Gifts

My family spoils me and this Christmas was no exception, I received so many wonderful gifts, some making me smile, some touching my heart  and some making me laugh.
Two that made me laugh and that I will always treasure are two Nutcrackers Mac made me.  I collect Nutcrackers and always hope I'll get one for Christmas, but this year I got 2 very special ones.  Mac bought 2 regular Nutcrackers and then gave them a makeover.  One became Jeeves and one became Hercule Poirot.
They're wonderful.
I've put Jeeves to work in the dining room and Hercule will move upstairs to the tv room so he can watch his "little grey cells" at work.

Saddest Time of Year

Not that Christmas is over, it was quite wonderful, nor do I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder,  but rather that we had to take our daughter to the airport for her flight home this afternoon.  Doesn't matter how many times we've done it through the years it never gets any easier and I always end up crying.  We had a great visit, talk, watch movies, eat, open presents, talk.  Though it seemed like a good long visit it still ended too quickly, wish she were retired too (Ha, ha).  I know her cat will be glad to see her home.
We'll be going up to see her for Easter so I'll just have to start counting days again.

Merry Christmas to All

We're all ready for Christmas, except for Mac who is down in his workshop making something, and must wrap presents this afternoon.
We've already eaten WAY too much and tomorrow it's prime rib with all the Christmas trimmings.
To all my friends in Blogland thank you for stopping by this year, here's hoping, no matter how you celebrate this time of year, that you find joy in all you do.

Winter

Officially winter was supposed to arrive at 6:11 am this morning, and by golly it did.  For the last 2 weeks we've had temperatures in the 70's even hitting 80 one day.  But last night brought the tail end of the winter storm that hit the midwest yesterday and our temperatures plummeted.  Not a whole lot of rain, and of course no snow, but windy, windy, windy.  We're actually supposed to drop to the 20's tonight and for coastal Georgia that's cold.
Our daughter flies in tonight to spend Christmas with us and that means that for us the Christmas season is officially here.

Who's Been Naughty?

Normally Miss Kitty is pretty cool about Christmas.  She doesn't climb the Christmas tree, doesn't play with the ornaments, doesn't tear the bows off the packages, just gives everything a good look and going over.  Some years she finds one of her packages and decides that's where she'll lay and rest.  But that's about all.  Not this year.  Before I wrap packages they're stored on the floor of my closet and she always goes through them (I mean this is her house and everything that comes in must be inspected) just to see what's going on and because she loves boxes.
This year she found one of her gifts still in an Amazon box, opened just enough so that I could see what it was.  When she found it she wouldn't leave it alone, tried to tear it out of the box.  So I put it on the top shelf until I moved it upstairs for wrapping, yes I'm one of those sad people who wraps presents for their pet.   I thought that was the end of it and after I put it in a gift bag I put it under the tree with the other presents.
But that wasn't the end of it, she found the bag  and tore a hole in it, so back upstairs it went to a closed bedroom.  Mac wanted to get a picture of the damage and decided to take Miss Kitty with him to see what she would do--well the pictures tell the story.

Mac wanted to know if the gift had catnip in it and it does, but normally Miss Kitty doesn't give two hoots for catnip, so we're not sure what's going on.  The present will stay upstairs till Christmas morning.  We 're curious to see if she'll be as fascinated with the unwrapped toy as she has been with the wrapped one.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It's that time of the year, house cleaning so our daughter won't think we need a caretaker when she gets here, grocery shopping---got everything but the prime rib, hopefully I'll pick that up Saturday---, and today cookie baking.  I made more chocolate chip/M&M cookies than I meant too--I can see Goody Bags in our daughter's future--,  and there is sugar cookie dough chilling in the refrigerator waiting to be baked tomorrow.
I know my little train is not the Polar Express, but it can usually do a couple of circuits of the track before derailing.  Note the bag of coal, hope everyone's been nice and not naughty.

A Part of the Season

Glad she chose this basket to lay in instead of the one with the gingerbread men.  She doesn't quite fit, but who am I to tell her she's too big?  Mac always wonders what cats did before they had boxes.

