I like my levels method for holiday decorating–slowly filling vignettes of our home with festive delight little by little until it’s done–but Mama Hedgehog? She just goes for it. She’s like BAM! Level 10 in one day because Sister does not mess around with levels when she has 52 hedgehog mouths to feed.

I’ll admit I may have started this dollhouse hobby this year simply so I could decorate it for Christmas. Oh wait. I forgot. This dollhouse is for Nella. Yes, let’s go with that. All of this was a giant sacrifice of time and labor just for her.

When it came time to start thinking about how the dollhouse would transform into a festive explosion of glorious hedgehog holiday spirit, I was on it–googling 1:12 scale wreaths and mantel garland. The thing is, this dollhouse hobby has kind of become a thing this year for many creative people (hence why I’m following way too many miniature accounts), and there’s a major market for dollhouse furniture and decor now–and it ain’t cheap, especially considering these are tiny objects no one is actually going to use. So I had to get creative. Find the inexpensive stuff. Improvise. Which I did, and it turned out just as festive as I had hoped.

I can’t help but laugh at the process of my tragic fall into the dollhouse abyss this year though. From the outside, it’s quite comical, evident by my attempt to photograph the dollhouse a couple weeks ago once it was decorated.

“Can you help me carry this dollhouse outside?” I asked Brett. “I’m doing a photo shoot of the rooms, and I need some natural light.”

He doesn’t even flinch anymore. I think he was desensitized after the three weeks I sat at the dining room table sawing tiny crown molding to size with a serrated kitchen knife and asking him to come look to see if the kitchen wallpaper was “too busy” for the imaginary people who lived in it.

So Brett and I hauled the dollhouse outside, super careful to keep our ends level so that the objects inside didn’t start falling. The tiny red alarm clock the size of a tic tac fell off the dresser, and Brett noted, “Oops, alarm clock fell!” as if what was happening was completely normal.

Once the dollhouse was set up in the driveway with good light, I hunched over it, rearranging furniture and making things perfect while neighbors walked their dogs beside me so it looked like a grownass woman was ignoring her children inside while she played with a dollhouse in the driveway. Because a grownass woman was ignoring her children inside while she played with a dollhouse in the driveway. I started shooting the rooms which requires some very interesting body positions to get the right shot. I was curled into a pretzel with my head half inside the dollhouse living room. I was lying on my stomach with my camera shoved into the kitchen. Our neighbor across the street actually walked up our driveway during this, looked down at what was happening and said, “Whatcha doin?” When I nonchalantly answered back, “Doing a photo shoot of my dollhouse” as if it was an ordinary household task, HE DIDN’T EVEN FLINCH.

“Cool, where’s Brett?” he asked. Have they all been desensitized? Is it just now an accepted fact in our neighborhood that I am the weirdo? Maybe it was last time he walked up my driveway and asked what I was doing and I answered, “Oh nothing, just trying to blend the right shade of yellow for Big Bird in this chalk drawing of the Sesame Street characters I’ve been working on for the past 40 minutes while my kids tear my house apart inside.”

That said, this little project has been so much fun, and decorating the house for Christmas was the icing on the cake.

Please note: My favorite Christmas movie, The Family Stone, is playing on the Hedgehog T.V.

Please also note appropriate holiday literature:

…and the fact that I cut the head off a deer ornament to make this:

Cookies fresh out of the oven.

…and teeny tiny glass ornaments.

That’s about the extent of dollhouse-specific items I bought. The rest was crafted from “evergreen” pipe cleaners…

A bag of miniature wreaths and bottle brush trees…

…some glitter-dusted windows made from Shrinky Dink sheets:

…and lots of images shrunk and printed.

And the bathroom is the perfect glowy retreat for Mrs. Hedgehog in the evening after a day of wrapping and baking.

 

While editing pictures, I was like “Dammit, I should have propped that toss pillow up before I took the photo. Shoot, there’s fuzz on the floor I didn’t catch.” I got caught in the Instagram perfection trap over A MINIATURE HOUSE THAT NO ONE LIVES IN.

But most important…LOOK! The 2019 Holiday Bucket List ready to go in the Hedgehog home! Three checks already!

