Christmas

I love to decorate for Christmas. This is a picture of the tree we display in our living room. My husband patiently hangs the icicle lights around the crown molding from the ceiling. In this photo you can see the lights hanging down. The walls are painted red leather and the trim is the aging technique both are Ralph Lauren techniques. It was painfully time consuming to do but the results were definitely worth it. My living room and dining room have white furniture with red and white toile. Christmas decorations really look good and I have fun decorating.

This picture is from our dining room and picks up the icicle lights a little better. The Santa hats on the dining room chairs I bought at Michael's and tea stained to get the aged look. My stepfather told me I am the only person that he knows that bought a new house and made it look old on the inside. I got quite a chuckle out of that because I love the old vintage look. Especially old furniture that needs to meet a can of white paint.

Christmas Eve we always go to church for the Christmas Eve Service, eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant and the boys are allowed to open one gift. Needless to say the one gift they get to open are the Pajamas they are to promptly put on and wear to open their gifts the next day. Amazingly, all three boys still believe in Santa (wink-wink....maybe it had something to do with the threat "If you ruin it for Lance there will be nothing for the two of you.")

The next morning all three arrived with their Christmas

pajamas on. We separate out the gifts and each person has their pile. We start with the youngest opening all their gifts. Lance had met Santa when we were in Kingsport and told him he wanted a pocket rocket. Once we got home he was upset because he didn't give him his list and he was worried Santa wouldn't bring the pocket rocket because he was too little to ride it. He was afraid he would have nothing under the tree at all due to not properly delivering his list to Santa.

I promptly informed him, I made a copy and mailed it to Santa for him. He was definitely relieved when he realized that Santa did get his list and brought him the Didj he had put on the list along with the appropriate games. All was well with the world once this package was opened.

Once Lance finished it was John's turn to open up his gifts. We try really hard to help Santa get what they put on their list. Fortunately, he didn't have a really long list. We were able to get him what he asked for. He seemed pleased. But John is always happy with whatever...he never is disappointed. He is definitely our easy middle child.

Then on to William our oldest. He wasn't really expecting much we paid for repairs his car needed. So I think he was pleasantly surprised Santa brought him some extras he was not expecting. This is a rare smile that I was actually able to catch only thing was he would not look at the camera. For such a big guy he sure is shy.

I also was able to take pictures of John and Lance with their stockings.

William wasn't as cooperative...he didn't want to get up to go get his stocking.

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! I had a wonderful time - it is always a lot of work, but so worth it. I hit some of the sales today and tomorrow I plan on relaxing a little before I have to start putting everything away. So glad I am off of work next week.

Snows a coming....

Looks like this is going to be our year to get snow. We had a snow fall a few weeks ago. I was able to capture for the first time my antique sleigh with snow on it!!

They are calling for approximately 15 inches. I can't wait and I am so glad I don't have to go to work tomorrow. I am suppose to go with my mom and her friend to see the Rockets downtown. I will have to see how bad the snow is. Tonight I will do like all good Washingtonian's and run to the grocery store. For those of you not from the area for as long as I can remember everyone goes to the grocery store to get toilet paper, bread and milk. Don't ask me why....it is just the way it is.

Hope everyone is sitting down....

Actual stitching has taken place.....

Every since Thanksgiving things have been full speed ahead - I can't believe Christmas is a week away. Then I will be off until after the first of the year. Maybe after all the Christmas stuff is put away I can actually stitch. I know my favorite local needlework store In Stitches is having a sale after Christmas.....maybe Santa will bring me some MONEY!!!!

I have finished the stitching on my husbands stocking, but still need to add the charms - time got away from me. I also started on the Noel stocking by Blackbird designs. I modified the colors fortunately it is a fast item to stitch.

Last weekend we went to Mt. Vernon for their candlelight tour. If you are in the Washington, DC metro area I highly recommend it. Our boys enjoyed it as much as we did. I look forward to going back again next year.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving

I had a great time visiting family in Tennessee. My mom's family is pretty large - that is what happens when you are the middle of 16. So we had approximately 50 - 55 people participate this Thanksgiving. Even though it is Thanksgiving it is treated more like Christmas since everyone gets together for Thanksgiving. Every year the younger ones exchange presents. Here they are patiently waiting...Lance our youngest is decked out in his John Deere attire and waiting eagerly....

Getting a little impatient...you can see it in their eyes "Can we get this show on the road???"

Now that they have their gifts they begin to open their presents....as you can tell my little guy loves John Deere anything...and everyone knows it....makes him very easy to buy for.

After the younger kids finished up, we let the older kids play the GAME. I am not sure what the name of this game is called but it goes like this. You pull a number the higher your number the better (I had 20 - YEAH!!!) and you can either open your gift or take the gift of someone else's that you like. This year for the first time we had the kids between 10 and 16 play the game. I do not recommend anyone under the age of 14 playing this game. We had one who had a melt down and then we had a scuffle break out between the girls...girls??? WHAT IS UP WITH THAT??? I remember when I was a little girl we were expected to act like ladies....boy have things changed.

The boys were more polite than the girls. Here is John our middle son, patiently waiting and looking a little bored.

As you can tell my mom's family is camera crazy - it must be part of their gene pool...everyone in the photo are one of the sister's - they always have a camera. My mom is the third one from the left - yes they all resemble one another as well.

Once the older kids finished it was the adults turn. This is always a fun game and I am amazed at how adults can become kids again. My cousin would not be happy with this photo, but the game can really get to you when you are in the middle of playing it. Here is my cousin who is about 6' 2" and is a farmer who donned an apron, potholders and walked around with the bowl that we began to throw money into. He ended up collecting $50 bucks and donating it to the my aunts church that we use for the get together.

It is really hard to describe how much fun it is to play and go after gifts just for the fun of it. Or maybe it is just everyone getting together after not seeing each other for such a long time.

A couple of years ago, which was the last time I went my cousin passed away the Friday after Thanksgiving. He was 21 and had suffered from cerebal palsy from birth. I was not able to go the funeral I just couldn't do it. We did go to the cemetary this trip and I have included below the poem my aunt (his mother) wrote on his plaque the cemetary does not allow tombstones. I took a photo and included below along with a picture of Lance cleaning off my uncles plaque.

On our excursions to the Antique Store we ran into Santa. Lance didn't know what to think of Santa just walking the streets of Kingsport, Tennessee. However, he did take full advantage of having a private session with Santa.