Happy New Year Glitter Pictures

CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS WITH FAMILY

Christmas Day was quiet at the house but we enjoyed the view out the bonus room window.
It was our first white Christmas in about 17 years.
I had forgotten to take pictures of the upstairs tree, so here are a few snapshots of some old ornaments. This one includes a "Peace On Earth" that my mother cross stitched while they were living in Georgia, a wooden angel that's been around a while, a red bell that is older than I am and a wooden angel that Kate painted for me last year.

Below is the rocking horse ornament that I paid more than I should have for it and handyman wasn't very happy with me --- so I ALWAYS hang that ornament where he can see it. The cross-stitch angel was one that I cross stitched for Holly in 1984. I made one for Kristy too. I'm not sure if I've given that one to her, or what has happened to it.
This angel was in a set that my dad bought back in the late 1940's. This was on my parent's tree every year while I was growing up.
Kristy and her family arrived on Sunday afternoon. The kids were so excited, but had to wait until Monday morning, when Aunt Holly got here, to open their presents.
Here's a picture of Nate "just hanging around."
We got the girls a new game MOO UNO. They really liked playing it and even got Aunt Holly to play with them.
Paw Paw & I both got to have special time with Kate on our laps. I'm not sure how much longer she's going to fit since she's getting so tall.
Gabriella went to sleep after lunch out a Mariah's on Monday. We passed her around, but she got in a pretty good nap.

Kate wanted to take a picture of her mother ---- it wasn't one of Kristy's better pictures!!
What would a visit at Gam & Paw Paw's be without a "pony" ride on Paw Paw.
I got a good picture of the Stace Family by the tree.
We really enjoyed our Christmas with all the kids! I am so glad that we got to spend time with all of them. They left this morning and we haven't done much since. It's been a lazy afternoon!
I'm not sure when I'll "un"decorate the house but I'm not in any hurry. I'm still enjoying all of the lights!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

HERE WE GO A-CAROLING!

Our Sunday School class has picked a Sunday night close to Christmas each year, ever since I can remember, to go caroling at nursing homes and homes of church members who are elderly shut-ins, have health issues or have lost a family member to death during the year. Our family joined in this activity when our children were in elementary school. It has been a wonderful tradition to have at Christmastime.

We have a few ladies that I can't remember when we didn't have them on our list to carol to. At the beginning, I guess we didn't have quite as many older people in our congregation so we just went to the homes of some of the church leaders. Now the average age of our church membership is a lot older than it was some 25 years ago.
At the beginning a couple of the young ladies in our class would have a marathon candy making event and they provided all of the food that we ate after caroling. Years later, we began having too many carolers to gather in a home so we started meeting at the church and everyone pitched in by bringing finger foods to share. As our children grew up and left our community, the number of participants dropped off. But there were still some of us who loved it so much that we continued every year. Handyman and I decided it was more cozy to have the after carol gathering in a home rather than in the fellowship hall at church so we began a new tradition of hosting this in our home. We really enjoy getting our house decorated and ready for all the guests. We've also bought extra dishes and cups so we don't have to use disposable plates, glasses and cups. Handyman also really gets into the food aspect ---he makes sausage balls, meatballs, country ham and biscuits and has started buying shrimp too. I made a couple of kinds of Christmas cookies this year.
This year was very special for us. Our daughter came back to carol with us, along with our son-in-law and grandchildren. Our 5 year granddaughter, Kate, had a wonderful time. Before we left the house, one of our friends tied jingle bells to Kate's shoe laces and I gave her a jingle bell necklace that had been bought when her mother was just a few years older than her. It was so funny watching her trying to get those bells on the shoes to jingle while she shook the necklace bell. She knew the words to almost ever Christmas carol that we sang. I noticed a lot of people watching her and they were amazed at how well she knew the songs. Our 3 year old granddaughter, Gabby, is very shy and she wasn't real thrilled to be around so many people (there were 37 of us) and she kept pulling her hood over her face so no one could see her. But she didn't whine and fuss. She was very good, but just wanted to be carried so she didn't have to mix with everyone else. We were concerned with how 1 year old, Nate, would do. Back in the day with our kids, we didn't have to worry with car seats. We just loaded the kids up and took off. Nate (and Gabby) had to be strapped in between all of the stops, even if they were only a mile apart. Kate can strap herself in, so she wasn't a problem at all. Nate got tired and sleepy, but he did so well. I was so proud of him. He was a real trooper! We had several other grandchildren join us this year. The kids just make it so much more fun. After about two hours of lots of ins and outs we returned home to enjoy all of the food that we had fixed and the others had brought in.
For me, it was the most fun I had had caroling since we first started caroling with our kids.
I am so thankful that the "Potpourri" class has continued this tradition for all of these years and that our kids and grandkids have all been able to be a part of it.
From "Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the New Born King" to "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," it is wonderful to be a Christian and be able to celebrate the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

I love Christmas! Of course, as a child I loved the "getting" of Christmas. As I grew up, I loved the "giving" of Christmas. Today I try to remember more about the reason for Christmas. I like decorating our home for Christmas, but I like to keep more to theme of Christ, than Santa Claus. We have decorated a little more this year with colored lights, bright colored ornaments and Santa Claus because of the grandchildren.

