiled like a dork since finishing: Countless (Worth it all, this year like every other!)

Lately I'm Loving

Things making me smile/on my mind/causing distraction these days: 

Oh my gosh, it's officially the holidays! I always get so excited the day after Thanksgiving when I can start totally obsessing over Christmas. Usually I've decorated long before Thanksgiving rolls around, but this year due to illness and travel, I actually refrained until a more universally acceptable date. That said, I'm diving in full-speed-ahead now! 

--Around my apartment, the sounds of my ridiculously gigantic and all-encompassing Spotify playlist are pretty much all that anyone is hearing lately. New favorites: Marc Broussard's fantastic holiday album and Jazz at Lincoln Center! 

--I absolutely adore my classic, traditional Christmas tree, but this year I've seen two alternative approaches that would be incredibly appropriate for me. Kaitlin showed me this amazing wine bottle tree on Facebook while I was in Boston, and my mom posted the link to this equally amazing book tree a few days ago! If only I had the room, the wine, and the patience to pull these off. (With my luck, I'd put a book I wanted to read on the bottom and then end up ruining the whole thing!)

--I loved last year's Minneapolis Holiday Market, but have to admit it was crazy-claustrophobic crammed into Peavey Plaza outside Orchestra Hall. This year it's right outside my apartment door in Loring Park, and is host to live music, a full-size skating rink, and lots of local breweries and restaurant stands! Best part of all, it's free admission this year, so I'll be spending plenty of time down there wandering and enjoying. 

--On Saturday night, my family attended possibly the coolest "concert" I've ever seen at Orchestra Hall...the orchestra playing the score to "Home Alone" during the movie itself! It was incredible, and led me to this amazing behind-the-scenes peek at how all the booby traps in the finale were pulled off. When you consider that this year marks the film's 25th anniversary, it seems even more fantastic that the filmmakers were able to make some of the pranks look as realistic as they did. 

--In that vein, I'm currently blogging from my parents' living room watching "Elf" with the family, and this list of 40 things learned from the DVD commentary made me smile. (I like to smile, smiling's my favorite.) I think "Elf" just cemented its status as one of my favorite Christmas movies with these revelations. 

--Although I remain resolutely single, Thrillist's list of best date spots in the Twin Cities piqued my interest. A lot of the locations were familiar-but-forgotten for me, and I'm looking forward to rounding up friends for a skyway bar crawl and spending a quiet afternoon wandering the Conservatory once the snow really starts flying. 

Hooray! Happy official holiday kickoff, campers! 

The Great Christmas Debate

Minnesota is in the thick of an amazing unseasonable warm snap. Yesterday, November 15th, temperatures above 60 degrees were recorded, and my little internal winter-hater is in absolute heaven. Every day without 30-mph winds and slush puddles and my eyelashes freezing together on the half-mile walk into work is completely fine by me. That said…I’m a tiny bit bothered because it’s incredibly hard to get excited about Christmas (OMG) when it feels like September in Minneapolis.

Usually this time of year, I’m freaking out and attempting (and failing) to convince myself it’s too early for the Christmas tree, the Nutcracker Suite, and every pine-scented candle west of the Mississippi. Instead, I find myself going out without a coat and obsessing over my newest favorite indie band (do yourself a favor and go check out Lake Street Dive, they’re wonderful). It’s a bizarre and unprecedented reversal for me.

My mom and I spent the entire weekend together and started our Christmas shopping Friday and Saturday. Seeing stores decorated to the nines, hearing my very favorite versions of “Santa Baby” and “White Christmas” and admiring twinkle lights and garlands seemed so unseasonably inappropriate it legitimately screwed with my head. Didn’t stop me from checking half the people off my shopping list, though!

We spent Sunday outside replacing her fall mums and pumpkins with spruce tips and holly berries. I didn’t even have socks on, and for the bulk of the day we didn’t need jackets or gloves. The trees still have fall leaves on them, and yet we went to town with our own twinkly lights and sparkly pinecones. It’s SO weird.

This is the first year in my post-college life that the tree didn’t go up this weekend (evidence per “On This Day” via Facebook) and the first year I haven’t been on instrumental Christmas music since 11/1. What is happening to me?! Am I slowly Grinchifying in the presence of warm sunshine and record-breaking temps?! Have I just been too busy with everything else in life (Canada, Columbus, the plague, and now more travel tomorrow) to even notice it’s coming on Christmas?

HELP! Holiday crisis in the making over here. I’m actually going to be one of those people who doesn’t decorate until after Thanksgiving this year, and I don’t know how to feel about that. Maybe a peppermint mocha in one of Starbucks’ Scroogey cups (OMG THE HORROR AND SOCIOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OMG OMG) will make me feel better…

festive fêtes

The holiday season launched into full swing around here pretty early this year and I, for one, had a ball. It felt like every day brought a new celebration, happy hour, party, or outing. While I knew my introverted side was going to want to crawl in a hole and not talk to anyone for at least a week come January (and I was right), my December extrovert was in heaven. 

We kicked off the holiday season very early with a wine-room christening at my godparents'! They converted their storage space in their basement into a 600-bottle wine cellar, and we all went over to eat, drink, be merry, and drink more. My aunt Kris was in town from Canada, which meant all my favorite females were officially together and shenanigans were bound to ensue...especially with wine involved! We busted out my cousin Sara's wedding veil, danced in front of the TV to block out our (least) favorite weatherman, and sent Instagrams to the littler cousins.