Still Can't Believe

Every time I start to write a blog what happened Friday in Connecticut fills my mind.  Too horrible to believe.
I hear the cries to ban guns, as if this will stop what happened (consider that in China the same day a woman attacked school children with a knife), until we deal with the why--how a person like this can be- then we will change nothing.
I'm at a loss for words and heart sick.

Gingerbread

The scents of Christmas are something that have always made me happy, bringing back childhood memories.  It's why I love a real tree, and after debating whether to have one or not this year, I'm glad to say that after nearly 2 weeks our Douglas Fir is still filling the house with its lovely piney smell.
Another scent I love is the smell of gingerbread, so yesterday the annual gingerbread making began.  I'd planned on frosting them, but in a fit of cleaning a week or so ago I cleaned out my spices and threw out anything I couldn't remember buying, figuring they had to be WAY beyond  their sell by date.  I intended to replace them when next I shopped, but I didn't and now I have no vanilla, so no frosting, nor will I get a head start on my sugar cookies.
I did mix a little powdered sugar, butter and water to at least give some of them a face, though most of them turned out to look like Mr.Bill.
By the way, I looked up to see if vanilla is classified as a spice, it is, and is the second most expensive spice ranking behind saffron.

Beat

Despite all the help from Miss Kitty I'm beat.  Why is wrapping presents more tiring than buying them?
I love shopping, online that is, I hate going out in person, it's always so crowded and you see the same old thing in every store.  Online I can shop all over the world, much more fun.
Shopping for Mac is always the hardest, not because he's fussy, he's not really, it's just that what he wants most is books.  Specifically books by P.G. Wodehouse, books about Jeeves and Wooster, ones he hasn't read.  And I'm sorry, outside of resurrecting Wodehouse that's just not going to happen, so I've been looking for substitutes.
But the wrapping's almost done and though I'm glad, Miss Kitty says she could do it all day.

It's Saturday and the first week of December is gone.  The tree is up and decorated, the house is as decorated as it's going to get, most of the shopping is done and wrapping starts tomorrow.
I don't even want to think about baking yet, haven't even really decided what we're having for Christmas dinner.  The last few years we've gone back and forth between Prime Rib and Leg of Lamb.  This year, for the first time in a long time, I'm feeling like I'd like to have turkey.
What are you cooking?

New Header

Though it pains me greatly, I loved those pumpkins, I've changed my header to a more Christmasy one.  Mac painted this several years ago and each year ends up adding to it and changing it a bit.
My Christmas plants are very happy this year, could it be the 70 degree weather we've been having?  The Paper Whites are doing great and even my most stubborn Christmas cactus ( I call it that reluctantly because it blooms any where from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day) is blooming.

I have 2 pinks and a white, maybe Santa will bring me a red one.

Before and After

We got our Christmas tree on Monday the 3rd of December, that's late for me, I usually can't go pass the 1st without buying one.  Then with one thing and another I didn't have a chance to start decorating it until today.  I'm not quite done, but I'm getting there.

As you can see we decided to buy a real tree, a Douglas Fir, this year and put off getting an artificial one until we're too feeble to carry a real one in.  The last few years we've bought a Fraser Fir and they absolutely don't drop their needles, but they have no smell.  The Douglas Fir is shedding like a long-haired cat, but it smells divine.
This year's model is shorter than we usually get, but it's shape is almost perfect, and boy is is thick.
I don't put glass ornaments on our tree, just resin ones.  With a cat you just don't know what they'll decide to do.  Miss Kitty has  always been  good, but as a precaution we always tie the tree up, for in years past we had a cat who climbed up the trunk of the tree and swatted ornaments.
So I'll sweep pine needles each day, but enjoy the smell as I do it.

Christmas Cards

Wrote my Christmas cards today, boy the postage is getting ridiculous!  Many people I know have quite sending cards, it has just gotten too expensive.  But I don't write any letters, pay most of my bills online, so paying postage at Christmas doesn't seem too much of a luxury.
I keep my old cards and extra cards and I have a stack of them sitting next to my elbow.  I need to think of something crafty to do with them.  May cut some of them up and make Christmas tags out of them.
One I won't be cutting up is one from my Dad, I think it's one of the last few he ever sent, need to find a better place to keep it.

My Dad's card