Below are pictures of the Nativity that we have around our house.
I love this ornament, it has so much detail.

I purchased this clear ornament back in 1978 for our daughter, Kristy, to give to her grandmother on Kristy's 1st Christmas. It was on my mother's Christmas tree(s) for nearly 30 years. I should probably pass this ornament down to my daughter.


This white nativity has graced our house for a long time. I don't remember the year I purchased it on clearance after Christmas from CoachHouse Gifts in the mall. Only after closer examination, I discovered that I had received 4 Wisemen and no Joseph. The Wiseman that I use for Joseph is smaller than the other Wisemen (no doubt from another set) and closer in size to Mary. Fortunately most people don't look too closely at it and no one is the wiser, except for me. (and you). Lots of years ago, Handyman took some slab wood that we had bought to burn in the woodstove we had at the time and made the stable for us. It gave it more of an old, weathered look. Then in 1996 our foreign exchange student, Sie, made the gold star for us. I love taking this out of the box every year and remembering the time that she was with us.

Last year, Handyman and I were looking for some Christmas decorations to put in our plant nooks. They're about 10' off the floor, so you don't see much detail in whatever is up there. We found these at Pier 1. I liked the simplicity of Joseph, Mary & Jesus. They're made of metal and very unusual. This year they had the Wisemen made out of the same material. I meant to go back and check their size to see if they would go with the Holy Family, but I've never made it back and by now they've probably sold out.


Luke 2

The Birth of Jesus

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to his own town to register. 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

May you have a very blessed Christmas!

A HOMEMADE CHRISTMAS

I've been trying to come up with some different ideas for Christmas presents for the grandkids besides just buying toys or clothes. When I was growing up, at some point, I really don't remember how old I was at the time, I received a bath towel with my name printed on it. I thought it was really neat at the time. I've looked at some of these towels recently and when I saw that they were running $20 - $25 each, I decided that there was no way I was spending $60 for three towels for the grandchildren. I'm sorry, I love them, but, no! Too much -- way too much.
So....I went to Walmart and bought some material - Sponge Bob for Nate and Tinkerbell for Kate & Gabby

and some towels.

Then I proceeded to trace the letters of their names (using some stencils I already had) onto the fabric and cut them out. Oh, yes, before I cut them out I got some old "Stichery Witchery" or "Wonder Under" and pressed it onto the back side of the fabric. This was supposed to stick the letters onto the towels plus keep the raveling down. I don't know if it was because it was old and had been in the attic or whether it was because of the texture of the towels, but they didn't stick. I ended up having to hand baste the letters on the towels, then took them to the sewing machine and zig-zagged them on so that, hopefully, they won't ravel (much).

I hope the girls like theirs. I don't think Nate will care at this point, but that's okay. At least when he gets older, I will have kept a picture around so he knows he wasn't left out!! BTW - Kate's favorite color is purple and Gabby's is pink. Nate doesn't have a favorite color! And if you're wondering, "Why Katie and not just Kate?" When Kate started printing her name, she like the "i" in the spelling, just not in the pronunciation. So I write it as Katie, but say it as Kate!!

THE GRAND TREE

This has been a busy week. I’ve traveled over 450 miles in two days for work, had two nights of choir practice, and worked at the office three days. Decorating had not been a priority for me, but yesterday when I got home from one of my traveling days, handyman had put up our big tree in the living room and put the lights on it. Even though I was tired, I wanted to get it decorated. I spent a little time before supper, then a little time before choir practice and finished it up when I got home from choir practice. I added ribbon to the tree this year. I had tried it a few years ago but just didn’t like how it turned out. I went on the internet and found a video telling how to put ribbon on a Christmas tree. I like it so much better this way than just wrapping it around the tree like I had tried before.

Here it is without the lights on.

And with the lights.

Here are some of my favorite ornaments:

This ornament was brought to us by our Danish exchange student back in 1996. She couldn’t have brought another ornament that would have pleased me more. This one just fit in so well with all of my other gold ornaments.