Get your 2019 holiday bucket list and so much more holiday goodness (52 pages of holiday activities and crafts, recipes and printables, traditions and more in the Once Upon a Holiday PDF! All the details here!

And now it’s time for me to catch up to Mrs. Hedgehog.

If you’re interested in falling down the dollhouse rabbit hole in 2020 and want to pass it off as “for the kids” this holiday, this is the dollhouse we purchased (and it’s priced on Amazon for $30 less than what I paid!)

Of all the ways technology pushes us forward, there’s one advancement that always sets me back–the “On this day” feature in Facebook and photo apps, the one that resurfaces precious memories from the archives when I’m least expecting it, reminding me of how much I miss Dash’s pudgy hands folded in prayer at the preschool Thanksgiving dinner…

…how much I loved the days of watching the girls plie at the barre behind the classroom windows of the ballet studio…

…and how simple life was was when buckling babies into strollers to set off on excursion brought so much joy, all of life’s struggles and the world’s problems seemed to disappear.

At the same time, I love looking back at such joy. I will always treasure those young motherhood years, and it’s nice to be reminded of how far we’ve come and how much fun we had (ahem…are having). Watching our kids grow and change is a universal rite of passage for all parents, and it doesn’t come without its challenges. But after several years of unproductive longing for the past and hoarding the present, I think I’ve reached a healthy balance between painful nostalgia and “Don’t pull a Lot’s wife and look back” onward motivation. This balance hasn’t come without inward work though. I am, by nature, extremely sentimental–a characteristic that requires awareness and effort to make sure it serves as a superpower as opposed to a stumbling block. Gratitude is the greatest kryptonite to unhealthy longing for the past, but there are a few things I also implement that have helped me. A few weeks ago, a friend who cherishes so many of the same things I do about motherhood texted this: “What do you do when you get sad/overwhelmed that they are growing up too fast?” This is my response.

1. Clean and purge.
Cleaning and purging my kids’ rooms is so therapeutic. I used to avoid getting rid of old clothes and toys or changing anything about the rooms that held all the memories, but hoarding and intentionally keeping everything the same takes up emotional space and only serves as a reminder that everything is different. I love the emotional space that’s created when I clean things up, rearrange furniture and get rid of things that no longer serve a purpose. That’s space for NEW memories!

2. Write a letter.
Writing is the most powerful tool for getting unstuck. Feeling sad and longing for yesteryear? Write a letter to your old self–when you had babies. Write to that girl and tell her all that she has to look forward to. Or write a letter to your future self–when all the kids are grown. Tell her what you hope she’s doing. Remind her of what she loved. (Current letter would include how much I love watching my kids interact with their grandparents, listening to Dash practice reading, telling Lainey about my favorite mascara, picking up Nella from a playdate…)

3. Print new photos.
Choose 20 photos from this past year and send them to Walgreens. Make ornaments with them or switch out frames. Printing current photos helps me stay present and thankful for all that is now. We have a mix of old and new photos displayed in our home to help keep us in the middle–grateful for the past, excited for the future.

4. Plan something for the coming months.
A new tradition, a trip, a day outing, a day of hookie in exchange for baking and crafts. Pouring my energy into upcoming excitement keeps me from dwelling in the past.

5. Let yourself be sad, but put the kabash on it after an appropriate amount of time.
Moving forward without looking back can be revered as a sign of strength; but if you’re avoiding real emotions, they might build under the surface. Sometimes you just have to get the sads out. I cry almost every Christmas day at the end of the day, purging the emotions and sentimentality that stockpiles in December. The cry feels good, and I’m ready to move on to the new year. Pull a piece of paper out write a list of 5 things you desperately miss about the old days. Cry if it feels good. Save the letter in a keepsake box for your kids to read someday. (I miss having them in my arms all day.)

6. Text someone who gets it.
But choose someone who won’t wallow too much with you. I text my sister because she’s sentimental about motherhood too, but yet she’s so good about pushing me to be present because getting too sad and longing is paralyzing.

