It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Operation Christmas Decoration is done! Most of it anyway.

This weekend we focused on getting the Christmas decorations sorted, put up or sent out. We have a ton of Christmas crap and we don't use a fraction of it. My goal this year was to sort through it, as we put it up, and get rid of things we don't use. We had stuff we have never used, we had stuff that we took from my mom's collection that we have never used, and we had stuff that we have just outgrown that style. Goodwill here we come.

We have the "forest" in the den - a group of three narrow trees that are decorated with white lights. We put the "Heritage Tree" in the dining room. This tree has all of the sentimental ornaments we have collected over the years or ones that kids have made. Damon and I both have ornaments from our grandparents and those are on those as well. The sitting area/fireplace has the "Photo Tree," which has 5x7, 4x6 and 2x2 picture frames, with pictures from the last year. We also put on some red Christmas balls. This tree is still lacking a little, so we are going to try to find some 3 x 5 frames or wallet size frames to fill in.

Damon worked on getting our Snow Village houses out and used those in the dining room, mixed in our with the glassware. The only thing missing in the dining room is the table centerpiece. I will finish that up when I get the linens later this week. I decided to do the dining room table in white candles with candy canes, red ribbon and silver bells. The Polar Express is kind of our "family movie" and I love the symbolism of the silver bell.

The kids each have a tree in their room and we took them to Hobby Lobby to pick some additional ornaments for their trees. Jackson has a tree with blue lights and a golf theme. Reid went with red lights, soccer ball ornaments, and blue ball ornaments.

Party prep is still in full swing. I wanted to get decorating done this past weekend, so on party weekend I could focus on cooking and cleaning. Cooking won't take too long. I am contributing the chocolate fountain, onion dip and chips, and sausage balls. Cleaning, on the other hand, will take a while. My theory is it is necessary to invite people over at least once a year, just so the ceiling fans get cleaned, both bathrooms have a full roll of toilet paper at the same time, the floor is vacuumed, and everything is in its place.

I also need to figure out what to do with the goodie bags. We are going to do a treat exchange, with everyone taking home a goodie bag of treats at the end of the party. I bought white handle bags at HL and now I need to figure out something very Martha to do with them. My contribution to the treat exchange is Cowboy Christmas Cookie Mix Jars, courtesy of an idea from www.bakerella.com.

I do have to give a big shout out to my wonderful husband, who has worked his tail off for this party, just as much as I have. He has painted (a lot), trimmed, touched-up, hauled stuff down from the attic, lifted trees, and helped me sort through decorations. This weekend, I know he will be there to help me cook and clean. I wouldn't be able to do a fraction of the stuff I do without his love, support and hard labor!

Planning a Party

Exactly a year ago, when we decided to change churches, it was a difficult, tear-filled decision. We were leaving behind a church family that we loved. But, we also knew, clearly, that God's direction was for us to leave. So, in my head (you know, Man plans, God laughs), I said, "I am not going to get involved. I am not going to open myself up to get hurt again. I need time to heal."

A year later, I still don't know why exactly God did what He did at our old church or why He allowed it to fall apart. But, what I do know...we are involved, we have made new friends, we have found our groove in this church family, and I have gotten involved as ladies ministry coordinator for our Sunday School class. And, I also know I AM HOSTING A HOLIDAY KICK OFF TEA FOR OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL LADIES IN TWO WEEKS! That is 14 days people. 14 very short days. And, the to do list keeps getting longer instead of getting shorter and, the menu, well let's just say that is growing as well.

I did absolutely nothing in the decorating department, this weekend, except go to Hobby Lobby and get two new trees for our forest (two of them half-lite last year and gave up the ghost when we plugged them in yesterday), made a final decision on my dining room centerpiece, and bought supplies for that. And, my commentary to all of that is - I think Hobby Lobby should institute a policy that if you are a Hobby Lobby novice, you are not allowed to be in HL without a trained guide during the holiday season (November 1- December 23). If you have ever looked at www.peopleofwalmart.com...stayed tuned...I am going to create www.peopleofhobbylobby.com and it isn't going to be pretty.

The main push this weekend was to complete my contribution to the Cookie/Treat Exchange part of the event. I went with www.Bakerella.com's cowboy cookie mix jars and, as of tonight, there are 31 of them almost completed. I will take a picture of them tomorrow and get it posted. They look neat and will go over well. The checkout lady at Wal-Mart wanted one, after I had to explain myself and my reasons for buying 15 bags of M&M's, four extra large bags of chocolate chips, flour, sugar, brown sugar, etc.

This week starts the effort to put away Halloween/fall decorations, start sorting Christmas decorations, and prep for Operation Christmas Decoration next weekend. My kids have already asked when their trees are going up.

The downside of this, according to Jackson, is "we aren't going to forget to celebrate Thanksgiving are we?" The upside is we are going to have all of Christmas decorating done and most of the Christmas shopping completed by Thanksgiving. Rock on..I can then sit back, with my feet up, drink eggnog and enjoy the lights during the month of December.

It is going to be a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to it. We are going to have good food, fun and fellowship. A year ago, I didn't really see that I would ever find that again. God is good.

Halloween

Carving pumpkins Saturday morning - we try this every couple of years and my kids still don't really like it. Too sticky they say. Reid just drew on hers with a sharpie. Jackson cleaned his out and we carved it, but it wasn't his favorite part of the day.

Reid chose a butterfly costume this year.

Jackson dressed as Captain Cody from Stars Wars the Clone Wars.

Reid displaying our pumpkin carving final products.

We went Trick-or-Treating Saturday night at Circle Mountain, a neighborhood south of Bartlesville. The kids brought home a stash, even though they were tired and whining before we got through half of the neighborhood. They spent most of the evening fighting over who was going to get to ring the doorbells. We stopped at another friend's house on the way home, hit Sonic for their 50 cent Halloween corn dogs and were home by 9.