Christmas at Our Home: The Unabridged Edition

...And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Ah, who doesn't recognize even a piece of the classic poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas"?

Oh yeah, that's exactly how our home is at Christmas. All is quiet and peaceful, not even a mouse moving about. Everything is beautiful, neat and sparkling. Grinnin Grampa is wearing his cap, sound asleep, breathing ever-so-quietly.

"Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse"...NEVER would he snore on Christmas Eve!

But the pictures you see are the sheer truth of it all, at least around here. This is what our bedroom floor has looked like for a couple - okay, a few nights now. The middle picture is what our bed looked like this afternoon, as I was frantically trying to wrap a couple things before a certain someone got home.

Wrapped gifts under the tree in the living room.

However, the next few pictures are what I prefer to leave you with; these are bits and pieces of what the inside of our home looks like if you throw a magical sheet that makes the mess around the bits and pieces disappear.

The lime green tree in my office with pink and white decorations.

A musical snow globe I've had for years. If you look closely, you'll

notice that the shepherd boy is missing the bottom part of his arm.

It's floating around at the bottom, close to Baby Jesus' bed of hay.

I'll never know how something can get broken inside a snow globe, all

cushioned in glycerin. There's no damage to the outside. This, by the way,

is how I bought it and why it was probably something like 75% off at the time.

Porcelain ornament that is one of my favorites; another that I've had for years.

Our neighbors get baked goodies from us every year. This is

what their gifts consisted of this year. You saw the wrapping mess.

No way am I sharing my kitchen mess.

It snowed a few days ago and I managed to capture this

cardinal sitting a few feet from our back door. It was/is

the only semblance of peace and order around our home

for several weeks.

As Lily Tomlin's character on Laugh-in would say, "And that's the truth...!" (insert raspberry sound!)

Baking, Goofing Around and Shopping

We had our annual Open House at the Shop this weekend. This is one of the goodies I picked up for my self. She sits next to my monitor.

I thought this was just beyond cute and, for $3.00, couldn't pass it up! Do you think she looks like me?

Cookie baking filled a good part of one day this past week. These are brickle cookies that I made for my neighbors but they seem to be disappearing before I finish the rest of my cookies for the neighbors' cookie tray that I give them every year.

And here are a few of the tags I made. Some will go on the cookie trays, along with a little handmade ornie. Others will hang on gifts under our tree. The reverse of the tags have a stamped "To" and "From" on them. The above tags and the ones directly below are one and the same but the one above shows a little more depth and detail.

I'm not even half way through my shopping! Why is it that, when I was younger, I was usually finished early - sometimes before November 1! How are your lists coming along?

Finally, I have to show you this next photo before I finish this post:

I took it coming back from shopping the other evening. It was about 5:00 PM and it had been raining - hard! The corner of the building in this shot belongs to the gas station that sits next to a parking lot that I pulled into to photograph the rainbow. The attendant outside stood and stared at me, as though he was wondering why in the world I would take such a photo.

As I recall, rainbows were in the skies after almost every rain when I was a child. They seem like such a rarity today. So, as the attendant was wondering why I would take the time to capture this image, I was wondering how he could turn his back on such a jewel. I'm sure there's a moral in this for all of us.

God bless you all, and may you enjoy your rainbows.

Thanksgiving, Videos and Here Comes Santa!

Hubby and I had another great Thanksgiving with my side of our blended family. I'm so proud of each of them and would like for you to meet them, albeit video style!

I hope you like videos, because here are a couple videos of the shop that we're in (Corner Nest, Elizabethton, TN). I hope you enjoy your mini-trip there:

This one is of the cabin upstairs in the shop. Yep, a real faux-cabin! This isn't my booth but it is one of my very favorite booths within the shop: the Cabin

This one starts in the back of the first floor, at our booth. My memory card ran out waaaay before I could finish even the first floor. I hope you enjoy! CLICK HERE to view!