Let's Get This Show on the Road!

When my brother was here the other day, he reminded me that Christmas was only three weeks away...and that was four days ago! Yikes!!! I am so not ready and will have to do a lot of scrambling in the next few days but the one thing that IS ready is the house and the decorations, so we'd better get going on that!

Welcome to Christmas 2017. I did definitely try to simplify this year. If you are new to this blog, you may not see that but if you could see the pile of things I didn't put out, you would be a believer.

The one thing I haven't done this year is put up the "miles" of icicle lights we normally run along the fences and house. The peak of our house is pretty high and I am not comfortable teetering on the top of the ladder any longer to get to it so I have gone very traditional on the porch and if any little elves are ever here with time on their hands, we might get it done. If not, I'm good for this year.

I changed up the couch table a bit this year. I have collected Santas for many years and there are usually a lot of them out on and around this table. For whatever reason, I decided I didn't want to use them all any more and am keeping only the ones that have meaning to me. I put four of the most traditional on the table and then just the pot of poinsettias in the middle. Still thinking there might a tweak coming but it is good for now. The small runner under the pot is a long ago gift from my mother-in-law. It is exactly like one she used from her native Norway and she bought me one when I mentioned how much I liked hers. It must be pretty well made as it has been used for over 50 years!

I still love my old green balustrade so much that I wanted to use it somewhere but didn't have any other room than the floor by the table. It looked kind of silly just sitting there so I added my quilt wrapped Santa.

I never remember to take a picture of this Santa. I actually got the print free from a local store but, believe me, they more than made up for it with the price of matting and framing! Lol I like him because he looks like so many of the Santas I have!

I still love filling the dough bowl with old ornaments. Many of them-but not as many as there used to be-are from both my parents' and my in-laws' trees.

I love this picture of us with our grand children with our Christmas "props". It made for a cute card several years ago.

These pictures on either side of the chest were more of my "free" art. I got the postcards as a gift when I purchased something but the matting and framing always break the bank.

I have actually rearranged this vignette after seeing this picture. I moved the taller Santa to the middle and even though I don't like the two Santas next to each other, the height in the middle looks better. I would lower the Santa picture but the two screws already in the wall from the mirror that is usually there work perfectly for the picture so....

I am in awe of this Santa cross stitch...not because I made it but because my eyes were ever good enough to actually stitch on 22 count fabric!

So that's it for the living room.

I did fit in some fun this week. Two Christmas concerts at the exact same time-one at Harrison's middle school and the other at Hud and Presley's elementary school. It's a good thing the two schools share a campus. We got to watch Har perform on guitar and then hustle over to catch both of the other kids' singing. Pictures are horrible but you get the idea. It was another lovely addition to the holiday season!

Think I'd better head off and make some lists...and check them twice. Stay tuned.