The details didn’t show up well in this ornament of Jesus, Joseph & Mary, but it is a beautiful ornament.

The three wise men.

A Church

And of course…angels….

Angels

And more angels....at last count there were almost 100 angels on the tree!

LET THE DECORATING BEGIN

We've never rushed into decorating our house for Christmas. I think this year is different since the kids came for just a few days at Thanksgiving and we had a day to rest and then were ready to do something! I'm hoping that since they're closer this year that they'll be here to see the decorations more than one time too. Anyway, we started yesterday getting out some of the decorations. A few weeks ago I purchased a new 4' tree for upstairs. Since we had an extra tree, I decided to put it in the girl's room with just lights and some plastic ornaments and ribbon. It has the angel that was on top of our tree every year while the kids were at home. I hope they like it!!


We have a small 2' tall tree in the breakfast room. This tree has mostly homemade ornaments. I made some but my mother made most of them. I love this tree because of the love that went into making the ornaments.


The last tree that we put up today was in the bonus room. Over the years we had added quite a few ornaments to our collection. It seemed that over half of our ornaments were gold in color and I decided to change our large tree to all gold. We still had a lot of sentimental ornaments that would not work on an all gold tree. So, this little 4' tree holds all of those special ornaments. Quite a few of them were bought by my parents even before I was born. Some were bought by our kids thru the years and there are even a couple that were painted by granddaughters, Kate & Gabby.


We still have the tallest tree that goes in the living room to put up. Hopefully we'll get it all up this week. I'm still debating on putting up a couple of more trees, but I haven't decided for sure just yet. Since we've gotten such an early start, it may just happen!! We'll see!!

We are so Blessed - A Great Thanksgiving Weekend

We have had a great weekend. The Stace family came in about noon on Wednesday. We "treated" the grandkids to McDonald's for lunch and the adults got (had) to eat hamburgers too. We always enjoy our time together but holidays are so much better when they're around. We get to read a lot and watch all of the funny things the kids do. (Sorry it's sideways!) Handyman made chili for supper. Nephew, Ryan, got in about 7 pm. That was different to have him here a little longer than usual. Normally he comes in with his parents on Thanksgiving Day. I think he & son-in-law, Justin, enjoyed their conversations with one another. Thanksgiving morning started early -- I was up and in the shower at 5:30. Once I started making noise in the kitchen, the rest of the gang was up too. Turkey was in the oven by 6:20. The day was spent cooking, eating and enjoying family. All too soon, my brother and all of his family took off for his in-laws in Alabama. Exhaustion set in after all of the cleanup. I wasn't worth much for the rest of the day. After lunch on Friday Kristy & her family took off for home. Thankfully the trip is only about an hour and a half on a good day. So much better than the 10 hour trip to Kansas!! Today, Handyman & I drove up to the cabin to pick up a few things we needed at the house. Traffic wasn't bad and we had a nice drive. I finally made it out to one store to do some shopping today. Handyman drug a lot of the Christmas decorations out of the attic today and we put a lot of it out today. We haven't started on any trees or outdoor lights & wreaths yet. Normally we don't even start any Christmas decorations until December, but since the Thanksgiving company had left and we had a day of rest, we thought it would be a good time to decorate some. Then for supper we pretty much finished up the Thanksgiving food. We had some squash, a little turkey and some gravy left over to throw out, but I think that's it. I'm ready for something other than turkey tomorrow!! I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday as much as I did. Tomorrow, it's off to church for the 1st Sunday in Advent and decorating the church!

Here's the start of our decorating.

FROM THE OVEN

Preparations are continuing for the big day on Thursday. I've been making my list(s) and checking them twice (or three or four times). Some things just can't be done ahead of time. Last minute groceries will need to be bought, bathrooms will need to be cleaned --- again, and lots of food cooked. One of the few foods that I felt like I could do ahead of time were cookies. The most often made cookie at our house is chocolate chip, but that wasn't on my list for this weekend. The first batch of cookies that I made were Filled Raisin Cookies. These are most certainly NOT my favorite. When I was a child, my grandmother would make these cookies and most of the other people in the family would just rave about them, but not me, I just didn't care for them. I remember my cousin, Susan, carrying a bucket of these cookies around. Today I can eat one or two when I bake them, but that's about it.

My mom had continued the tradition of making raisin cookies using her mother-in-law's recipe and now that she's gone, my daughter, who likes these cookies,and I have both continued the tradition.

