Little Christmas

Today, January 6th, is Little Christmas, so I thought it wasn't too late to post my Christmas pics, after all. I have been experiencing some rapid heart rate problems the past several days, so that is why I am late in doing my Christmas post.


First of all, Stosh, Tammy and I started our holidays off by visiting my Mom's place of rest and honoring her with a Christmas wreath the weekend before Christmas. The banner across the middle reads 'Mom.' She always visited friends' and family members' graves each year and saw that they all had flowers. Now it is her turn to receive flowers. Below is the new name plate I had made for her, having the first letters of her name in larger letters than the rest and also had 'Beloved Mother and Grandma' added across the bottom.






My daughter's birthday was on December 15th, but she was in Montreal on a business trip that week, so we celebrated her special day on December 19th with this birthday cake. Somehow, we managed to mess up the 'B' in the word 'Birthday' while getting it out of the box, but, believe me, it didn't affect the cake's taste one bit. (It was chocolate!)



Below is the new centerpiece I bought the day my daughter and I went to Greenville shopping. I put it on my kitchen table and think I'll leave it there for awhile! I love snowmen! Unfortunately for the snowmen, so do my cats! I found one of the little carrot noses pulled out one day, and so now it has little teeth marks on it!

I don't put up a tree as the cats would just tear it down, so I decorate outdoors to share with my neighbors. One year my tree was knocked down 3 times, so no more big trees until some of these cats grow out of the devilish kitten stage. I have the little tabletop tree that I purchased for my dad when he was at Duke Hospital days before he died, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I placed it on my mantle and then took it down each night and put in a closet.

Below are pics of my outdoor decorations...

My gingerbread train...and deer in the background...

Mr. and Mrs. Gingerbread to greet guests...

Below is a pic of my daughter's outdoor "Winter Wonderland" decorations...

This is a picture of her 9-foot Christmas tree. It has 3,000 lights on it!

Gee, I wonder what this gift could be????

Tammy loves her Aunt Jemima frozen waffles plus she loves to cook and bake, so I made her this apron as her gag gift this year. She loved it! I am going to make myself one next.

She had Christmas Eve dinner, and this was her display of goodies afterwards...

This is her Nativity scene. Looks like I blurred the picture when I took it...

This is her village....one year she displayed it even larger on a 4x8-foot sheet of plywood, but this year she cut back and didn't display all the pieces...

And, of course, Buster had to get his picture taken! As you can see, he is doing very well after his invasive surgery and chemo...

And, of course, he had to engage in his favorite sport of the season...removing the bows!

And we can't forget Sweet Pea! She was enjoying the big squirrel I gave her and Buster. She tore right into it! So you can see that she is doing quite well since her 2 cancer surgeries and 19 radiation treatments. She and Buster both are such sweet cats!

This is Sweet Pea with the squirrel. I am posting this pic so you can see where her hair came back all white at the radiation site. You can see the white streak on her back. But so far, both she and Buster have had good reports with their ultrasounds and chest x-rays!

This is a pic of my ex's home all decked out for the holidays! I took this as I was leaving there on Christmas night. You can see the city lights in the sky 8 miles away behind his home! (You can see him standing on his front porch. No, we didn't leave him there...he just posed for the picture. He soon followed to Tammy's for more gift opening.)

This is his Christmas tree and gifts for the kids. They open their packages at his home. We later went to Tammy's to open up gifts there. We have to bend our holidays a little as Tim has to drive in from Orlando on Christmas Eve and never gets in til quite late. (The dates are wrong on the pics....seems when I put new batteries in, it messed up the date thing in the camera!)

This is a pic of Stosh, Tammy and me at his home.

He also loves his village display and plans to do it even bigger next year. He and Tammy share their love of Christmas villages.

I loved the centerpiece of his village....a waterfall!

This is an electric animated ski slope...

A car stuck in the snow with people pushing it up the hill....

I loved the scene below of an old-fashioned sleigh ride....

And I thought this was kind of a cute scene, too...decorating the arbor in the middle of town....

And last, but not least, his nativity scene. We remember the Reason for the Season!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We always enjoy our family times together! Wishing you all a great 2009 with good health, lots of fun times and many blessings! I am so grateful for all the new friends I have made through blogging this past year!

I just now received an email from Michelle about Taylor! It is good news! Please visit Michelle's blog and read the latest update on Taylor!