Tag Archives: christmas tree

It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas

Hello!  What a beautiful morning we have here in northern Illinois!  It snowed last night, only a tiny bit, but enough to make everything white and beautiful, and oh so peaceful.   The front porch light was on, and it was still dark when I took this photo.  It’s so magical.

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And as light comes to the day, so do the birds come for breakfast.

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I love learning something new this time of year.  This year sock knitting has caught my interest.  Sock knitting seems like something impossibly hard, so I knew I needed a visual class to learn.  So far this Craftsy class by Susan B. Anderson has taught me Judy’s magic cast on, which is how she starts the sock.  I have the toe completed, and am now knitting away at lengthening the foot.  Slowing down the lessons has helped me a lot, and Susan is very thorough.  I have no doubts that I’ll be able to figure out how to make the whole sock.

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This past week I baked another apple crumble.  If you need dessert, like we seem to in our house, this is one of the healthier (Is there such a thing?) ones—lots of apples, oatmeal, nuts, and little sugar.    My recipe is from here, but I keep adapting it.  I found that half the topping seems to work fine for 2 pounds of sliced apples.  We prefer lots of baked apple yumminess and not super sweet—you can eat more that way. 😉

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Even though I have no photos to show you, I have been working on dolly things.  One dress needs a new sweater, and one cape/cuddle cap set needs a new dress.  Sometimes things don’t go as planned.

I hope you all have a most festive weekend.  Take it slow, and enjoy every moment.

Ah, it’s snowing again here, big white flakes!  Bye for now, my friends.

It’s Christmas Eve!

I hope you all are having a beautiful Christmas so far.  My little family is all together and we are enjoying each other’s company.  Right now my husband and daughter are making a pizza for dinner while I am writing a quick blog post to all of you.

I took a few photos of our Christmas tree and some of the ornaments hanging on our tree.  They are always so pretty and magical with the Christmas tree lights hitting them.

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This is my favorite cross stitch ornaments.  I designed and made it for the 1999 Just Cross Stitch’s Christmas Ornament issue.  I remember being thrilled when I saw my ornament as one of the cover ornaments.

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We have many vintage glass ornaments that have been in the family.

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My husband brought back the Royal tara china snowman from Galway City, Ireland two decade ago.  I have a Santa too; they are special to me.

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And our little tree that sits on the vintage drum table in our living room.  I have a lot of my mom and grandma’s ornaments on this tree.  My grandma loved pink ornaments!

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Pizza is done!  It smells delicious!

I wish you all a magical Christmas!  Anyone else having a Christmas Eve pizza?

Bye for now!

 

Winter is in Full Swing

Winter bullied its way in last weekend;  autumn is long gone by now.  We broke an early snow record last weekend, and we will be getting even more snow this weekend.  I know we’re not the only ones.  It’s been a dangerous week for multi vehicle accidents on the highways, and some places have almost two feet of snow already.  Yes, winter 2016 is proving to be a bully!

The day after Thanksgiving, two weeks ago now, we went to the local tree farm to pick and cut down our Christmas tree.  We have a couple of tree farms which are minutes from our house, but choose to drive a little bit farther.  This one is quite festive and busy.  I think it’s more fun to share this experience with many others.  I love seeing all of children and the dogs that come along.

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These tractors take everyone on a fun ride around the farm and to the specific location that grows the type of tree you are looking for.  We always get a Fraser fir, the kind with the short, but soft needles.

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Our chihuahua loves to come help us pick out our tree.  As we roll along on the trailer, he’s taking in the smells of the farm.

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They have “zillions” of trees.  We found ours in a matter of minutes, a huge change from last year.

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Thank goodness for husbands who don’t mind kneeling down on the ground and doing the dirty work.  (My husband also gets the honors of stringing the lights on the tree, bless his heart.)

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Our tree gets wrapped in twine, then gets a good shake to remove any dead needles.  Afterwards they put a ticket on the tree and give us the other half.  The tree waits outside for us while we go into the barn for doughnuts, hot cocoa, and to shop.

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My daughter got a little bag of doughnuts to bring home; I had a bite.  The hot cocoa was EXTREMELY sweet, but I did manage to drink a small cup. 🙂  We resisted purchasing anything . . . except the tree, of course.

The tree is all tied down on the roof of our car.  It’s ready to become a part of our home for the next couple of months.  (These trees drink a lot of water, but last well into January.)

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My husband put together a little video of our visit to the tree farm.  I have it on my Facebook page.  Click here to see it, if you’d like.

Thanks for visiting with me today!

Have a great day everyone!

Bye for now!