Reconfigured

 I made some changes this year in my Christmas decorations. The sleigh with the bears that sat on the entry table has been moved to the den. I have it sitting on a runner that I bought at the estate sale of my neighbor who died after brain surgery. The sleigh and the cedar chest were made by my husband.

For several years I have purchased a pink/pinkish poinsettia, but this year I went with the traditional red.

Since the Christmas bears are now in the den, I needed something different for the entry table. I set out the candle holders I have used there, but in-between them is the angel that I used to put on the top of my tree. I now have a small tree that she would overwhelm so though I put the angel on top of my china cabinet a few times, this year she is sitting on a little red Christmas towel I bought at the Guenther House gift shop in the King William district of San Antonio.

Yesterday we drove to Fort Wayne to dine and to shop. At Trader Joe's I didn't see any amaryllis like last year; I bought a paper white narcissus instead. It has some sunshine bathing it today, but next week will be rainy/snowy.

 Another new item is a pillow also from my neighbor's estate sale. I suppose this could be displayed at other times of the year since it doesn't have Christmas colors. It is a nice size for the glider loveseat. 

Do you like this font? It is called Montserrat. I first used it in the Thankgiving post. I think it is very easy to read. I may switch to it for a while. 

I am not pleased with how things are trending. Our county is seeing quite an increase in COVID cases, including the staff at Grace Village. The GV staff is tested twice a week so the 8 positives may not be sick, just carrying the virus. The chaplain has been very ill.

Yesterday when I stopped at AAA at Northcrest Mall, the employee told me she had no travel guides for Florida except the Panhandle. She instructed me to go to the web site. I really wanted a paper issue so I could mark the restaurants and places that interested me.

I ended up taking some guides for Indiana, Ohio, Michigan because she told me when those in stock were gone there would be no more. They are not going to print the guides; they will be digital only. She did have some maps for me: Florida and one for Daytona Beach where we will arrive via plane. 

This morning I went to my local Walgreens to pick up my online order. The clerks could not find it. I showed them the email I had received that said it was ready for picking up. Finally, they checked the tracking and it showed the product is in Memphis Tennessee and won't come until probably next Tuesday. I am not sure I would try ordering online again. I did the online order because this product has not been in stock at my store for over a month and it was on sale.

There are shipping delays galore. The jeans my husband ordered from Kohl's on November 24th still has not arrived. The FedEx tracker said it would arrive November 29th. Of course with the holiday, I figured it would be a little longer. They transferred the package to the U.S. postal service, but actually it sat in Indianapolis for almost a week at FedEx before it was transferred December 3rd. 

I did have a good outcome with the gifts I ordered online from Costco. The Monday after Thanksgiving they shipped and took 2 days for the ones going to California, 3 days for the North Carolina destination. 

Fortunately, we don't have an urgent need for the things that are taking a long time. The important shipments were the Christmas gifts and they have been delivered. Hope your online shopping has not been like ours. Bonne chance. 

Christmas Details

I have been enjoying my Christmas decorations. This holly runner was given to me last year by sister-in-law B. It fits perfectly on my china cabinet. I took these photos without a tripod using my new camera. The close-ups did not blur the way my old camera would have done. Notice the little buttons and wooden holly leaf detail on each end of the runner. I love it.
The little house was a gift several years ago from my sister K. The trees and snowmen were created by my husband. I enjoy seeing the whole scene during these weeks leading up to Christmas.

This little nativity I bought at Frankenmuth, Michigan, decades ago. The coaster is one of 6, four different birds represented. It is sitting in the den on the mesquite table my husband built.

The camera has distorted the color of the poinsettia some. It is more pinkish. I bought the tablecloth on Etsy a few years ago. The seller measured the distance from the middle to the candles. It works perfectly on my glass "patio" table in the sunroom. Yes, that white on the grass is snow. We have had flurries throughout the day and at around 20 degrees they have stuck.

Except for a door wreath and more recently the red ribbon on the pedestal for the green ball, we haven't done outdoor decorating. This year my husband decided to wrap red ribbon around the pillars. Our dear neighbor on the other end of the quadplex did this every year we lived in the condo. He went to heaven in May.

Not only did I use my new camera, but I am using my Photopad image editor that I loaded on to this computer after our old computer died. First time I tried a collage. Still much to explore and learn on the camera and the software.

Christmas Tree Grove

I have a Christmas tree grove in my den today. My husband learned to turn these when he joined his woodworking buddies in Texas for a few days. He had painted them green before we left for Williamsburg; today he painted the "ornaments". Aren't they cute?

I will try to post about our Road Scholar trip to Williamsburg in a few days. We drove to Virginia, leaving last Sunday and returning yesterday. It was a wonderful experience despite ending with cold temperatures and sleet and snow from winter storm Benji. We are expecting snow and blowing winds tomorrow here. I have a haircut appointment in the afternoon. Otherwise, I am staying inside and doing laundry. I will play my new CD of the armonica. You will learn about that in the Williamsburg post.

All Decorated

 

I finished my Christmas decorating yesterday. The tree was last. I ordered a small tree skirt from CharsStars. I had wrapped napkins around the base of my artificial tree in the past, but they were looking kind of faded.

I hung my cute wreath at the patio door like last year.