7. Find good examples of inspiring role models ahead of the journey.
Keep your eye on them. Become them. Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep make me excited to grow older. Likewise, I have wonderful examples of moms of adults who are strong, happy, life-loving individuals with so many wonderful things to say about motherhood later on. They’re not longing for the past…they are living beautifully in the present.

8. Raising kids who fly away from the nest is a privilege.
It’s the same tool we use to combat the sadness of aging: The opposite of aging is not staying young. The opposite of aging is dying–not having the privilege to experience growth and wrinkles and the hardship that getting older naturally brings. Watching our kids change from sweet preschoolers who excitedly wake up on Christmas morning, searching for reindeer footprints to teenagers who slump around the living room, pretending to be unimpressed is the greatest privilege in parenting. They’re living their one, wild and precious life; and it has moved beyond the days when we woke up six times a night to make sure they were still breathing. They made it, they’re making it…and we get to watch it happen. This is not what we avoid…it’s what we hope for. The new moms we see holding babies and writing those first chapters of early motherhood? They need us to keep the lighthouse lit.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again…there is more. As we tiptoe (or cartwheel full force) into the holidays, that sentiment comforts and fuels me. xo

This post is sponsored by Amazon.

It is no secret our holiday freak flag flaps high and wild above our home for all of the big calendar holidays as well as the lesser known ones because who doesn’t love a good National Pizza Day celebration? When it comes to celebrating special occasions, we are zesty; evident from a recent purchase of my favorite twinkle lights in which Amazon notified me, “You have purchased this item 9 times.” Our level 10 embrace of festivities ranges from twinkle lights and music to special recipes and cherished traditions and in no way involves pressure. We carve jack-o-lanterns and host Halloween movie night because we want to…because it’s fun.

Here’s where it gets fun–I married someone who loves holidays as much as I do. Brett, of course also loves techy things, gadgets and his beloved Amazon; and after my recent trip to New York to learn about all the amazing new ways Amazon Devices & Services are adding convenience and fun to family living, we gave our home a little device upgrade which in turn upgraded our holidays.

We’ve had an Amazon Echo in our home for several years, and we use it all the time–to play music, to answer questions, and (unbeknownst to me) to help with homework.  We just added an Echo Show to our kitchen, and it’s our new best friend. It does everything an Echo does and more, thanks to a vibrant 10″ HD screen (and the speakers are amazing–Brett was very impressed!).

While we were carving pumpkins, we asked Alexa for pumpkin recipes, and she pulled up the best recipes for pumpkin bread, pumpkin mousse, pumpkin scones–all the pumpkin things.

All our Amazon devices are synched, so we can pull up Amazon Prime Videos on our Echo Show as well…which allowed us to have It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown playing in the background while we removed stringy pumpkin guts and cut triangle eyes. All it took was a simple voice command: “Amazon, play It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” (we had already purchased it with Prime Video).

She named him Little Bob.

One of my favorite places to bring the holiday spirit is always my kids’ rooms though. I want them to grow up with memories of happy bedrooms and bedtime dance parties and festive little touches. Music is such a big part of our home, and we want it to extend beyond the speakers in the main rooms of our home, so the kids have the safe Echo Dot Kids Edition complete with parental controls and one year of kid-friendly content (including over 1,000 Audible books!).

What I didn’t discover until I went to New York was how you can program fun routines and blueprints for your family devices all from the Alexa app. We’ve been having so much fun with it for Halloween!

In the app, I created a Routine which allows you to select a command phrase (I did “Alexa, make it spooky”) and then set up as many actions as you like as a response to the phrase.

When the kids tell Alexa to make it spooky, “Monster Mash” automatically starts playing, and the lights in Nella’s room (equipped with Philips Hue Smart bulbs) turn a spooky red.

The kids squeal with delight and think everything is controlled by magic. “HOW DID SHE DO THAT?” Welcome to 2019, kids.

Halloween dance party follows, sometimes featuring special guests.

No one is more delighted by all this Alexa magic than Dash.

He changes the light colors all day, firing commands and then looking to the light and exclaiming awe when he sees it respond correctly.

This all has me so excited for Christmas! I love anything that brings fun to our festivities and makes our life a little easier.