Andrew and Alyssa were kind enough to invite Stu and me to join them at the Minnesota Orchestra for a spectacular performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.5, among other bassoon features. I'm a dork for anything orchestral, and we had a lovely evening with dinner out at Zelo, the show, and a nightcap at Brits!

The day after Thanksgiving, my parents, Em and I kicked off Christmas with Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" at the Orpheum! We dined at Ike's before and enjoyed the show in all its campy, cheesy, heartwarming glory. 

The four of us wound down the Thanksgiving weekend with the first of many trips I made to the first annual Minneapolis Holiday Market! There was spiced wine, there were brats, there were nutcrackers, and there was much German. I think I dragged every single friend I HAVE there with me...some even twice. It was so cute!

My parents and I also treated ourselves to an evening of Jazz at Lincoln Center and Wynton Marsalis in early December! I'd never seen Wynton live, which is a travesty for anyone as obsessed with jazz as I am. He more than lived up to my dreams...the show was so dynamic and fun, and their soloist, Cecile McLorin Salvant, was unbelievable. 

Our annual holiday department outing is a bit unorthodox...our entire floor goes curling! It's shockingly harder than it looks...especially after the hours of drinking that accompanied our White Elephant liquor exchange. I'm apparently a natural though, aka I stayed on my feet (most) of the time and could get the 50 pound stones down to the other end right on target. Our team triumphed! Check out that placement. 

I hosted my book club! Even though though this month we hit a new low and didn't actually pick a book! But it's okay! Hannah got me this cute plate of cookies and life was good, even without literature. 

As Christmas crept closer, my family had another major milestone to celebrate...little brother Jonathan returned from Europe right in time to turn 21! We started the celebration around noon on his birthday...

...and continued it right into the next day, with a delicious dinner at J.D. Hoyt's. Here's to all three of the Schwegman kids making it through young adulthood without a minor, woo hoo!

Claire, LizzieBear and I did the unspeakable and went to Sneaky Pete's on a Tuesday...the night before the night before Christmas! It was an absolute riot...new lows of ridiculousness. 

After Jonathan's birthday, I had a far more distinguished one to celebrate...my dear friend Rabes, boyfriend of Claire, turned 27. Although his true age is, as he claims, closer to 65, we drank aplenty, partied down and toasted to Aubrey in style. 

And we closed out the festive season with the ultimate...New Year's Eve! This year, friends Kellan and Mollie hosted dozens of us at their lovely townhome. We snacked, played endless rounds of slapcup in the toasty-warm heated garage, and, of course, memorialized the debauchery in endless photos. 

Wheeee! Just reliving it all is exhausting. I'm almost glad it's January and I get to be a little more antisocial. I had so much fun with my fantastic friends and family...it was truly a holiday season to remember!

The merriest Christmas!

We five Schwegs have had a holiday for the record books this year. After a semester in Luxembourg, little bro Jonathan has returned to the family fold, and all five of us are together for the first time since July!

Christmas Eve was celebrated with a Mass pre-party at my apartment complete with elderflower mimosas, followed by a trip to surprise my grandma and godmother at church just north of Saint Paul. We headed home, stuffed our faces with honey baked ham and three different kinds of potatoes, and opened an abundance of beautiful gifts. Look at Emily's hand-illustrated wrapping paper! Could she be more ridiculously artistic? 

Favorite gifts this year? Emily's spectacular surprise watercolor painting of the Minneapolis skyline. Stay tuned...it's going to be making a gorgeous reappearance around here soon. Jonathan surprised all of us with pretty little paintings from Madrid. Finally, my parents gifted Em and me our plane tickets to Paris hidden inside the most beautiful book! I can't wait to study up before our trip this May! 

This year, we didn't host or go celebrate with any family on Christmas Day...just the five of us, and the day was heavenly, totally peaceful and relaxed. The three siblings watched most of "A Christmas Story" during the TNT marathon, and of course Snapchatted and texted friends near and far with holiday greetings. We also went to a matinée of "Into the Woods" (so good!!)...it's becoming a bit of a tradition for us to go to a movie on Christmas Day. 

Later, my mom made a fantastic new cocktail with limoncello, club soda, and elderflower lemonade. My should-be-Michelin-starred parents made homemade bolognese sauce that simmered all day, filling the house with insane olfactory deliciousness. After our Italian feast, we just hung out, watched "Elf," "How The Grinch Stole Christmas," and "The Polar Express," and enjoyed family time. 

In other Christmas news, it's been around 40 degrees here in the Twin Cities for the past few days, and we're having our first true green Christmas that I can remember for a long time. While I certainly won't complain about temperate weather, it's a bit weird! I'm sure I'll appreciate the December reprieve more when it's still snowy in April...

Finally, look at how lovely my soul sister Kate Middleton looked at the Sandringham Christmas services this year! While I can't say I was greeted by 2,000 well-wishers when I arrived at Mass, I did totally channel her during our family present-opening that evening...Christmas bows are totally the new fascinators ;) 

Here's hoping your Christmas was just as merry and bright! Best wishes for a wonderful remainder of 2014!