Getting Ready for Christmas?

Well I made a small attempt at Christmas. We bought 2 wreaths for the front doors, and put in 2 new plants in the planters on the front steps. We had these 2 matching wrought iron topiaries and were going to wrap garlands & lights around them, but we didn't like how they looked last time. So we bought some miniature incense cedars and just used the pots without the topiary stands. They look great. Inside the house, I took out my ceramic miniature schnauzer Christmas tree by Danbury that I bought after Christmas last year. It has tiny lights in it. It's pretty cute. We also received our Blenko glass today from the glass blowing factory in W Va, so I have my angel that sits on a stand with sparkling lights. That's about it! We're not really into Christmas this year. Oh I bought a live Christmas "tree" with lights, its about 6 inches high. I bought it at Trader Joe's and its in the kitchen. A little twinkle here and there. I bought some doggie toys since most of theirs have disappeared into the yard or with the leaves the gardeners blow away every week. At least they'll have some fun opening presents. I have been sending out Christmas cards. Lots of dogster friends sending my dogs cards!

Tom & I have worked on some photo presents for family. We wanted to do more personal things this year. Since we're in the midst of having some work done on the house, we're going to hold off on buying each other presents. We're finally getting more tile done, so that almost all of the rooms at one end will be finished, just the computer room now. That'll be next month. Then we've contracted to have one of the sliding glass doors replaced. They told us we'd have it done before Christmas, but the color we chose will take 6 weeks to receive - of course! And we have to have one of our 6x6 foot windows in the dining room replaced. We woke up one morning and there was a big crack in it. I think Tom slamming the slider every time he opens it (because it's so old and hard to pull) finally caused the window to crack. I was home the whole day before it cracked and nothing hit the window or left a mark. Always something to do in a house. I have lots of plans for updating or remodeling small areas. No major jobs. With the real estate market, it'll be years before we can sell this big house, so I might as well continue with replacements and upgrades.

We've both decided to work on Christmas eve. We'll have Christmas night off and then Tom is on-call for the weekend. Lauren won't be here until January. We typically don't travel for Christmas. So it'll be a quiet one.

But starting in January it will be non-stop traveling or visitors.