Honey, I'm Home!

Regardless of the horrible weather and a nasty "bug"setting up homestead in our bodies, we returned home safely after sharing a wonderful Christmas with the kids and our Grandloves. Our hopes of  "going home" to visit more of the family a couple of hours away, was bought to an abrupt halt due to illness.  My husband has a horrible cold and now I'm finding myself feeling it slowly making its attack on me.  He went through high fevers accompanied by chills and body aches. Then the "thick throat" and congestion set in. As for myself; I'm hoping I can sneak by this round of "sickness" with nothing more than a stuffy nose.  I guess time will tell.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our house to yours. We will be leaving on Dec 22 to spend time with family and friends so I wanted to send my greetings now. I just love how the picture of our Christmas tree turned out so I decided it would be the perfect backdrop for this years card. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Shopping

Well wouldn't you know we'd get around to our Christmas shopping on the coldest dang day we've had so far this winter. And technically "winter" hasn't even arrived yet. I would say the wind chill was a tad bit "chilly" right around 10 to 15 below zero depending on the gusts. 

But we did get our shopping done ~ and we did good! I forsee a lot of happy little faces again this year.  Our Grandkids recieved their letters from Santa today.  The six year old was so excited she threw her head back as she was reading her letter and exclaimed "Mrs. Claus loves the same kind of fudge as I do ~ Chocolate mint, and Santa said I should look for some under my tree!" 

Now I have to ask, How exciting is that?  ~ she has a personal connection with the big fella's wife.  They are at the wonderful ages that make Christmas so exciting.  Their eyes just sparkle and their voices echo in ranges of squeals and giggling.  With camera in hand - her comes Grandma. I can hardly wait!

Why Oh Why?

I have some cookies baked and the house decorated for Christmas but for some reason I just haven't gotten around to shopping yet. Why?? Not that I haven't had the opportunity. On Thanksgiving Eve I went "shopping" with my daughters. What an experience that was, fun but my feet were on fire from our venture. We decided we didn't want to fight the "Black Friday" crowds so we went on Wed. night instead. We started at 8:00 p.m and ended at 2:00 a.m. Three stores, only three stores! They did good and got a lot of their Christmas shopping done, but this old Granny just picked up a couple of upcoming Birthday gifts and that was it. Why?

So today we decided to go shopping, after all we are within the two week margin now ~ but I still didn't buy a thing that would go under a tree. Why? Oh yeah, we bought groceries and looked for gifts but no luck.  Hopefully we will have better luck on Moday, or Tuesday or Wed or maybe Christmas Eve!

Christmas Decorating is Now in Full Swing!

Help! Now that I've started decorating I've become unstoppable! The Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls had company stop for a visit.

The stockings are hung ~

on the railing with care!

The tree is trimmed!

Santa's watching my stocking ~

Every year he fills it with love!

The dining table awaits guests.

And my beautiful doll reminds me Christmases past.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tree is Up!

The Christmas tree is up, and not only is it up... it's even decorated! All of this in one afternoon is pretty good for this ole' gal.

Several years ago on one of my many treasure hunts at an auction, I won the bid on some beautiful antique tear-drop ornaments . I should have counted as I hung them but "if my recollector is recollecting correctly" (as my Dad used to say) there were 35 to 40 and the entire box sold for the grand total of $3.00. Each one is multi colored in shades of gold, pink, red, green and blues. They are now adorning this years tree. With colored lights as a backdrop and crystal beads as garland the tree turned out just beautiful. But not just night-time beautiful ~ it even looks great in the daylight.

We are invited to join some friends at the "Parade of Lights" tonight. Time to pull out the long johns and bundle up. That shouldn't be a problem - after all when we lived in Alaska we would go to the Yukon Quest dog races when it was 30 below zero or colder. Here's a pic of me that day and "Baby, it was cold outside!"

I know what you're thinking ... who wants to see a picture of her? Where's the tree?  Well, maybe later. 

Shifting into the Christmas Mood

I was in a horrid mood through most of the day,as you can see by my last posting - but I'm back to my jolly ole' self again. I decided it's time to do more than just "think" about Christmas and to take some action. So I'm beginning here in my blog, by changing my background to a country Christmas tree. 

I have oodles and oodles of Christmas boxes to go through. Now when I say boxes I'm not talking shoe boxes, I'm talking HUGE boxes.  When I got remarriend and we joined our treasures, I was amazed at how much "stuff" we have.  I change things from year to year so I'm not really ready to part with of much of it just yet but I do plan to have a "garage sale" box setting on the sidelines as I peek through everytihing this year. I really don't need as much as I have.

A couple of years ago I did the tree in all white lights with crystal icicles -okay so they are fake but they're still beautiful - and white, gold and tan ornaments. I used white lacey Christmas ribbons wrapped throughout the tree as garland. It was just gorgeous. Last year I trimmed the tree in all colored lights and loaded the branches with homemade ornaments and keepsakes from years gone by.  Once agian it was a beauty but totally different from the prior year.  I haven't really decided on this years theme yet but it will come to me as I go through those boxes and find things I've forgotton about since last year. It's just like Christmas!!

We used to live in North Pole, Alaska so we also have a nice selection of the "Dept. 56 North Pole Collection." How fitting is that?  It's a beautiful village with very detailed pieces.  I love it but it's a lot of work to set up and take down every year. This fall my sweet Aunt gifted me with an old store showcase that will be perfect as a display case for part of our collection. I plan to refinish the showcase next spring and set up the village permanently. I know I will enjoy it every time I pass by whether it be the holidays or not.

Moody Moody Moody!

I'm in such an ugly mood today!  I should be ashamed of myself but I just dont give a tinkers damn. Where in the hell did that phrase come from anyways?  See what I mean, I said HELL ... on a good day I would have said "heck" to be politically correct and not have people think badly of me. But not today, today I dont give a damn.   So there, take it or leave it but whatever you do, keep your distance from me!  Maybe tomorrow I'll be nice again.