My Disney Resort Christmas Tour - Part 3

My Disney Resort Christmas Tour - Part 1
My Disney Resort Christmas Tour - Part 2

Welcome back for the 3rd part to my Disney Resort Christmas Tour at The Grand Floridian.
The Grand Floridian is by far my favorite Disney World resort. I have never stayed there but when we were living and working at Disney, we loved hanging out at the beach, walking around the path and just relaxing at the GF. Mark my words, I will one day get my Grand Floridian Disney vacation. ;o)


Isn't it absolutely glorious?

They had a large tree on the main floor that was several stories high and then smaller themed trees on the upper levels.
The Grand Floridian Christmas decor is centered around this life size gingerbread house. They sell gingerbread and cocoa from it and it is absolutely adorable!
Unfortunately, there were way too many people around to get a shot without anyone in it (therefore having my picture graced with 2 random children ha) and no way of cropping them out of it without chopping off the bottom portion of the house. :)

I love that the last ingredient is Pixie Dust, of course! ;o)
The cast who put the gingerbread house together did such a great job with the detailing.
A view of the top/back from the balcony above.
Here are some of the other decorations from the 2nd floor.
I will be prepublishing the last parts so that they will be coming out over the next couple days, so keep checking back!
Part 4 - Disney's Boardwalk
Part 5 - Disney's Yacht and Beach Club

And the winner is!

Not sure if anyone even remembers that I did a giveaway...
The Winner(found using random.org) is Miranda Tucci!

Miranda, could you comment me with your e-mail address?

Congratulations!

I'll be home for Christmas

Hey there! Welcome to the humble Spence apartment. Thanks for stopping by!
Some of you might have seen my tree portion of the post before for Kelly's Show Us Your Life Christmas Tree Tour. But don't skip the post because then you'll miss out on all of my other Christmas decorations. ;)

Our Christmas tree is decorated in maroon, cream, and gold.
Most noticeably, it is highly Disney themed. If you have been around for any amount of time, you shouldn't be surprised. ;o) I adore Disney. Since our first Christmas as a married couple was spent working at Disney it seems rather fitting. We used our Christmas money from my Grandmommy to invest in Christmas ornaments that we wanted to have for our first Christmas and many years to come. I have no doubt in my mind that our future children will love Disney. It's in their genes, after all! ;)
Anyway, on to my tree.

(please ignore the fact that it is lopsided. This issue has since been rectified - literally)

I am not going to show pictures of all of my ornaments but I am going to share my favorites of our Disney ornaments! Most of them are a part of Disney's Gift of Love Christmas Collection (I tried googling to give a link to the collection but couldn't find anything. I do know that they were park exclusives last year).

Kissing under the mistletoe - Love it!

This ornament was given to me by my friend and sorority sister, Ila. She was working at Disney with the Disney College Program when we got married. She missed the wedding but she got us incredible discounts on our honeymoon and greeted us with this lovely ornament.

It was after our honeymoon that we decided to go back to Disney and participate in the College Program. 2 months later, we moved to Orlando to live, work and play at Disney World for 7 months. =)

Just married. *sigh* =)

More kissing under the mistletoe. By the way, I am on the search for mistletoe to make a "kissing ball". We will see if I succeed or not. So far, it's not working out. Haha

Magic Kingdom *another happy sigh*

Trevor picked this up for our little mini tree last year. He worked at Hollywood Studios the whole time we were there. I worked at Magic Kingdom but then transferred to HS for many reasons. Anyway, he wanted this ornament since we both worked at HS our first Christmas season together.

I have yet to put a picture in this ornament frame. Sad, I know. But I am waiting for the perfect picture. And since T doesn't like taking pictures - that perfect picture might never happen. ;o)

I really liked the way this picture turned out. I think it very well might be my favorite of them all. Just because of the Disney "Love" hanger and the honeymoon ornament.

Here are some of our other, Non-Disney ornaments. =)

On to our mantle. I used a simple, unlit garland and embellished it with white mini lights, extra garland, and other little extras. =)

I found these candle holders a few weeks ago for only a few dollars at a local antique store. I thought their cream and gold color would go perfectly on our mantle.

I used the leftover maroon and cream "berries" from the mantle to add a little extra to my wreath. The glass, framed "S" hangs over our mantle regularly and it fit perfectly inside of the wreath. Not sure if I will ever to do again, but it worked for this year. ;o)

Here are a few pictures of the mantle with the living room lights on. I love sitting in the living room with only the Christmas lights on. It's so cozy and peaceful!

I didn't hang our stockings on the mantle. They just didn't seem to look right with the garland. Instead they are hanging on a wall adjacent to the mantle underneath one of our shelves.
Our stockings were made by my mother and one of my sisters. My family has always had hand-made quilted stockings like these. My parent's still have mine and Trevor's original stockings but last year they mailed us our "own" set of stocking.

