Christmas in July!
Celebrating Christmas in July has never been a tradition in my family nor do I really know anyone who actually celebrates this strange halfway holiday. In fact, it seems like even mentioning Christmas, or even Halloween, inching closer by the day sparks an uproar of angry holiday haters and the classic "ItS oNlY jUlY!!!" reply. After days of stewing on the idea of celebrating the second best holiday ever (Halloween is my main squeeze) during the hot season, I feel like it demands a bit more work than I'd really like to put into it. But, I think I can make this work with as little effort as possible and, damn it, I'm determined to! So, without further ado, Welcome to my lazy attempt at a Christmas in July Celebration! I'm going to dive sunburned face first into a somewhat festive, and easy going July 25th I can muster up (or at least wing the hell out of it and call it a day)!
Beat the Heat with Cold and Sweet.
It's in the lower 90s temp wise at the moment so we should start the festivities off with something cold to take the sting out of the summer heat. What better way to cool down than with a frozen hot chocolate? We're going to keep this one extremely simple. There are about half a million ways to make a frozen hot chocolate (seriously, I checked) but this one seemed the easiest and took the least amount of ingredients. We need 2 cups of milk, 4 hot chocolate packets of your choice (I'm using Swiss Miss) and 2 cups of ice. Whipped cream is optional (is it really, though?). And also, you'll need a decent blender. Throw all the ingredients into the blender, blend until smooth, add more milk or ice as needed. Pour into some holiday mugs, throw some cream on top and enjoy. There is nothing quite like hot chocolate during the holidays (even if it's frozen and on a pretend holiday).
Little Debbies Christmas in July Christmas Tree Cakes!
I'm sort of a sucker for anything that has a Santa Claus in this style of artwork (mainly the Coca Cola Santa Claus) so these were a must have for the packaging alone (I'm still trying to haggle with Walmart to let me take the standee these beautiful bastards sat on). There isn't anything different about these from the other Christmas Tree Cakes that come out in December, and if you haven't had one before, they taste like Little Debbie Zebra Cakes only these are better because they have those classic green colored sugary glass shards on top. The front cover features a beach setting with a blue sky, a sandy bay with a few small waves, palm trees and, of course, Santa Claus dressed in his finest Hawaiian button up shirt and sunglasses scarfing down some milk and a Christmas Tree Cake (A+++). On the back is a post card "written" by Santa Claus himself which I have pictured. I could gush about this literally all day if I knew someone wouldn't punch me in the face for talking about Christmas themed junk food in the middle of July.
Hallelujah.... Holy S***!
When the holiday season is upon us, it always feels right to at least have some sort of Christmas ambiance playing in the background whether you're baking cookies, wrapping gifts or figuring out who you're not going to spend as much money on gifts for this year. Usually, since it never fails, A Christmas Story is the solid choice as it is played all day back to back. Even when it's not Christmas day, that DVD seems to find it's way into the Xbox. However, since it is Christmas in July and all, we're going to go with National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation! I have this awesome collectors edition that came with a tin, some coasters, a pin and a Santa Claus hat! I figure that this movie fits better than most Christmas movies for one reason (whether it's a solid one or not), a portion of this movie, Clark Griswald daydreams about his pool he will be putting in with his Christmas bonus from work. Everyone knows the specific scene where Griswald is looking out his window daydreaming about his pool and the girl in the red bikini while "Mele Kalikimaka" is playing. Absolute classic! (it fits here, it really does.)
Trim Up the Tree with Christmas Stuff!
All of my Christmas decor is pushed to the way back of the deep closet while the Halloween stuff sits in front of it (I like to keep whatever decor will be coming out first closest to the door). On top of not really wanting to dig out a Christmas tree in the first place, this is Christmas in July so we're going to get a little creative with this one. Instead of a Christmas tree, perhaps a Christmas pineapple? I'm going to use this pink electroluminescent wiring that I found at Goodwill to deck this pineapple out. We have solid light, or blinking! Granted, this wasn't near as fun to decorate and it only took a split second to do, it's festive enough for me.
To sum everything up, Christmas in July is sort of a lost cause if you're not inviting family over for a huge celebration or you live in a place where it gets cold enough in December to celebrate regular Christmas. Nonetheless, I had fun not thinking about how hot it is outside for a minute and I hope you do too! Thanks for reading!
