The Dreaded Christmas Lights!

I don't know anyone who loves this job, the Christmas tree lights, they are awful to do every year.  You roll them up nicely to use the following year, and somehow they still become a tangled mess when you go to put them on the tree! AND, not only that, half of them don't work!  So my work began on Sunday, it took me 3 hours, yes that's right, 3 hours to untangle and try to fix burned out lights.  I got about half of the 8 strands working and then threw in the towel and just bought new ones.

 Tree is up and decorated, YAY!

 This is the first year I have used white and colored lights, I LOVE IT! I am still pulling leaves out of this tree, don't look at the mess on the floor.

 These are a few of my favorite tree decorations.  I have this tree in my family room, it is almost all snowmen that I have collected over the years.  The Snowmobile is hand blown glass.  If I use anything other than snowmen I try to use unique ornaments, like this little guy in a space ship that is all hand blown glass.  I have a smaller artificial tree in the dining room that is all Santas. 

A co-worker gave me this snowman in a hand blown globe, the little guy in the sled is a new addition.

 Hand blown kitty cat is representin' our "cats in the house".  Glittery dirty snowman, I love dirty snowmen.

 My WOOLYS, I love them too!

 These 4 Christmas Balls are all antique, hand blown ornaments, that were my grandmothers or my mothers.  I try to be very careful with these, I have had some disintegrate in my hands because they were so old.  Paint and glitter are worn off or tarnished, but I don't care, I still put them out every year.  When I look at these ornaments, they remind me of both of them and Christmases past.

Christmas Peek!

I am gearing up for my annual Christmas Cookie Baking Party (it has been affectionately called a sweat shop), so I thought I would get into the spirit by looking at some pictures of Christmas from years gone by.  These are pictures of some decorations that I have collected or made over the years.  I like to have the whole house decorated by the time the baking party rolls around.  The decorations and the Christmas music, get all of us moving and shaking to get our cookies baked.  I usually have 6 - 8 people baking hundreds and hundreds of cookies on that day in my kitchen.  Everyone contributes to the ingredients so the expense is minimal. My kitchen has double ovens so we can bake 8 sheets at a time, a time saver!  We stop just long enough to have a really nice lunch, that I prepare for everyone, and then it's back to work.  I will also say, that there may be some drinking involved while we are baking!  After we are all done, about 8-10 hours later, everyone gets to take home a huge tray loaded with a variety of Christmas cookies to share with family and friends.  This year there will be about 15 - 20 different cookies that we will need to bake, and I WILL be cracking the whip!

This is one of the cookies we made last year, flaky pastry Bow Cookies with Fruit Filling, dusted with 10X sugar.

And Chocolate Drop Cookies with Sprinkles.  These two cookies were added last year to our list.

Christmas tree up, then lit.  I love my tree.

And so does Jessie! He's keeping warm under the lights.

 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care....

 In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.    Some Santa's I have collected over the years.

 And don't ya just love a snowman! They make me happy.

My little kitchen tree is decorated with small rusty kitchen utensils and snowmen.

 Table set for Christmas Cookie Party Luncheon with silver, gold, ivory and green

Rustic Handmade Merry Christmas Banner made from stock and scrapbook paper.