The stockings were hung...

I hope Santa has a Garmin or a Tom Tom to find the Muir family this Christmas. I've finally gotten the house decorated, 95% of the presents purchased, cards bought (but not sent) and I'm generally happy with the status of my Christmas preparations. This year we will be traveling "home" to my brother and sister-in-law on Long Island. My MIL stays here and we end up having Christmas twice, once in each location. I can't wait!

The stockings you see here were each handmade. My mom was insistent that she keep our childhood stockings so when I moved out I needed to make a stocking for myself. (Not shown is my DH's stocking. It's made from one of the felt kits for stockings and has Santa coming across the tree and house tops with his sled and reindeers.) The stocking on the right I made for myself. It has the Twelve Days of Christmas in counted cross stitch. The stocking on the left was made for Alexa by the mother of my oldest friend, Jan Moran. Her mom was one of my mother's best friends for over 50 years. Mrs. E is a wonderful sewer, handcrafter, cook - you name it! Mrs. E was kind enough to make this stocking for Alexa's first Christmas. It has her name and her birth year on it.

Here is our mantle in the family room. I've had the wreath for about 15 years. We got it shortly after we moved to the Finger Lakes at a craft show held every year in the village of Hammondsport. It has wooden apples, cinnamon sticks and little santa on it. You can also see most of my Santa collection. I love collecting the large Santas but I'm very, very picky. Alexa's advent calendar this year is compliments of Starbucks. Very cute!

I have a small collection of nutcrakers and my mother's nativity that sit in the living room. I've got a lot more but I thought this would be a nice glimpse into what we do for the holidays.

We had a nice snow storm yesterday. It dumped about 10 inches on the Buffalo area making it a perfect day to stay inside and do 'whatever'. So I think I'll do just that. Hope 'whatever' your plans are you have a great week before Christmas.

P.S. - Yes, we put up a tree. I'll try and get a picture of it up before weeks end.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered...

Samantha Stevens had it all wrong. She wanted to be a 'normal' American housewife. She never wanted to use her powers to do all those 'housewifey' things the typical sixties wife was responsible for. Boy, could I use her powers now!

My house is a mess. I'd love to tweak my nose and have it all clean so I could put up my Christmas decorations. Wait, why stop with the cleaning? I could tweak again and all my decoration would be brought up from the basement, put up and containers put back!

I was wondering if I could get away with putting the decorations up and not cleaning. Maybe they would hide all the dust and no one would know!

I bought Christmas cards last night. Norman won't do them (he did help pick them out though). I could tweak again and they'd be done! I'm really on to something now!

Cookie baking! I'll just whip out my mom's recipes and do a little nose twitching and ta-da, I'm done. I can even use it for the dog biscuits I want to make!

Gosh, don't you love 60's television!

Tis the Season...

I thought that when I had a child I'd really look forward to Christmas. Things aren't exactly like I thought they would be. Alexa has a very, very, small sense of whimsy (if any). She has a really hard time abandoning logical thought and just giving into the premise of a story, or a TV show or a book if it isn't totally realistic.

Santa falls into the category of things she has a hard time believing in. This was even before she tricked us into admitting that there wasn't a REAL Santa Claus. On the subject of Santa, her first visit to Santa was an absolute NO WAY! She wouldn't go near him. She luke-warmed up over the subsequent couple of years (and that's being generous), but she was never into the Santa mystique. I think we gave up trying to take her to see Santa around her 6th or 7th birthday. Practical and self-centered to the end, Christmas is all about Alexa and more importantly, gifts FOR Alexa. Thus, I give you Exhibit A, Alexa's Christmas list.

State of the Art - done in Photoshop, complete with clip art and red font lettering, non-sentimental, but stylish. No mention of how good she's been this year, but complete with stores or catalogs where items may be procured. No confusion over exactly what she wants...comes complete with pictures! No "Dear Santa" to start - or "Love, Alexa to finish. The bonus, we've been told, is that it's a pretty short list this year - she doesn't really want much!

Living with such an 'old' child is not exactly what I had in mind for Christmas!