Thanksgiving weekend and holiday cards

Hello friends! I meant to do this post a couple of weeks ago, but here we are, closer to Christmas than Thanksgiving. And so it goes this over the holidays, sometimes!

I just wanted to share a few photos from our long weekend over Thanksgiving. As it happens, we unfortunately ended up taking pictures in several places where the lighting was less than ideal, so I apologize in advance, but hey, at we we have a little something. I sometimes get requests to do more outfits photos along with Mel, who is a very snappy dresser, so for those of you who’ve asked lately, this one’s for you!

On Thanksgiving there was much more snow on the ground out by my sister-in-law’s than in the city as you can see, which looks beautiful out where she lives. I pulled out one of my favorites, a dark blue 1950s swing coat. And Mel sported a vintage Brooks Brothers duffle coat. We’re not sure when it’s from, but Mel’s aunt astutely found this at a garage sale and the fit is spot on! It has a hood and everything. I’m a huge fan of coats with hoods, and one of my longer-term winter sewing projects is going to be to sew a vintage swing coat pattern that has a hood. (Yeeeees!)

The lighting changed right between Mel’s photos and my own, so the photo below isn’t great, but I do love the snowy backdrop of the woods! I’m wearing my denim cigarette pants with one of my favorite, highly sequined vintage cardigans, plus a pair of soft gold Remix wedgies. I can’t find the exact style on their site, I think Mel bought them for me as a birthday present at Viva Las Vegas a few years ago.

And it even snowed throughout the day. It was pretty magical!

It’s almost better in black and white, but the sequined yoke on this sweater is outrageous. And I know you still haven’t gotten to see any great photos of these cigarette pants but let me tell you: I’ve been practically living in them! I’m going to try to sew up a pinwale black corduroy pair before we leave for Christmas.

I made these earrings a few years ago from vintage cabochons.

They have little gold splatters on a cream ceramic background, which couldn’t make them look more mid-century. I also made pale blue and pink pairs. They’d accidentally been tucked away in a jewelry box where I hadn’t thought much about them in awhile, so I’m glad to pull them out again!

Mel wore a vintage plaid wool tie and button up fair isle vest with a vintage alpaca and mohair cardigan.

And then there were those shoes. They got a lot of attention on Instagram when I posted them, and rightfully so! A pair of amazing spectator shoes from the 1930s that once belonged to an *ahem* businessman on the southside of Chicago who was apparently known for being a rather flashy dresser… I’m not really sure elaboration is necessary on any of those points.

Thanksgiving was lovely, and the next day we decorated for Christmas and hosted drinks with friends of ours who’d recently gotten married. (We’re terrible and have no photos from the wedding, but I did actually wear the same 1950s lace overlay dress I wore to my cousin’s wedding in Santa Fe in January. Because really, that dress needed to see another party for sure, and there were totally separate guests!)

Just before our friends arrived, we took photos for our Christmas card. I wore one of my favorite vintage holiday pullovers!

And then we apparently stood around making goofy faces.

You can see a bit of Mel’s gorgeous hand-painted tie poking out from a vintage red cardigan.

I’m pretty sure my mother-in-law had no idea on Thanksgiving when she gave me sheet music to my favorite Christmas movie ever, that it would be making it into our Christmas card the very next day!

I believe this was the final photo that made it onto the card (included with some other ones of our travels this year):

But of course there were some cute outtakes, too. This one was my favorite!

We wrapped up the long holiday weekend by going to the Art Institute. We’d recently re-joined as members after a long absence, so we enjoyed hot chocolate in the members’ lounge and had a ball not feeling like we had to catch everything in one visit. I was particularly delighted to see the holiday Thorne Room. I had no idea that they decked out several of the miniature rooms for the holidays. What a treat! No photos inside, but I’ll leave you with a shot of one of the famous Art Institute lions, who get adorned with wreaths every year for the holidays.

It certainly put us in a festive mood! I can’t believe it’s so close to Christmas now… I better get crackin’!