Wham, Bam, Thank You M'am

Whoa.... what just happened... nothing extraordinary that's for sure. I'm still trying to think what all the hoopla is all about. Service went well.... check.... visiting friends went well... check... got to bed and a reasonable time... check..... had fun opening stockings.... check.... good Christmas morning breakfast..... check.... opened up lovely gifts.... check.... had a snooze after lunch... check..... had Christmas dinner at the folks place.... check.... Ok what was I making such a fuss about! Now I don't have to think about it for another ten whole months. And actually I'm starting to think about the first week of July.... woo hoo! Anyone who knows me knows that the first week of July is the best week of the year.... it takes waaaayyy more precedence than Christmas.

They'll soon be posting the courses!!! It'll soon be time to register!!! It'll soon be time to book a room in the apartments!!!! I can't wait. I wonder which courses they'll be offering??! I'm soooo excited! All that fleece.... all that spinning chat.... all that learning..... I'm totally addicted to Fibre Week!!!

In the meantime though it's boxing day and this is a day to relax. I don't know what I'm relaxing from since yesterday was pretty relaxing too. My parents cooked Christmas dinner and all I had to do was help clean up a little. Got to love that! We have a little turkey in our fridge too since they did up a doggie bag for us. I got lots of nice things, like an owl, who I've named Smore.... he sits with my other critters, on a shelf, in my spinning room. I also got sox..... loads of them.... some hand made and some store bought.... I don't have to worry about the Daughters stealing mine anymore. I got my cotton cards and some knitting needles, DPNs for fingers in gloves, and a beautiful poncho from Peru that's made from alpaca/llama/and wool. I also got some really lovely books... one called The Golden Mean which I really wanted ever since I heard the author interviewed on CBC. I also got a book called The Complete Idiot's Guide To T'ai Chi and QiGong. I'm determined to learn T'ai Chi this year. I also got the next book in the Diana Gabaldon series... I've been waiting for it to come out. It's a trashy read but then I love trashy reads too. I also got a lovely heirloom lace bookmark which I think was my most touching gift. A friend of mine called me a while back and told me she had inherited some really lovely heirloom lace from a family member and asked me if I wanted some. I had intended on taking another friend and going to see her collection of lace. We were talking about what she could use it for and, being a practical person, she wanted to use some of the pieces...(if it were me, I would just mount them and look at them).... but I suggested she make herself a bookmark... she thought the idea was great and so... I never heard anything else about it until Christmas morning when she gave me the bookmark... wow what a lovely gift. I got a knitting magazine in my stocking, and a new nightgown in the softest fluffiest flannelette. So all in all Christmas was quite nice. Still it does seem to be rather "Wham, Bam, Thank You M'am!"

I wonder if that is a sign of old age..... !

Well I'm off today to make amends with my jacket commission whick is languoring in my spinning room. I might even put the handles on my new cotton cards and have a go with them .... aaaahhhhh! I love Boxing Day!

Merry Christmas

Here are some pics of our home in it's finished Christmas finery to look at.......

Christmas Is In The Air

Christmas is almost upon me.... do I scream in agony?!.... no I do not.... I face it resolutely, knowing that I can't be any more prepared than I am. The outdoor lights are up, the tree is up and decorated, the living room is cleaned up... well at least better than it was, house looks as Christmassy as it can, carols have been playing for days, all gifts are done or bought and wrapped, the groceries are bought and put away.... (and you can hardly notice the $700.00 worth that I bought! I'm disgusted).... the Christmas email/poem that I write each year is done and sent.... I think I'm done. Now I can sit and knit or spin.... yeah!

We've ordered a wardrobe for Daughter #2's bedroom. It has nothing to do with Christmas. It was supposed to arrive on the 28th of December.... it showed up yesterday. Hubby was off with the truck so today we will be picking it up and setting it up. This is an unexpected chore. But we want to get it done instead of having it hanging over us.

Hubby is in the kitchen making bagels and lox. He smoked the lox last night and the dough for the bagels is in the bread maker. Today he will boil the bagels dip them in sesame seeds and then pop them into the smoker before baking them.... yum.... I love Montreal style bagels and cream cheese with lox.... normally we have on Christmas morning either raisin molasses bread or cranberry bread that I make.... but Hubby took the initiative this year and made homemade bagels. I can't wait to try them.

