Christmas Collections

As I was decorating the tree last weekend, I was struck by the size of my ice skate ornament collection. I thought it would be fun to share it with you. They are largely from my Aunt Chery. I love all of them! As many of you know, I've had a bit of an obsession with figure skating over the years, although I never did get very good at it. I love having these ornaments on my tree because not only do they make me think of the beauty of that sport, and remind of my aunt, but they make me think of my mom and my Gram as well. Gram used to call on the weekends and tell us to hurry up and turn the channel because there was skating on. I grew to look forward to those phone calls, and the time spent with my mom after them, enjoying the magic on ice. Anyway, making this little collage of skate photos took far less time than cataloguing the 60 or so video tapes of skating performances I recorded in high school and college, that still exist somewhere in my mom's basement. (I wish I was kidding. I'm not.) 

Another collection on my tree that I love are my Scarlett O'Hara's. Yes, I suppose this is subject that is somewhat unrelated to Christmas. But, these also make me think of my family, and our shared love of the book and the movie. And, I am a bit of a girly girl. I think I would have made a fantastic southern belle.

Stringing Up the Lights

While I decked the halls inside, Greg headed out side on a beautiful warm Saturday to string up our exterior lights. We had a few more available this year since we didn't need for our tree inside anymore. We thought the color on the door and railing was a reasonable way to make a transition between the white lights on the bushes. I'm pretty picky about random strings of lights acting as extension cords between objects. I think Greg did an awesome job making it all fit perfectly. 

When he was done, he wasn't quite satisfied. Even though he has virtually no extra time these days, he headed off to buy some icicles to add along the long of our garage and above the living room window. He hung the first set on Monday night. It was a fun surprise to me when I pulled in the driveway! 

I still have to get a photo of the finished product. 

The Halls are Decked

Over Thanksgiving, I purchased a new pre-lit tree, which we of course had to set up immediately upon getting home on that Sunday. But, since I had to head back to Buffalo during the week, the real decorating had to wait until this past weekend. Bright and early Saturday morning, Greg headed into the attic to pull out my our many boxes of Christmas decor. I am so excited with the way the house came together this year. Take a look...


Here's the living room.

I bought this purple frame awhile ago thinking it was perfect for this room. But, I haven't yet found the time time fill it with an actual photo. So, as a place holder, I cut a piece of this wrapping paper I found, which is so perfect for our house, I can hardly stand it!

I also used the wrapping paper in the glass door to our cabinet. I've been experimenting with a way to make the glass translucent so we can have some hidden storage, but I haven't found something that I'm happy with yet. This is a great place holder which picks up the green from the coffee table and the teal from the walls. Last year, I bought the green picture frame below, and a can of green spray paint which I used on the mitten frame above, and the tree on the shelf below. I thought, why not try to repurpose some of our more traditionally colored accessories to match my color scheme. I happen to love when a Christmas color scheme complements the colors that are already happening in a room.

Here's the dining room.

I went a little snowflake crazy in here. All 6 pointed of course!

Every year, I love to fill a vase with bulbs. This year, I added some other items like the crystals and ribbons to bring in my green accent. 

One of the last things I did was to take more of my favorite wrapping paper (I need to get back to Target and buy another roll!) and create some place mats by laminating the paper between two layers of contact paper (on hand from the glass door experiment)

Don't they look look so fun with my new bowl and tray? (also from Target, they have a whole set of plates which I am restraining myself against...)

Just a little behind the scenes, here's how it all looked when it came out of the attic. I wonder how long it will take us to get it back into this state come January??

Leaves

As promised, I wanted to show you our giant leaf pile, along with the results of some of the other yard clean up we did a dew weeks ago. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but our town offers a great service where they will vacuum up all the leaves as long as we rake them all to the curb. Everyone gets a week based on their trash pickup. Our week was the week of Thanksgiving, which was perfectly timed to allow all the leaves to finish dropping before we had to rake.

What we didn't anticipate was that there would be utility work going on in the street on the day we planned for our raking. The jack hammer sound track left a little bit to be desired.

Greg got the crew to move their tar from our curb though, so we could have a place to pile the leaves. 

Around the side of the house, in the patio area, we had to deal with the remnants from the storm. 

We made two piles of debris, one of wood we we'll be able to burn once it's dries out, and the other of the twigs and leaves to be picked up as yard waste. 

After a few hours, it looked like this.

And, by the time we left for Thanksgiving dinner, the leaves and twigs in the front of the house were all gone!