The biggest change this year is that I got rid of the Debbie Mumm plates and bought all new ones on ebay, each different. There is a cardinal in three of them and the ribbon motif also in 3 to tie them together some.

I am enjoying the change.

I still need to get out the Christmas placemats.

Next week is very busy for me. My helper in the library is gone December and maybe January; I will need to go over and shelve more often. Choir is fine tuning the music for the December 16th concert; my husband will come to C Lounge Monday evening around 5 p.m. when practice ends, and we will walk around for the open house to see how folks decorated their apartments. Then, we will go out for a bite of supper. Tuesday is the condo neighborhood Christmas lunch (prime rib). Wednesday I am co-hostess for Literary Club. Since it is the holidays, the two of us are going to supplement the refreshment provided by the caterer. I think I am going to make a chicken-based cracker spread. If it turns out OK, I will share the recipe in a future blog. Already bought the little red plates and some M and M’s. They have almond instead of peanut candy and the non-nut ones have mint flavor. All of these are in red and green.

We will have snow this Sunday. Hope the roads are clear enough for me to get to my dentist appointment Monday morning. It feels like winter.

Thinking Ahead

You are probably tired of hearing about hydrangeas. I put away most of the solid green ones and put the rest in a smaller vase. This is what I will keep displayed until November probably. No more hydrangea photos I promise.

Today was the start of the Swap Shop week at Grace Village. I picked up a metal tray of a winter scene with a cardinal. I bought new winter/Christmas plates for my plate rack, one at a time thru ebay. I had tired of the Debbie Mumm plates. Time for a change. I’ll share the new plates when I put them up for Christmas. There are cardinals on several of them so this tray will help carry that theme thru the house.

Christmas is the bright spot of winter.

Keeping Warm

This is the scene through my condo windows today. The snow continues to steadily fall so there will be even more accumulation into tonight. Our low will be about 17 degrees and the high tomorrow (Sunday) about 25 degrees. It’s not unusual to get some snow in the second half of November, but such cold temperatures are not typical for this time of year. I guess I will be wearing the new winter coat I bought a few weeks ago at a half-off price sale.

It is a perfect day for crockpot turkey corn chili.

At lunch I baked some chocolate chip cookies from refrigerator cookie dough. Later this afternoon I will munch on a cookie and drink a mug of hot chocolate as I peruse the book I bought yesterday at Half Price Books in Fort Wayne.

I really like looking at barns as I drive in Indiana. Someday I am going to drive around and take more photos of barns in the surrounding area. I have a few I took in the past. A lot of the barns are in poor shape. I have a book Indiana Barns and now this new book will join it on the shelf.

Later this afternoon or tomorrow I will probably start playing around with the decorations for the December 2nd Winona Literary Club meeting. I am one of the three hostesses. I bought some more small balls and “glitter beads” at Hobby Lobby as there are 6 rose bowls to fill. All of Hobby Lobby’s Christmas stuff was half off.

 

The bowls belong to the club. The downside to choosing this as the table decorations is that they are the ornaments I use on my own tree. I won’t be able to decorate my Christmas tree until after December 2nd. One of my co-hostesses has some green and red print napkins we will place under the bowls.

 I did make good progress on shopping for Christmas gifts yesterday. Only 5 weeks until Christmas. We have tickets for a Christmas concert by the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra at the Warsaw High School on December 13th. That orchestra travels around to several locations for the holiday concert.

 Feeling a little sleepy. I had better go have my cookie and cocoa to wake me up.

 

 

 

Looking Like Christmas

I have almost finished decorating. It is time consuming, but I get to think of all of the memories associated with my Christmas items. This Bavarian Nativity joined us fairly early in our marriage. One Thanksgiving my husband joined his brother at a Lions football game. My sister-in-law and her two children were going to drive me up to Frankenmuth, Michigan. The kids both woke with ear aches. I decided I would go by myself with my sister-in-law’s blessings. This was my purchase at Bronner's, a famous Christmas retail warehouse.

                               

We downsized to a tabletop tree even before we moved to Indiana. Now it is just the right size for our sunroom.

 But I had accumulated lots of ornaments thru the years that wouldn’t be the right scale for the little tree. I have experimented thru the years how to display my favorites from trips and craft fairs and that had graced my gifts. I used a lot of them as package toppers, but I couldn’t part with these yet. This year I put them in the wooden compote dish my husband made last year.

The painted gourd ornament from Santa Fe, New Mexico found a close-by niche.

There are other things though. A collector’s plate that my father had and never used that I was unable to sell on ebay has become central to my lighted bookcase display.

  

 

My mom had a really cute tissue box cover at her house one year when I visited. She asked my cousin to make one for me for the next Christmas. This cousin did these on her long bus ride to work and home.

I have tried a few new things this year. The little pillow my sister gave me one year at her house now sits on the loveseat next to the new wine sherpa throw.

         

My Debbie Mumm plates scooped up at after-Christmas sales at Mervyn’s are too reflective to photograph well. I have some hanging in a plate rack in the sunroom and some in the kitchen cupboard with mugs to use throughout the season.  Here is a photo of one of them from ebay. She sure was popular for awhile. I haven’t heard of her in years; have you? 

 

 

There are a few other touches, but I have rambled much too long. Enjoy your own decorations and memories.