When I was growing up my mother made lemon crisp sugar cookies every year that were shaped with a cookie press. Now, Christmas at our house just wouldn't be Christmas without these little cookies. Since my brother isn't usually around at Christmas, I made him some Christmas cookies for Thanksgiving since that's one of the few times each year that I get to see him. I painted him a cookie tin one year that says "Terry's Cookies." He usually returns it to me to refill for him. Right now I don't know where that cookie tin is. I hope he has it and can bring it so he can get a refill since I made the cookies.

I'm looking forward to Thursday and having all the family here and yummy food!!

PREPARATIONS

Does this room look ready for company?

Thanksgiving is one week from today. Does my house look like we’re prepared for guests? Ha!! We decided to get the carpets cleaned before the holidays since we wanted our home to look it’s best for our company. I got on-line and scheduled the date for Tuesday – this past Tuesday, November 16^th. The dates that were already taken were grayed out and I picked a day that was available – we thought. Handyman didn’t want to leave things until the last minute since we’re having three rooms and a hall cleaned so he jumped right in and emptied one of our guest rooms into the other guest room and then moved a lot of our living room furniture into the sunroom. So now four of our rooms are either messed up or empty. The carpet people finally called and said they didn’t get the information from the website until the day we wanted was already booked, along with the rest of the week. So now they have rescheduled for next Tuesday. I guess I should be relieved since that is before our guests arrive – not while they are here OR after they’ve left. It’s just going to push it a little closer getting everything put back where it belongs.

This room has been completely emptied

and all of it's contents put in this room.

The living room is missing all of the tables and some chairs will

be moved the day of the carpet cleaning.

I will be glad once the carpets are cleaned and we can put everything back in it's place!!

VETERANS DAY

President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed an Armistice Day for November 11, 1919. In proclaiming the holiday, he said

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with lots of pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

In 1953, a Kansas shoe store owner named Alfred King had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who served in World War I. He began a campaign to turn Armistice Day into "All" Veterans Day. A bill for the holiday was pushed through Congress. President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law on May 26, 1954.

On June 1, 1954, congress amended the act, replacing "armistice" with Veterans.

(Information from Wikipedia)

A special thanks today to the men in my life who have served our country in the armed forces.

MY HEROS

My daddy, who served in the US Navy, World War II

My husband, who served in the US Army, Vietnam

SUCKERS

As a child growing up in the 1950's suckers were a normal treat. You got them at the doctor's office, the bank, and many other places. We rarely had chocolate candy. I don't think they had invented the mini-candy bars yet. If you got a candy bar, it was BIG! We had a lot more hard candy. Suckers have always been a staple for Halloween candy. They were cheap, not as messy as chocolate and kids liked them.
About twenty years ago, Handyman's dad was making wood crafts. For Thanksgiving one year, he made wooden turkeys. They have holes drilled in them where you are supposed to insert suckers. The suckers are there for their tail feathers. Several years ago we started having a little trouble finding the suckers at Thanksgiving, but if you went ahead and bought them when the Halloween candy was out, you were all set. Several years we forgot to buy them at Halloween so the turkey stayed in the attic. I was on top of it this year. I put suckers on my shopping list so I could get them while the Halloween candy was on the shelves. I looked at Walmart, Kmart, called the candy store in the mall, but no one had plain suckers. They had fancy lollipops, lots of Tootsie Roll Pops, Dum Dums, chocolate covered suckers, but no plain suckers. I did find some on Amazon, com and at Oriental trading, but with an $8.95 price tag plus $6.95 shipping I decided to pass on them.
I finally thought about the Dollar General Market and stopped on my way home tonight. They still had their Halloween candy out, but the only suckers I found were orange with white pumpkins imprinted on one side. I had about decided that they would have to do when I found a candy display section that had, no not the plain suckers I was really looking for, but suckers that would do.
There was an extra sucker in the package without a stick, so I decided that I would eat it --- YUK! They are the worst tasting suckers that I have ever had. Oh, well. They'll still look good on the turkey!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY

Holly thru the years

I can hardly believe that it has been 30 years since our youngest daughter was born. She was early to walk (9 months) but not much with talking (and still isn't). She's the quiet one, the loner. She was always happier when everyone just left her alone. I'm not sure what she does to pass the time. She loves to read and watch movies. When she moved out to her first apartment, we thought she was gone, but like her sister, she kept coming home. It was always nice to have her back. Then she bought a house and returned no more. She likes her job at the police station, but because of her hours, we hardly ever see her. I go to work at 7 am, but she gets off work at 7:30am. I get off at 3:00 pm, but by that time, she's gone to bed. She gets up to get ready for work about the time that I'm going to bed. Her days off and mine don't coincide so there just isn't much time to get together. I miss having her around.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY!!
WE LOVE YOU!