challenge – Page 2 – L'ensemble du jour

One of the many reasons I love Notre Dame: the other day, in the LaFun student center, there was a vintage Christmas sweater sale.

I mean, granted, that’s not a common occurrence – it’s pretty rare for there to be any kind of market or vendor sale. This one was only happening as a fundraiser for some club on campus – and of course, because of the widespread need for Christmas sweaters for upcoming Christmas parties.

At any rate, it happened, and I’m glad it did. Not because I need more Christmas sweaters – because Lord knows I have plenty – but because I want more Christmas sweaters, and it’s not like I’m really able to go off campus very easily and shop the local Goodwills and Salvation Armies without a car. Notre Dame’s great, but the campus can be kind of isolating from the outside world, and I’ve been craving some good old-fashioned American consumerism.

At this Christmas sweater sale, I got this fun little jacket – something a little different from all the sweaters I own, right? Nothing says “hipster” quite like getting an ugly Christmas jacket while everyone else is getting Christmas sweaters. Plus, jackets tend to be more versatile than sweaters because they offer more opportunities for layering, so I’ll be sure to get plenty of use out of it before the end of this holiday season.

Speaking of the holiday season, nothing says festive holiday cheer quite like locking yourself in your dorm room all day and studying for finals in silence, right? Because that’s what I’ve been recently doing to prepare for Christmas. I’m not kidding about that silence thing either – there’s a 23 hour silence rule in all of the residence halls from now until the end of the semester when finals are done. I love it – not the studying for finals bit, but the quiet. Silence is as golden as the golden dome.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket : thrifted

Skirt: Forever21

Boots: Doc Marten

The Christmas season is finally here!

Well, according to me, anyway. I suppose the Catholic church may have a different definition of the advent season, and the big box stores seem to think Christmas begins as early as mid-October (seriously, I swear, while I was looking for Halloween decorations this year at Target, I was already coming across Christmas lights), but for me, Christmas begins on the last day of November.

I’m not really sure how I came up with the last day of November as the first day I start dressing for Christmas – it’d make more sense that it be the first day of December, right? It also doesn’t make sense because I’ve designated the day after Thanksgiving as when I first begin to listen to Christmas music, so the last of November isn’t even necessarily the day I first fully begin celebrating Christmas…

I wish I had some kooky story to tell you about some imaginary fantasy I had as a kid about why I had to wait until November 30 to break out my Christmas sweaters and the red and green color combinations, but I have nothing. This arbitrary, self-imposed rule has been like this for years now, though – on November 30, I start dressing for Christmas.

And it’s my goal, from now until December 25, to continue dressing in Christmas outfits. Call it an outfit challenge. How many ways can I wear the red and green pieces in my closet? How many hours can I go in my wool Abercrombie Christmas sweater before I’m trying to itch off my pores? Looks like now’s the time to find out.

If you’re still looking for a kooky Christmas story though, I do have one about how, in first grade, I went on a loud tirade in the middle of our Christmas party about how Santa wasn’t real, and that my classmates were stupid to believe in him. I was obnoxious enough that my teacher had to pull me aside to tell me to shut up. Interestingly, though the Santa illusion didn’t last long for me, the concept of flying reindeer was significantly less unbelievable to my childhood self. I’m pretty sure wasn’t until years after my Santa realization that I realized that flying reindeer were fake too.