Tree & Us, Ready & Waiting

Well, it only took the better part of a week, but our Christmas tree is ready for prime time! Last Friday half of the lights were on, as our friend Steve noted in a comment. Ava supervised much of the decorating until she went home with Barb on Tuesday night. I finally got around to taking some pictures today.








Many of our decorations have a nature theme, which is why it's not unusual to find a spider web next to a partridge. This year we also got out our smaller trees, one of birds and another of angels, and all 14 nativities and all 21 Santas. The next day we have good natural light, I'll try to photograph some of them. As a good friend says, don't put off celebrating Christmas. Do it all. A good motto, I think.

Norm has been fighting off a cold, but seems well enough now. My cold has all but disappeared. We see that our local Walgreens is having an H1N1 vaccination clinic tomorrow and if the snow doesn't get too deep, we may go.

That's right, snow is forecast this evening and something is making the pavement wet outside as I write. About 11 p.m. we will head out to the airport to meet Doug's plane. Then we will all wait until Matt, who is driving the Prius with Sam as a passenger, arrives on Sunday evening. Barb and Ava plan to leave for Kansas City in the morning for a friend's holiday party. So we pray for safety for all of the travelers.

I've been doing some baking--dessert for the Quilt Guild's annual Christmas party last night, and some goodies for our pastor's open house on Sunday evening. The fudge is in the fridge. Now if I can just keep the chocoholics out of it!

With the house straight and clean, most (but not all) shopping and cooking done, we can finally breathe and begin to enjoy the season. Who knows, we might even work on the Christmas Letter this weekend! Or next. Look for it between Christmas and New Year's.

Well, I think I'll go try to re-organize the sewing room while we wait for the plane. I spent part of the last week cutting strips and making fabric kits for the guild's charity quilts project, which will begin in January. All the kits got taken last night, which is very encouraging. Or maybe I'll just sit in the recliner and knit. Maybe dream of a White Christmas, since snow is in our forecast for Christmas Eve. That's actually pretty rare in St. Louis--only about 1 year out of 9 has snow for Christmas. Maybe this will be the year.