Merry Christmas Eve Everyone!!

Yesterday we had a tournament of Scrabble that lasted until nearly midnight. We didn’t mean to, we just started playing after a quick supper and five games later, I (ok my friends…pay close attention here….) "I" won 3 out of the 5 games!!! Woohoo can ya believe it?? AMAZING! My smart genes must have finally kicked in eh?

Ok, so I didn’t wallop him by 200 points like he did me, but I did win by 10 or 12 hard won scraped up points despite my honey’s getting a 50 point bonus pretty early on! But we are not sore losers and are impressed and laugh when the other manages to pull something out of thin air. ‘Ormolu’ saved me last night – once I figured out how to spell it with our new Scrabble Dictionary – and had us chuckling for awhile! And when Dennis won the third game and I said "Congratulations, you finally won a game!" he just rolled with laughter at my throwing his words back at him. We really do have too much fun with this game!

I do have pictures to show. Barton said she wanted to see my Christmas (well, actually someone else said they wanted to see HER Christmas, but I’m sure I can butt in on that invitation!  That’s what friends are for…to annoy us! LOL! Oh wait, that’s family isn’t it? )

Oh! Speaking of family, I have to thank my cousin Val (KatLady) for inspiring the breed of our next family dog. I keep telling Dennis that I want to wait for awhile after our sweet baby passes. I love our old Rottie to bits and pieces, but my gosh I can’t keep ahead of the housework with her in it! However once I read this joke on Val’s OD I knew I’d get this dog in a heartbeat no matter what because I love Christmas so much. So what kind of dog would that be? A cross between an Irish Setter and an English Pointer…A POINTSETTER!! Don’t ya LOVE it?? Now that’s a holly jolly kinda pup!

One last piece of happy news before I go to the pictures. Christmas is a time for family and friends and the Christmas cards I sent out have brought two old friends back. One was a long lost friend and I took a shot she was still at the address I had from 18 years ago that I found in a box of old stuff, and lo and behold she was! I have yet to call her at the phone number she emailed me because I was on the phone with another friend I had lost touch with only about a year ago I think. But it’s always lots of love and laughter when we do get talking so I’d like to say it’s nice to have you back again Carole!!! I have missed you and we need to get together soon!

Ok, now for the Christmas pictures!

This is a Christmas cactus that never blooms at Christmas. I think it bloomed around Valentine’s Day last year and this year it was in early November in time for my birthday! I don’t get it, but it sure is gorgeous:)

Here’s our mailbox (obviously! lol) You can see our decked out porch and ‘reindeer’ in the background. Dennis truly outdid himself this year, it’s just beautiful all lit up at night. Of course now we’re competing with our next door neighbors we kiddingly refer to as the Bumpasses (from Christmas Story). They decorate like they have a Used Tree Lot! AND then leave all the wrappers the decorations came in strewn all over the ground!

Here’s a shot of the house at night. The picture doesn’t do it justice, and we have since added a third reindeer and a lit up Santa and 3 reindeer below the porch here thanks to a 30% off sale at Target! hee hee

This is the bush out front by the mailbox covered in those nets of lights. It makes it look like one big gumdrop! The kids around here love it! lol.

This is my favorite and oldest animated scene. My sister Kathy got it for me for no reason one year because she knew I was saving up for it and was worried they’d be gone before I could buy it. The dancers all circle and twirl without a pattern and they never hit each other. Now if you look close, I took this picture after the kids were up for early Christmas. In the back near the poinsettia there is a sofa in the scene with 2 kids standing next to it. And ON the sofa are 2 little figures from the next scene that I hadn’t found yet. The kids (who are 21 and 22 mind you!) were mixing and matching the figures and when I caught them, they all went into the old "It wasn’t me" routine! Made me laugh….and glad they’re all grown and gone! LOL!

The skating pond is my second oldest scene with our brand new one this year in the back! The little tug of war scene on the right is animated but moves so slow that you have to stare at it to catch it!

This was last year’s additionto our collection. I absolutely love it! The little elves come out and ‘play’ a carole on the hour every hour. Makes me smile every time. The little angels in the front are actually Hallmark salt and pepper shakers. My sister Kathy also gave me these and I have decided that they represent my sister and me since she has darker hair than I do and we are both angels! (If you just heard a thud, that was our mom hitting the floor in a dead faint after reading this! LOL!)

This is my Dicken’s village I need to add to. I also needed to finish it off with a fence and gate around it but just never got to it. We did add the treehouse in the back left with two boys on it that reminded us of our two youngest, and on the right in the back is O’Donnell’s Irish Pub. So close to my maiden name that I could NOT walk away from it even though it’s not so Christmasy. We tell people that it’s animated though…the patrons get up and fall down drunk! LOLOL!

This is HALF of the Rudolph village I got sucked into thinking there were only 4 houses but they just kept coming and 16 houses later I had to beg for mercy and cancel them! The santas lined up below is yet another gift from Kathy. She has a knack for finding the best out of the ordinary things!

  And last but not least is the tree with our favorite angel who hasn’t earned her wings yet! We named her Clarice after Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life once we all realized she had no wings! This was a gift from FireFaerie and she was mortified when she realized this, but we love it for just that reason. Dennis is not a fan of angels for treetops but this one is special and will always grace the top of our trees now.

You can see these under the tree in the picture above, it’s one gift I opened early that was from my mom-in-law. They are a set of 4 Christmas placemats that are entirely hand quilted from scraps!! Not the kind where you get the material that looks like it’s patched together…it really is! I am fascinated with the detailed work in these and will cherish them forever! I told Dennis our new house has to have a dining room with a formal dining set in it for these to go on! Pretty expensive ‘gift’ eh?

And that is it for now. It’s a busy day ahead for me. I need to spruce the house up a bit and make French Meat Pies and get ready for our one and only kid coming home. We have quite a few more gifts under the tree now but they are all for Steven! The gifts are all things like jeans, underwear, socks, shirts and oh yeah…food! The kid looked way too skinny when he was over for early Christmas so we went to Sam’s and got him a boxes of microwave popcorn, chicken noodle soup, poptarts and ramen noodles. LOL! But he needs it all and will be sure to drag it all home I have no doubt.

So I’m off and wishing you all a Merry Christmas Eve and an even Merrier Christmas!!! Bye for now….