Holiday Cheer

I can't believe Christmas is here already!  It seems to have gotten here so much sooner or faster this year!  I'm doing better than the last few years though in that I've had a little bit of Christmas spirit...not a lot...but some and that's an improvement.  lol 

We started putting our decorations up just after Thanksgiving.  Here's one of my little themed trees.  It's my "Cheers" tree with drink decorations on it....a little glass of brandy, a drink shaker, Starbucks cups, a glass of wine, etc.  It could use a few more but I've got a good start.  I filled in with some tiny baskets and glass balls.  It's sitting on the desk in my kitchen.  It's kind of a funky tree with all those sticks but it's pre-lit.  I like that!

I have my burnt orange granny square table topper on the kitchen table right now.  The color is perfect with the window treatments in the room and I made it festive with a galvanized Christmas tray that has snowflakes embossed on it and putting a floral napkin that has the orange and red.  The red on the little Santa cup is more of an orange-red and bridges the gap with the orange of the kitchen and the red of Christmas.  I set my antique hurricane lamp and my Christmas cactus in the tray too.

I pulled out my sock monkey wine sock this week and posted a pic on InstaGram with my little cheers tree.  Cheers!  :-)

We have a "Bumble" that comes out with the decorations every year.  And, every year we have fun posing him for silly photos.  I went upstairs to the craft studio about a week ago and this is what was sitting on the table.  My daughter had him "helping" her with card making.  It made me laugh!

Here's some proof that I've had a bit of Christmas spirit this year...I'm not only sending out cards but I made them too.  I didn't even send cards last year and it's been a few years since I made any.  I got this idea on Pinterest.  I bought some festive papers and a punch to make them.  It was fun!

We love popcorn!  We make it on the stove...the old fashioned way.  And, we like to try different ways to flavor it.  We had a movie night recently and made some garlic butter popcorn.  It was super yummy!  It was easy too!  We just melted some butter and dropped in some finely chopped garlic near the end.  Then, we drizzled it over freshly popped corn and tossed it around with salt and pepper.  We'll definitely be doing that again!  Yum!

We enjoyed a movie with our new, cozy, warm blankets, garlic popcorn, and our little Christmas village that sits in an alcove above the TV.

I have a few gifts to wrap and I'll be done!  Then, tonight we're planning to cook up a fun meal and watch a program on TV that my daughter will be in...a Christmas program that was filmed at her University.  That'll be fun!  Here's a photo from the night we went to see her perform...

That's her standing next to the harp.  She also performed with the orchestra.  She had to get an extra harp that night so she could have one on stage and one in the orchestra pit.  The orchestra played music from the "Nutcracker" and even did "Waltz of the Flowers" that has a small harp solo in it.  I love that music!  And, I'm so proud of her!

We had a lot of fun watching the camera that night.  You can see it hanging over the stage, above her head.  It was on a huge boom (?) that constantly moved and it was very graceful.  There were lots of other cameras in the theatre too and they filmed both nights.  It'll be fun to see how they put it all together.

It'll be broadcast nationally tonight (Christmas Eve) and tomorrow (Christmas night).  If you're interested in watching...check your local PBS listings for the "51st Annual Holiday Wassail" or "Chapman University Special" (they weren't very clear on the name of it).

Merry Christmas!