Christmas Decorating

 

FRIDAY after Thanksgiving we were still at my parents house.  Many years ago my mom was given a country inn village piece.  Ever since this has been a growning village with them adding pieces and expanding the village.  It now is so large it takes nearly a whole day to set up and fills an entire room.  A fun thing about the village is that it’s different each year.  Added pieces, being put in a new room and different arrangement of the pieces keeps it exciting to see each year.  Each year it’s put up right after Thanksgiving so this year was to be no different.  I began unpacking the pieces and dividing them as country or town pieces while mom began setting up tables and my dad was cutting boards to make table extensions.  We actually left before the whole thing was complete so it will be fun to go back closer to Christmas and see how it was finished this year. I don’t have any pictures at this time but I’ll try to get some posted sometime.

This began inspiring me to decorate my own place for the first time in years.  We were in a town the past 3 years that was 5 hours from home.  Noone would ever come visit (we always came home for a few weeks for the holidays) so there was no real reason for me to decorate.  This year being we live closer and having family that lives in the same town as us, there’s a chance we’ll have visitors so I’m going to decorate. I havn’t decorate in years so I’ve kinda forgotten a lot of what decorations I have. Also at the end of the holidays last year our friends were planning on going with a new theme and getting new stuff for the next year so they graciously gave us some of the decorations they were no longer going to be using.  Some of our stuff is still in storage at my grandparents and since decorating I’ve realized I’m missing some decorations so my decorations are a little sparse and only mostly in the living room area but they make me feel merry for the holidays. Here are some pictures. ENJOY!

 

The front door and catch all shelf. Joel complains about the santa hat blocking his view of the clock but I thought it was too cute to take down.  He was also disappointed to find that cookie tin was for decoration only and there were no cookies in it. He He!

The telephone shelf in the hallway between the two bedrooms

  

The backdoor/dining room/kitchen entry. The wreath was made by my mother from handprints of my students from my very first preschool class in 2006.

 

A few snowmen to smile at as I wash dishes

The sun makes it a little hard to see but it was too dark to take pictures at night. It’s a simple strand of white lights with silver tinsel. 

 

Despite the fact that we don’t use our dining room table, I really wanted to display these dishes.  It’s actually convenient since we don’t use the table I can keep the display set up at all times and don’t have to move it for meals.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

THE THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

 

GATHERING #1

Every year for Thanksgiving my grannie’s (maternal grandmother) family rents out the building my hometown neighborhood uses for community events. It’s a big open one room building with an old fashioned pot belly wood stove.  It was a large buffet table down the middle for tons of food which tends to be covered every time I’m there. This was one of our low number years with just over 30 people there.  We have some family from out of state that weren’t in travel health so we missed them this year.   I try my best to be good and not over heat but it’s so hard. since we do the meal pot luck style I want to try a little of it all. After the meal there are games and stories and picture sharing. Always a good time.

GATHERING #2

At the same time as my grannie’s meal is my husbands family meal.  This year we decided to split up.  I went to my family and he went to his.  After mine started slowing down I planned to leave and join his family.  Unfortunantly I didn’t get out soon enough and by time I got to town Joel said his family was going their separate ways.  So I just went to his grandparents house and was able to visit with his mom and grandparents for a while. Just visiting, no eating.  Probably not a bad thing, allow my stomach to rest. But knowing I had another meal to get to shortly I didn’t indulge in the desserts at my family meal planning to eat that part at his families gathering.  Oh well, though my sweet tooth suffered my tummy was probably thankful.

GATHERING #3

In order to accommodate all the other family gatherings my mom and dad saved their meal for supper time.  And because there would be so much turkey eating mom decided to go in another direction.  My sisters boyfriend planned to bring teriyaki wings he made so mom went for an Asian thanksgiving themed meal.  We had wontons and   It’s THURSDAY-maternal grandmother family, husbands missed but visited, my parents/sister,

Well I was too busy eating and visiting for any picture taking. Sorry.  But as always here’s my babies.

Bella chewing on her bone.

Chip chewing his bone and holding one in reserve LOL

The Week of Thanksgiving

Ok So I warned you in the last blog that it would be a while before I blogged again due to the Thanksgiving holiday and being away from the computer. I have made notes to myself to remind me what I can blog. I think I’ll break it down into a few shorter smaller (who are we kidding they will be lengthy) posts.  Please comment.  I want to know who (if anyone) is reading.  Are they too long, boring,tedious? I need some feedback.  If your comment doesn’t show up please email or Facebook me and let me know so I can fix things if there is a problem.

The SUNDAY before Thanksgiving I did some grocery shopping and bought some bottled water.  Ours tastes nasty.  My grandpa calls it “turtle tracks”. So we have been taste tasting various sources of water to find the best tasting. My “big” project of the day was rearranging the lights in the living room for optimal lighting. As I have stated before I’m a crafter and a tv watcher.  I have to have light pointed directly at me from behind so my hands don’t make shadows on my work. From “my spot” in the corner of the couch where I can rest my right arm on the arm rest the light leaves a terrible glare on the tv.  So I have moved the tv into the corner of the room at an angle and have added some lighting.  In order to get the best light behind me in the middle of the couch I had to do some creative set up.  Can anyone figure out what I used as my behind the couch “table”?

    

     (Bella in corner, TV mid wall)                           (Bella mid wall, TV in corner)

                               

(“table’ behind couch, tall lamp farthest from “my spot”, small lamp directly over my left shoulder, 3 bulb lamp over right shoulder)

MONDAY started early.  To be off for Thanksgiving Joel’s work has revamped their hours for the week.  He is working 3 days for 10 hours starting at 6 a.m.  We live about 20 minutes from his work, and he’s a slow riser so that mean up at 5 every day this week.  Thank goodness I was able to go back to bed. LOL since the schools are closed this week for the holidays.

The weather was forecasting rain but it was only a light drizzle so I ran out to take care of some business. My luck that was when it began to pour. I could hardly see the road, wipers going like crazy. 

I have no notes from TUESDAY and it’s been so long I can’t remember what I did then. Probably nothing much.

As soon as Joel got home WEDNESDAY afternoon we were heading home for Thanksgiving with our families. I spend the morning getting the house ready to sit empty for a few days.  Early afternoon I started packing. We had intentionally not said anything to the dogs cause they go crazy. Well still not saying anything, only getting out the suitcases they knew something was up.  They kept looking at me as if to ask “What’s going on?  you don’t use those things much.”  As I got several things packed and began stacking them in the Living Room to go to the car, they got the idea and started going crazy running around the house.  They knew we were going on a trip.  Though they hate the trip no matter how long or short they love the idea of “going”.  We were able to head out shortly after 5 and we were only going 2 hours away.  Much easier trip than the 5 hours we’ve done the last 3 years.  however due to the time change it’s dark by 5.  Our entire trip was in the dark which made me tired and made it feel like a 5 hour trip.

                     

(I couldn’t get a good picture of their crazy running around, this was the best to show their eagerness to head to Grammie’s)

 

Well this is long enough so I’ll put the holiday/vacation festivities in another blog. Catch it too.