For another tip on getting in the Christmas mood.... drink tea with your Hubby... (you need a Hubby like mine).... laughing with your Daughters.... (you need Daughters like mine)..... listening to Christmas music.... but not too much.... and generally being happy.

My best tip for the Christmas spirit.... go to your nearest church for a Christmas Eve service, join your voice to the voices of others and sing old familiar carols, listen to the readings, think about that oh so profound night 2000 years ago, pray, think of world wide peace, listen to the church bells, wish people a Merry Christmas, visit friends, head home to put all your secrets under the tree, chuckle lots, get your cozy pjs on and say a prayer for me... I'll being praying for you....

Merry Christmas

Christmas Nuthouse

I can safely say that the way to lose any budding Christmas spirit you might be starting to feel is to go shopping anytime in the last four days before Christmas.... you will feel like you just had a bowel movement on your own head.... then wonder how that happened!

Holy Crap There's Only Two Days Left?

I got it into my head to make pinecone wreaths for two of our friends and I'm down to the wire.... two days to go... but at least the service is done for Christmas Eve. I'm presiding over the Christmas Eve service since our minister retired last winter and this is no small thing let me tell you. Hubby and I are headed to town to finish the grocery shopping and take the ill fated stupid artificial tree back to the creeps at the upscale store I told you about.... really they're not that bad.... I think it was a dud tree.... a lemon.... Anyway I have a few stocking stuffers to pick up and I need to get some embellishments for the two wreaths.... and I'm done. Tomorrow Hubby and the girls are going to a friends house for sliding but I will stay home and finish printing the bulletins for the Christmas eve service, wrap the last of the gifts and straighten candles for the candle light service..... (they've been stored in a box in the basement of the church hall for a year and so I will have to clean them up a little). I am hoping to have Christmas Eve day just for fun with the Daughters and Hubby.

Hubby and I have made a decision to walk two kilometres every day unless it is below -30 degrees, then we will stay home and think about it. : ) It is just too frigid for me when it gets below -30.

I have the decorating done for Christmas here at Nicholsville farm but the clean up is not done so I'm hoping to post pictures tomorrow of the job we've done once again in our little log home. We even did a little work in the kitchen and finished the breakfast bar though I need an electrical fix in order to plug in my toaster, bread maker and coffee perk.... other than that it looks great. The door is still not on my pantry.... but I have lots of storage.... mind you if I had tons of storage I'd still find a way to fill it and want more.... there never seems to be enough storage.

Today I will give you tip #2 on how to get the Christmas feeling. If your spouse and family are sleepers in, it bodes well to wake a little early and in the quiet of the morning come to your living space that contains your tree, turn on the lights and just sit in the dark with JUST the tree lights and listen to the silence...... Christmas is there in the silence. That's what Mary and Joseph heard when they were in that stable, that is what the shepherds heard after the angels left. The quiet of the night gives you ample time to hear Christmas in your soul.

Merry Christmas.

Ahhh! Sweet Holidays At Last

It is Monday morning and does it ever feel nice to wake slowly and get up slowly and the Daughters are still in bed sleeping.... Hubby is making breakfast. Tea is forth coming and the tree dilemma has been solved. (sigh... a nice relaxed sigh).

Yesterday, when daylight finally came Hubby and I took a couple of cups of hot chocolate and headed off toward FSJ to look for a tree. We felt that if we found a real tree somewhere along the highway, well and good, we would cut it down and be happy. But if we didn't find one before we got to FSJ then when we got there, we would make a bee-line for Canadian Tire and buy an artificial tree and be done with it. I am happy to say that we never made it to FSJ. We instead, stopped at a well known road side pullout. Off to the right of the road side pullout is a road that leads to an old gravel pit. Trees are growing in this old gravel pit but they are very stunted and grow slowly because of course a gravel pit does not have good soil.... the result is we found one of the nicest trees we've ever had.... what's more is we found another one for our ..... ooops I can't say what we are doing yet.... we also found next year's tree too. We've marked the tree and we will go back for it next year. So I am happy to say that I will not have to purchase a artificial tree for a while yet. Tomorrow the artificial tree that we bought over the weekend will go back for hopefully a full refund which will give me a little more money to spend on Hubby's stocking which is looking like he was a bad boy all year.

