Tonight is the second night that T & I have eaten out at Farnachi, a mere four-month old restaurant in Uptown. It’s at the corner of I-75 and Knox and is definitely worth your time if you are ever hungry in the area. It is Italian cuisine with a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern flair (ie. the music and bench-style seating) and is somewhat smartly located adjacent to a Cigar Smoking Shop and a Mediterranean Grill. We’ve loved the signature “Farnachi” pizza with the addition of pepperoni. The thin crust crackles under a generous layer of yummy toppings. It’s one of the best pizza’s I’ve tried. Tonight we also perused into the appetizer list and chose the Feta Phyllo – a nicely presented and tasty dish. The prices are very reasonable ($14 for a medium pizza to feed two) and the atmosphere is perfect for a quick bite before the symphony, date night or for a small gathering of friends.

It seems like everyone is busier during the holiday season. you have normal life events and activities plus a whole bunch more. Btween planning parties, addressing greeting cards, baking Christmas treats and buying presents, make sure you find a little time in your week to pause and remember the true meaning for the season.

Christmas is a time for lights. The children’s sermon this morning was about just that. Jesus is the light of the world, and it is this time of year that we celebrate his birthday, shining light in places of dark. Just as He can enters our lives and makes us new.

Today we started/completed a few holiday activities. We bought some fresh cranberries last week to use around the house. We implemented one of the decorations for our wedding: filling glass vases with fresh fruit, and used the rest for stinging as garland. When we bought the Christmas tree, we also grabbed a fantastic bunch of live green garland. We used it on the brick ledge of the window with a string of white lights, on the buffet and on top of our EXPEDIT 4X4 shelf from IKEA, shown below.

Next, T worked on our homemade stockings. She is using a diamond-quilted, padded red for the sock and a traditional fuzzy white fabric for the top. They aren’t yet finished, but should look great and will soon have a nice new home below our window.

And last but not least, we made gingerbread cookes. Surprisingly, we had quite a hard time finding a gingerbread man cookie cutter. You would think that they’d be on the shelves of every store but alas, we ended up only finding one that was about four inches tall. Fortunately dough expands as it turns out and they look great. It’s amazing how such simple ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, brown sugar, etc) can make the house smell so much like Christmas.

After they came out of the oven, we tried our hand at icing the little guys. It was pretty dang hard. The icing distributed inconsistently and if you waited too long between uses, you got one gigantic blob. I will save you the horror shots of our first trials and just show the finals: a simple 3-button design for the men. At least they were tasty!

It is finally December. I am pretty big on Christmastime, as anyone who knows me could argue, so as soon as Thanksgiving is over I immediately switch gears from fall and food to snow, lights and evergreens. It’s a good thing my wife feels the same way. This post is all about our Christmas tree. Yes, the tree by itself is not the true reason for the season, but it does well to fill your home with the holiday spirit. On Saturday T and I drove up near Van Alstyne, Texas (about an hour north of downtown) to Wintergreen Farm. It has been quite a while since either of us remember having a live Christmas tree, and this being our very first Christmas season as a married couple, we decided to go all-out.

The tree farm was really fun. It was a nice scenic drive into the hills and through the quaint town of Van Alstyne – not to mention the weather was perfect! I was really unsure of what to expect. Upon arriving, we were greeted by rows and rows of trees, and although they were nice, they were more pine-tree-esque. We were really looking for more of a fir tree. But when we drove to the back of the property, we parked and found many other varieties waiting to be chosen.

It took our perfectionist minds a little while to decide which tree would best suit our loft. There were all sorts of fir species, and of all different shapes and hue but eventually we decided on a beautiful, nine-foot noble fir. He was pretty much perfectly shaped and was full of branches throughout.

It seemed as though Van Alstyne’s high school football team was the hired help when it came to prepping the trees for travel. We had them trim the trunk an inch so as to have a fresh cut, ready for soaking up water. Then they carted it off to this strange machine – a “tree shaker” that shook the tree in all directions to remove any extra needles or loose limbs. Afterward they squeezed it through a ring with a net and loaded it on the truck (borrowed from our friend – thanks, Andy).

So as you can guess, we were both ecstatic – we found the perfect tree. Once we brought it inside however, we discovered that the stand we purchased was too small for the trunk. It was a whopping six inches in diameter. So we went over to the farmer’s market and bought one of their stands. Anyone in need of a tree stand?

Now for the lighting. I am the self-proclaimed, most fantastic Christmas tree-lighter in the land and I go on tour next week. I pride myself on stringing hundreds of lights on an unsuspecting tree in a very attractive manner each year, and this was going to be no different. Or so I thought. It was actually a good challenge for me working with a live-Christmas tree. Artificial trees are much more flexible – being able to bend and turn branches to your liking, making sure the strands of lights are secure and evenly distributed. Our noble fir was a little stubborn in the way he behaved but I think I managed to do a swell job anyway. It always brings back the memories of Christmas years before, decorating the tree. It is one of my favorite traditions.

As for the ornaments, because neither T or I came with any in our new marriage, we had the unique opportunity to try out a whole new look this first year. We decided to simply use glass ball ornaments, in shades of silver, going minimalist. There were four different colors in two sizes and we were very happy with the result.

One nine-foot tree, twelve-hundred lights and 95 94 ornaments later (one sad shiny one met its doom with our unforgiving concrete floor) later, we have a sparkling super Christmas tree. I think our noble fir is happy in it’s new home and wardrobe.

We also thought it would be fun to shoot a stop-animation clip of the decorating process.

Click here too see the animation.

Thanks for reading and seeing the first in what will hopefully be a few posts on what we call An Urban Christmas. T & I hope this Christmas season will fill you with joy, happiness and hope for the best that is to come. Have a great week.