Erin Akin Carroll

My friend, Karah, is a Stella & Dot stylist and she is doing the most wonderful giveaway on Blue-Eyed Bride, just in time for gift-giving, party-going, and Christmas Eve services!

The winner of the giveaway will receive these gorgeous Stella & Dot earrings! I think they’re perfect for a sweater and jeans or your little black dress.

To enter, just visit Karah’s site and leave me a comment letting me know your favorite accessory. http://www.stelladot.com/sites/karah

While you’re at her site, keep in mind that you can shop and receive 20% off one item with the code SHARE10. The last day for standard shipping is December 17 if you want to receive your order in time for Christmas.

Good luck! The winner will be announced at the end of the week!

1. Everything I can think of that I “want” for Christmas is actually for our children. I want a canvas print of Hudson for his big boy room and a big boy bed for him. Those are just the things we need right now. Life is so different than it used to be! I’m sure if  I wasn’t pregnant I could come up with a long list of clothes and shoes that I’d want.

2. TC and I are pretty excited about the Gamecocks and the Chick-fil-A Bowl. I’m mostly excited about a couple of days away from Columbia, but he’s obviously excited about the football part.

3. If it wouldn’t be completely offensive and gross, I could write an entire post around the yucky things about pregnancy. The spontaneous gagging, the heartburn, the, um, gas. But I’m going to spare y’all.

4. You will never hear me say, “Happy Holidays.” I celebrate Christmas so I say “Merry Christmas.” I can’t apologize for offending someone because I am a Christian and Christmas is about Jesus. (The only exception is when I know a friend celebrates Hanukkah and I specifically say Happy Hanukkah.)

5. Thanks for all the encouragement yesterday with my post. I know we all get busy this time of year and I’m fortunate that I happen to love every single thing I’m trying to get done. It’s about celebrating Jesus, celebrating tradition, and family togetherness.

6. Hudson is saying “ho ho ho” on a regular basis now. He is also identifying body parts that shouldn’t be identified in public. We’re going to have to work on our “private words” and “public words.”

7. We still don’t have a name for baby #2. I’d like to check him out one more time at our 20 week appointment. I’d also like to confirm that his boy parts weren’t actually the umbilical cord, which I’ve heard of happening twice in the last two weeks!

8. Some of you have asked, but the Chinese gender calculator thing I posted was correct for this baby, too. Not saying it’s science, okay? I’m just saying it’s a coincidence that it worked for both of my kids.

9. My sweet husband won’t tell me what he wants for Christmas. Every other year I’ve done a great job of coming up with something he never knew he always wanted. This year… zilch. Got any suggestions? We no longer have a “Gamecock room” in our house, so sports memorabilia ideas should be kept to a minimum.

10. Did y’all know that the adorable Kristen Chenoweth plays Ms. Noodle on Elmo’s World?

11. The new Southern Living has these delicious looking, alcohol free, frozen peppermint frappes. Perfect for the prego in your life. I need to make them with the red velvet brownies asap.

12. We have an artificial tree, but I love the smell of Christmas trees. So this year I picked up the Thymes “Frasier Fir” reed diffuser and my house smells glorious.

13. Does anyone do anything super fun and original for Christmas Eve? I’d love to hear your ideas!

The last thing my mom said to me when we left Dallas after a relaxing Thanksgiving visit was, “Take it easy this month. Don’t do anything you don’t feel like doing and enjoy being at home with movies, your Christmas tree, and your family.”

And I laughed.

Because I knew that the day I got back I was going to be immediately sent into a tailspin of setting up for Holiday Market and then working Holiday Market with hours that rivaled my former crazy event planning job. But it’s okay. I volunteered for that job and I loved it. But just like that, the first week of December was gone.

I came home every night from Holiday Market around 11:00 p.m. and looked at my tree that was standing and lit, but was missing the hundreds of ornaments that make it our tree.

Then starting on Monday night, my next Christmas duty kicked into high gear. Our choir’s Christmas music performances are this weekend. We’ll be doing 5 performances, but we’ve had rehearsals every night this week. Fortunately, I’ve had my days to spend with Hudson and catch up on the time I missed with him last week. The nightly rehearsals are fun and I thoroughly enjoy everything about it, but I do miss the freedom to be at my cozy house with my husband, son, and dogs, watching Christmas classics.

I am still looking at an undecorated Christmas tree. And now I’m also looking at 200 Christmas cards that need to be addressed and stuffed.

How does this happen? It’s my absolute favorite time of the year and it flies by because I (or we all) are pulled in a million different directions. Fortunately, my parents, brother, and I came up with a plan to make gifts for each other manageable and very inexpensive. So I’m not at all stressed about the gift-giving part of Christmas. I just need some time. I need a few more hours in the day.

I made some time today to blog because I haven’t blogged in about a week and I always regret going so long between posts. One good thing about all this busyness is that my sickness has pretty much subsided (except for the time in the day when I take my vitamin– no matter what time I take it or how full my stomach is). When I’m busy I’m just not sick.

My mom suggested I find a high school girl and have her come help me decorate my tree. But I would need to be here to do it and right now I’m just not home that often. After this week, things should slow down. We don’t have big work Christmas parties to attend so this should be it for us as far as Christmas obligations go.

Does anyone else feel this way this year? All I want is to finish my tree and get my Christmas cards in the mail. And I’m not willing to stay up all night doing it.

On Amy Grant’s “The Christmas Collection,” which is a compilation of all of her Christmas albums, she has a song called “I Need A Silent Night” and I hear it about once a day. I just think the words are so fitting for how stretched we all get this time of year.

I’ve made the same mistake before
Too many malls too many stores
December traffic Christmas rush
Breaks me till I push and shove

Children are crying while mothers are trying
To photograph Santa and sleigh
The shopping and buying and standing forever in line
What can I say?

I need a silent night a Holy night to hear an angel voice
Through the chaos and the noise I need a midnight clear
A little peace right here to end this crazy day with a silent night

December comes then disappears
Faster and faster every year
Did my own mother keep this pace
Or was the world a different place?

Where people stayed home wishing for snow
Watching three channels on their tv
Look at us now rushing around trying to buy Christmas peace

What was it like back there in Bethlehem
With peace on earth good will toward men