Waiting for Noel

I am a Holiday person.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, New Years, and even the Fourth of July get me super excited and full of spirit! I love to decorate, dress up, and my favorite part of all: cook and bake. :) Sometimes even on regular days I find excuses to make cute treats or gifts to share with my friends. You can always count on me to throw themed parties or host game nights, it's just what I love to do.

Credit to Pinterest for this cute little reindeer photo!

Unfortunately, France has a significantly lower amount of opportunities for me to play hostess. There isn't space in my host-parent's apartment for me to invite friends over, many of our American holiday's don't exist, and in order to prepare food I would have to buy ALL of the ingredients (talk about expensive)! Needless to say, I have been struggling hard core trying to find ways to let out my creativity and reign in my holiday cheer.

Flashback to Christmas morning 2011! Me and my puppy decked out even more than the halls.

Missing Halloween was a huge bummer for me. My awesome brother and his wife sent me some candy corn in the mail and I did get to go out on the town dressed up, but it just wasn't the same without ghost shaped sugar cookies and pumpkin carving with my best friends.

Last year's Halloween with some of my best friends in the world, Shannon and Ashley. Lauren and Jeniece were there too!

Now I'm being hit with the Christmas train. I JUST CAN'T WAIT! Even in the states it takes some effort for me to focus on Thanksgiving first, but because I won't be having that holiday this year there is nothing stopping me from going full-on Buddy the Elf.

Credit to Google Image Search.
First, we'll make snow angles for two hours, and then we'll go ice skating, and then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie dough as fast as we can, and then to finish, we'll snuggle!

My problem is that I have none of my usual resources! No craft supplies, baking goods, or snow. What's a girl to do? I've been wracking my brain for creative ways to use what I have for some Christmas  Cheer, and have ended up drawing Christmas-themed pictures. Not the same as making wreathes or peppermint bark but it's good practice and maybe I can use them in my Christmas Gift packaging.

My slightly lopsided vampire-mouthed deer. I like her.

Pinterest and tumblr have been a little bit of relief for me, but they also give me intense Christmas envy. Blasting carols and picking through my gigantic list of Christmas movies has also begun. What I absolutely cannot wait for is the very last week of November and the beginning of December. API will be taking us on a trip to the Christmas market in Strasbourg and Grenoble has a HUGE Christmas village in the center of town every single day! They've already started putting up Christmas lights in town.  :) I'm also going to try and snag some tickets to see Swan lake next week!

Google Image Search

So what do you think? Any advice for a seriously deprived Christmas Angel?
(I'm sorry about the pun. That was bad.)