My christmas decorations are now ALL up! It appears as though our 750 sq feet of living space gets more and more festive with each holiday season.  It started out as a corner with a tree and has now migrated into all of the living room and is begging to encroach our dining space.  It’s only a matter of time before Mike wakes up to a bedside elf on a shelf.

I was looking forward to this Sunday as this was the day when all Christmas list items were to be checked off and I could enjoy all my holiday efforts.  I could sit in our condo and basque in almost 360º of Christmas.  Though part of the day was spent decorating, the majority was spent baking….so much baking! [More on that in the post to follow]

Since we had a faux tree up, I wanted to incorporate touches of real greenery into our space.  With the use of excess pine branches, given to me by Maddy [she had leftovers from her diy Christmas wreath], I pieced together a garland to frame the top shelf of our étagère.  Inspired by a Martha Stewart pomegranate garland, I painted balls of styrofoam red and attached them to the pine branches.  For the price of styrofoam balls + a paint brush + red paint + wire [about $5 – all from the dollar store], I came out with a pretty decent decor piece.

In leiu of a fireplace mantel, I decorated my Ikea shelf counter top.  I used my burlap runner as the ground for my little strip of holiday heaven.  To create more space, I relocated some of my books and picture frames that normally live on this surface and added the following festive pieces to the mix:

1. winter woodland scape mercury glass hurricane vase | Sears
2. green nutcracker | Marshall’s
3. decorative dome cloche | Indigo
4. Christmas tree baubles | Walmart
5. holiday planter | Costco
6. grey taper candles | CB2 [$2.50/each]
7. ‘bronn’ candle holders | CB2 [$5.95/each]

Like myself, Mike was equally + eagerly anticipating this Sunday.  The Dallas Cowboys went head to head against the Philadelphia Eagles for 1st place in the eastern conference.  According to Mike and Kial, this game to them, was to be just as nerve wrecking [if not more] than the Superbowl.  These guys get dramatic when it comes to matters involving Dallas.

In attempts to keep luck on his side,  Mike spent the day in his un-washed Cowboys jersey [unwashed for 6 weeks for luck he claims] and with the help of Kial, whipped up a Dallas inspired dinner – BBQ!  At 9am, Mike started cooking his ancho chilli bbq sauce.   As the sauce cooked, he began smoking the pork side ribs.

The ribs were smoked for 8 hours!

To accompany the protein, Kial kept things southern and made a jalapeño cornbread and his dad’s recipe for bean + pork hash.

The last element of the dish, though not as appetizing in appearance in its somewhat pepto pink colour [from the beets], was a creamy buttermilk coleslaw.  This added a nice tart and crisp flavour + texture to the meal.

All hands were on deck in the kitchen to get the meal plated in time for Carrie Underwood’s intro.  The meal was sopped up by all parties in record breaking time; too good to savour.  The last sounds of finger licking came to an end by kick off.

In true Dallas football style, the boys were on their feet cheering for all the game highs and lows – and there were a lot them.  Panic stricken faces were glued to the tv as the Cowboys’ 21 point lead quickly diminished mid game.  Panic turned to nervous pressure when the Cowboys turned it around and re-took the lead.  Heart rates were not normalized until the clock wound down and the game was over with a Dallas win.

All in all, it was an exhausting fall off the bone exciting Sunday!