Christmas Pics

Christmas is past and New Years is just around the corner. What a blur this past month has been. I am looking forward to getting the beautiful Christmas decorations put away for another 11 months and having an uncluttered (as best as possible) house again. I love the house being decorated, but once Christmas is past I am ready for the decorations to be put away. It didn't feel completely like Christmas this year because the temps were in the 50s and 60s all week. We are now starting to get colder temps but still not December weather.
Casey left for Maryland today with her friend Shon. They are visiting Mary and then the 3 of them will take the train back up to Shon's house for New Year's Eve. We won't see her again until January 1 and then she goes back to school on January 3. The time went by so fast.

I am working on my goals for 2007. They are ambitious ones and as usual, by February I will have forgotten completely about them and decided I had too much on my plate. Hopefully not this year. One thing I want to accomplish is get gifts made ahead of time so that I am not as pressed for time in December. More to come later.

Christmas Tree 2006

Our tree this year is a long-needled Scotch Pine. It certainly was easier to hang ornaments on the tree because we didn't get our fingers pricked by the short little needles of years past. I like our tree, but I think it needed more ornaments. The longer needles does make it harder to hang ornaments and I think that is why we stopped putting them on there.

The penguin is new this year as are the 3 penguin ornaments hanging on the tree. Greg loves penguins and it is pretty cool that the common theme this year is penguins. Macy's had quite a few of them. Maybe because this is the first time in probably 6 years that I am working full time, but boy does it make a difference around the holidays. I haven't done a single Christmas card yet and don't think I will do many this year. I have mailed all my packages (thanks to Larry), had our annual Holiday Open House party last Sunday, finished all my shopping for everyone and wrapped them as well and made about 4 batches of buckeyes. It is no wonder that I am exhausted lately. I really enjoy Christmas, but I also enjoy the quietness of January and February.

As always, with one year coming to a close and another one on the horizon, my thoughts drift to what I intend to accomplish next year. I will try not to make my yearly To Do list too long or else nothing will get accomplished. Maybe I will strive for 3 big things to get accomplished. More on that later!

Off to the treadmill. I am down 13.25 pounds in 7 weeks and hope to keep at it. Pizza for dinner tonight didn't help, but the treadmill will get a good workout tonight.

Christmas Time

My Kinsman Christmas Ball. Years ago when I worked at Kinsman Garden Supply (in the office), these were being sold at Christmas. I thought they were beautiful and bought myself one and Mom and Dad one. Mine broke, but I have Mom and Dad's now and it is beautiful. It is very delicate and made of very thin glass. I just love it.

A Glimpse of Christmas

I love these carolers. They were from Mom and Dad's house and were very lovingly packed up by Mom each year after Christmas. Just looking at them make me happy and thankful for wonderful Christmas memories. Of course, they fit perfectly into Mom's plaid theme. I had the small tree that she decorated every year after we were all gone. It was covered in plaid ornaments. The tree was falling apart every year and I finally got rid of it last year. I still have the ornaments and will probably buy another small tree to decorate in plaid in Mom's memory.

December Sunday

This weekend was a very busy but fruitful one. I knocked out all of the gift shopping for little neices and nephew. Now I just have to wrap and mail the packages. I also came up with some other gift ideas and received in the mail Larry's Christmas present which I think he will REALLY like. All in all, pretty successful. Greg and I went to Target last night and he had lots of fun picking out baby items for Christi and Jon's new baby boy - Nathaniel Jordan Cirillo. I hope to see Christi, Jon and Nathaniel before Christmas, but if not soon thereafter.

Because we got so much done at Target and didn't have to wait in line long, we decided to go to BJ's afterwards and pick up party supplies and food. Again, it wasn't crowded and I was able to get most of the items on my list. I especially needed eggs as today I made a batch of snowball cookie dough, a batch of "healthy chocolate cookies", and brownies for the freezer. I also made one more batch of buckeye dough. With Casey coming home for school tomorrow night, I am hoping that she will be baking the cookies for our party on Sunday.

I still have some shopping to do, but not as much as usual. I am feeling more relaxed about the holidays because I have a lot of shopping already done. It also helps that both yesterday and today I took 2 mile walks. Yesterday's was to clear my head and do some thinking, today's allowed me time to have a nice phone call with John.

Off to finish dinner prep - biscuits in the oven, healthy stew in the crockpot. YUM!!