When we got home with the tree we discovered that it is bigger than we thought. Hubby was about to lob off a foot or so from the bottom when I got a brilliant idea. It meant moving around furniture again but we have a dining room, a living room, a studio (small), and a tree room!..... I can't wait to finish decorating so that I can post some pictures here. The whole effect is brilliant.

What a difference one day can make... yesterday, Christmas sucked.... today.... well I don't love it but it is a whole lot better than it was!

I think partially because the church pageant is over. It went really well. One of my Knock-out Knitters came. It is great when people come to church that don't normally go. It makes you feel like what you do for the church is worthwhile after all. Thanks L I'm glad you were there.

Christmas eve service is next. I have to work on that since I will be presiding. And though this is the first time I will have presided over the Christmas Eve service, I am not worried about it. It will be lovely.

Gifts wrapped, house decorated, tree up, not too bad for someone who isn't a Christmas aficionado.

One of my favorite Christmas stories is... A Redbird Christmas. If you want to get in the mood here's a sure fire way of doing so....
1. Borrow A Redbird Christmas by Fanny Flagg from your local library....
2. Place it strategically by your favorite comfortable chair....
3. Boil a kettle of water and while doing so, spoon some Carnation Hot Chocolate into your favorite mug....
4. Poor into the powder, three tablespoons of store bought eggnog and stir vigorously.....
5. Poor over this mixture enough boiling water to fill mug.....
6. Sit down in your favorite chair where you located the book earlier....
7. Begin reading and occasionally sipping from the mug of Eggnog Hot Chocolate...
8. Enjoy.....

Merry Christmas!

Fir or Pine... No Luck There

The decorating is almost done and most of the clean up is done, and I only have a few items left to wrap. There is only one problem... we still don't have a tree... it has become a dilemma.

Hubby took the Daughters shopping yesterday while I spent a lovely afternoon with my spinners and weavers group in FSJ for our annual potluck Christmas luncheon and gift exchange. I did not partake of the gift exchange since this year I just didn't get it finished in time. But it was great fun to watch the other ladies doing their thing with their made items. I hate pressure and though I started a tote ages ago I ran out of spun wool for it and while I wanted to order more I reall couldn't justify buying another pile of rovings to Hubby. Then when I went to make a different one, I just didn't get time to finish it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Dummy here forgot to bring along her camera though which was really stupid. I had intended on posting the pics.

After the party was over Hubby picked me up and I was happy to note the box in the back of the truck with an artificial tree in it. Finally we had made a decision and we would have a tree forever after. No more waiting till the 20th to put up the real tree... no more Charlie Brown Christmas trees. No more cutting trees in frigid air at dusk just because we had to get one soon or it would be dark.... no, we would have a tree and the darn thing would be up next year right after Daughter #1 birthday and no more cleaning up from the decorations on on the 24th...... at long last our problems were solved. We headed home satisfied that Christmas was prepared for and all was right in the world.

Not!

The artificial tree we bought is a dud. I have never seen a more stupid tree in my life. The dumb thing was falling apart as soon as we touched it. The branches were falling off and it just looked dumb. The bottom third had no limbs at all. It was a five foot tree on a seven foot tree post. We could of cut off the bottom 18 inches and not hit a branch. Hubby packed it back in it's box and back to FSJ it goes on Monday. I'm not quite sure what we are going to do now... that upside down tree is looking better all the time. Hubby and I trudged around in the dark looking for a likely real candidate but all the trees around here are too wimpy. The branches are not likely to withstand the onslaught of decorations. We even drove a ways up the road in hopes that we would find something in the road allowance. Nadda.... nothing.... zero.... zip.... goose egg....

You have never seen a more disappointed bunch of people than the whole lot in this house. I would never have thought that the store (which is an upscale store) we bought this tree from would sell crap.

I am waiting patiently till it is light enough to see.... and I'm going to find a tree. I am past giving a d--n.... THERE WILL BE A TREE IN THIS HOUSE TOMORROW! I don't care if I have to make one.

Hubby started talking about Christmas tree farms the other day after listening to a really interesting interview on CBC with a fellow who started a Christmas tree farm.... Hubby said it was something he had always thought about doing. A Christmas tree farm might just be the ticket.... it would solve all my problems with Christmas trees. I'd never have to worry about where I was going to get one ever again because it would be growing right outside my door! The whole world would abound with Christmas trees!

In the meantime..... 3 more hours before it is light!

Hi ho, hi ho, a Christmas tree hunting I'll go.....