And how completely fitting for us that they have Disney print on the back. ;o)

I have 2 of these little trees on either side of the fireplace. I won them as door prizes at our church's choir retreat in August. The decorations were Christmas themed since we were kicking off learning our Christmas music. I won two of the table centerpiece trees.

This little mini tree is on our entry table. It is decorated in gingerbread and candy ornaments. The table also includes some of my Christmas gingerbread collection.

Thank you so much for stopping by! I can't wait to look at your home decked out in all of its Christmas splendor, as well as all of the other homes being shared. I love getting a sneak peak into other home and seeing how they add personal touches to their decor.

This post is linked to:

The Christmas Tour of Homes


Hooked on Houses


The Inspired Room


Southern Hospitality Blog

Funky Junk Interiors

A moment to breathe

I need a moment to breathe. Literally. Here it is the first night of our Christmas program at church and I am at home with a sinus infection that is thoroughly kicking me in the behind. I'm so sad to be missing out. I'm hoping that by resting and staying medicated, I can participate tomorrow and Sunday though.
To be quite honest, things would be a lot better if I could consistently sleep well at night. When T works over night, I have the hardest time sleeping and when I do, I don't wake up rested. Unfortunately, I know this is only the beginning. I am trying to adjust to it now while it is only in small amounts. Once T leaves for Basic and AIT, it won't just be a night here or there of sleeping alone. It will be months of sleeping alone. I welcome any and all advice from you other wives who have had to deal with sleeping alone.
Thankfully, I am officially on my Christmas break from school. =) I was exempt from 2 exams, so I only had 4 final projects to turn in. I finished one last Friday, 2 Monday and the last 1 yesterday. Such a huge relief! I am hoping to get things under control here at home once I am feeling better. I feel like I am failing miserably at balancing everything. Between school, work, the Christmas program, and being a wife, I have used all of the hours in my day and then some.

I do continue reading and try to comment. I actually feel a lot more motivation to read and comment than I do to actually post myself. =)
I promise I will get down to business and announce the winner of my giveaway. And I will continue my Disney Resort Christmas tours.
I hope everyone has a great weekend.

P.S. Wanted to add this: We will not be sending out Christmas cards this year because the printer apparently lost the order. They offered to send them anyway, but seeing as how they would be getting here too late to send them out, I took a refund. I'm slightly bummed. I love sending out Christmas cards as much as I love receiving them. *sigh* Out of my hands.

Oh my goodness

Ha, the title of this makes me think of the movie Annie. ;o)

I am about 7 hits shy of having 1,000 hits since Thursday night! After I posted my Christmas tree pictures, I decided to check out my counter just for kicks. 1000 hits? That's insane. :) In a thoroughly great way, of course.

By the way, the giveaway is closed. I will announce the winner in the next few days.

I only work one day next week and it is the night that I usually have off. I have finished 2 of my classes for the semester and I will finish the other 3 this week. One is an exam that I can take either Monday or Wednesday. The other two are projects, one to be turned in no later than Wednesday and the other no later than Thursday. Also, I have practice Monday and Tuesday for Best Gift, our Christmas program at church. Thursday is our dress rehearsal. Then we have a performance Friday and 2 Saturday and Sunday.

It will be a busy week. But a good one, I have no doubt. =)
Hope everyone has had a good weekend so far!

Ornament Exchange (and my slight obsession with the Amish)

Mrs B was my partner for Justine's ornament exchange. This was my first ever exchange/swap and I loved it! Nicole is from Pennsylvania. Actually she is from one of my all-time favorite places ever, Lancaster, PA. You see, I have a lil-bitty, miniature, barely there obsession with Amish people. Ok. I lie. I love them. I love reading Amish fiction and researching their culture and Pennsylvania Dutch. Nerdy? Yes. Do I care? No. ;)
I have been fascinated with the Amish since my family went and stayed in Lancaster for an extended vacation. I know that I can't be the only person out there that loves them... and I know there are many more Amish fiction readers out there (even if they won't admit it). :o)

So without further ado, here is my absolutely precious and treasured ornament from the exchange!


This ornament is even more special because she hand painted this for me! And from what I hear, she almost didn't send it to me. ;) But I am so glad she did! I will treasure it always! Thank you so much, Nicole. I can't tell you how giddy it made me!

Couponing to Disney's giveaway!

There are only a few days left to enter my giveaway. I have had some response(thank you to those that have entered!) but not nearly as many as I was hoping. So go enter. On the bright side, for you, with few entries you have a bigger chance of winning. ;0)

Do you remember when I did my favorite blogs post? One of my definite favorites is Couponing to Disney!

Kristin posted about a great giveaway that she is doing over at Couponing to Disney! She and Shop at Home are giving away a $100 gift card to the Shop at Home store of your choice. How great is that? Go HERE to check out all the details. =)

I will do at least one more post today. I will be posting a picture of my ornament from Mrs B from Almost There's ornament exchange. And if I have time, I will post Part 3 of My Disney Resort Christmas Tour - The Grand Floridian(my absolute favorite).