Merry Christmas!

^"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 

peace and goodwill towards men."

"...And that's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown."

 "A Charlie Brown Christmas" 

Christmas is coming

This has been a good Christmas season. I guess they all are, in fact, if I take time to look around. Here's a little of what has been going on for the last month or so besides building a porch on the back of our house and starting a new job.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, Miss Landers, Ward, and I went to see the Eric Byrd Trio play various arrangements of the music from the Charlie Brown Christmas. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, but beforehand didn't want to go. I was quite comfortable where I was on the couch with Annie on my lap. It's a good thing that I make it a point to schedule things outside of the house or I don't think I would ever leave. The music inspired me to get a Charlie Brown door mat and it makes me smile every time I see it.

Charlie Brown and the gang are greeting our visitors.

The week after that, I had a cookie party with my work friends. I have been to cookie exchanges around this time of year, but the soul purpose of this gathering was not to exchange cookies, it was to eat cookies. Each of ten of us picked a different recipe from the Delish Insane Sweets cookbook and tried it.  We had some meatballs in a slow cooker and some milk for a little protein to balance the fat and sweet from the cookies, but basically we just ate cookies for supper. We gave reports on what we thought of the recipes, but mostly we ate various delicious cookies to our hearts content. I can't wait until we try something like this again.

The week after that, I went with my book club to a one man performance of A Christmas Carol. It is a tradition in this area and remarkable to watch as this one man makes you forget that you are watching only one person play all of the parts. However, there was a glitch. The theater lost electricity twice during the second half. We heard an interesting question and answer period under the emergency lights while they were trying to fix things, but eventually we had to leave for safety reasons. Good thing I already knew how the story ended.



And back to cookies, I've been baking some the last couple of days to take to various events. And there's been a glitch with that, also. I inherited my mother's stand mixer and have happily used it several times. However, after last night's batch of chocolate chip cookies, the beaters were stuck in the mixer. It's down to the point that we are taking the mixer apart to see what we can see. So far, no luck. They're still stuck. Good thing I still have the hand mixer that my mother gave me 35 years ago and a strong stirring arm.

The beaters are stuck.

I count my blessings that a broken mixer is the biggest problem I have today. I hope the same for you.

Until next time...

Ornament Parade 3

It's that time of year again--time when I show you ornaments on my Christmas tree. I wasn't going to do it this year, but then I noticed a new one. That was enough of an excuse for me to do it again.  Here we go with today's features.

All Creatures Great and Small 

(or at least some of them).

Ornament Parade 2

It's that time of year again--time when I show you ornaments on my Christmas tree. I wasn't going to do it this year, but then I noticed a new one. That was enough of an excuse for me to do it again.  Here we go with today's features.

Stockings, Santa, and Rudolph

The Stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

In hopes that Saint Nick would soon be there.

And Santa said, "Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Ornament Parade--1

It's that time of year again--time when I show you ornaments on my Christmas tree. I wasn't going to do it this year, but then I noticed a new one. That was enough of an excuse for me to do it again.  Here we go with today's features.

Angels and Snowmen

This angel is new to the tree this year. My sister made it for my parents and she specially put red hair on it because all of my sisters and I have red hair.

This angle was made by a friend years ago.

This angel is made of olivewood from Bethlehem and was given to me for being a Sunday School volunteer.

This angel adorned a package I got from a friend.

This one is made from a teacup and came from a book club friend.

This angel was given to me by my mother-in-law.

We have two of these snowmen on the tree--one for Wally and one for Theo.

This snowman is sitting on a branch and was made by my aunt. Early on, she gave us a box of ornaments of all kinds that she made. They were a welcome addition to our somewhat bare tree.

This book reading snowman was another gift from my book club friend.

Tune in tomorrow for a parade of Santas.