I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

I would like to wish everyone a

very Merry Christmas!

For those of you who don't already know:

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

Every year one of the things I look forward to the most is watching the movie:
"How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

staring Jim Carrey

I love getting a big glass of eggnog and a plate full of cookies and watching the movie with Troy, I think he enjoys it just as much as I do!

I'm starting off the Christmas section of my blog with the trailer from the movie, if you've never seen it, it's a MUST for the holidays & if you've already seen it you know that you just can't get enough! It's chalked full of adult humor, definitely not just for the kids.

~Enjoy~

My Shopping is Done!

"That's what it's all about right? That's what it's always been about! Gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts! Do you know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me...in your garbage. Do you see what I'm saying here? IN YOUR GARBAGE! I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump! And the avarice...[points to mayor] The avarice never ends! "I want golf clubs!" "I want diamonds!" "I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored, and send it away to make glue!""

-The Grinch

Instead of giving gifts for the sake of having a present to open on Christmas my family has decided to give the money we would have spent on gifts for each other to a family who can not afford to give Christmas to their kids. My Sister-in-Law, Stephanie found a needy family in Utah through her friends church. The family gave us a list of what they needed & what the kids want for Christmas and we get to go do the fun of shopping for the kids! None of us have kids of our own so it's fun for us to get to shop for toys and give someone a gift that truly needs it and I don't have to do any Christmas shopping! Yeah!

All I need is a reindeer...

Grinch: All I need is a reindeer.

Narrator: The Grinch looked around, but since reindeer were scarce, there were none to be found. Did that stop the Grinch? Ha! He simply said:

Grinch: If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead.

Narrator: So he took his dog Max, and he took some red thread, and he tied a big horn on the top of his head.

I always say that I don't dress up my dogs,

so okay I guess I dress up my dogs!

Otis makes a better Reindeer & Elvis a better Santa.

Elvis is very easy to take pictures of, when I put costumes on him he acts like he is paralyzed on won't even walk around. It's actually quite comical, I'm laughing as I'm typing picturing him, it's like I put him in a straight jacket or something. Otis is of course the opposite & very hard to take pictures of , he moves like crazy. A combination of the lighting & him moving around Otis looks like the Grinch in this picture.

Looks a Lot Like Christmas

It's definitely way past beginning to look

a lot like Christmas at my house!

We've got a full blown winter wonderland!

The decorations are up & the stockings are hung with hopes that Santa Troy will bring me lots of presents this year! I love the "Whoville" kind of decorations they are my favorite. If I could turn my house into "Whoville" and make it look like this picture I would!

I talk about how much I love Christmas & how our house gets transformed during the holidays but not everyone lives close enough to see the magical transformation; so as promised here are the pics!

This first tree is the one we have in our Family Room/Kitchen area. It's the slim 12' tree & is decorated with what I consider traditional Christmas. I made about half of the ornaments on this tree, we have popcorn garland (yes it's real popcorn), cinnamon "cookie" gingerbread men, cinnamon stick "snowflakes", yarn "balls" & felt stockings. I bought the rest of the ornaments and topped it off with a pine cone star. I put garland around the fireplace, it looks really pretty with the white lights at night.

(Click on the pictures to see them in a larger format.)

This is the fat 12' tree & what I call my "Whoville" tree; my favorite tree. It's in the Living Room it has red, green, white & silver ornaments and has lots of real & fake candy. I add red & green "Whoville" lights in addition to the white ones, it makes the whole room glow red. This tree is decorated with about half made & half purchased ornaments. Troy even strung some gumdrop (yes real gumdrops) garland for this tree!

(Click on the pictures to see them in a larger format.)

And for the first time ever I've decorated a third tree. We actually got a new fat tree this year & I kept the top portion of the old 12' tree, it's about 5' high. The plant in my den died when we went to Florida & I have not put a new one in, so I just plopped the tree right into the pot, I'll get a new plant after Christmas.

I call this tree my Beads & Bling tree. Everything on this tree is either beads or bling. All the decoration are either clear or white and it's topped with a silver star. I have pearl garland, beaded icicles, glittered snowflakes, diamond drops and lots of other beads & bling!

I might have a new favorite tree!

(Click on the picture to it in a larger format.)

We are having two parties this year. The girls are having one of their own in addition to our traditional party. We love to share our holiday spirit so for those too far away to come to our party I hope that you can sense it from what you can see here.

We love you all!

Merry Christmas!

Monty Python

"It's only a flesh wound."

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In high school one of my favorite movies was Monty Python & the Holy Grail. My friends & I would watch it over & over again, laughing every time! Last night Troy took me to see Spamalot at the Wynn & I LOVED it!!! It was so funny!!! If you liked the movie you'll LOVE Spamalot!

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Those of you in Vegas, if you want to go see it, watch your mail, we got a postcard & got our tickets for half price!

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I think I'm going to add the movie to my Christmas wishlist!

Ooo la la....

I love my beautiful pink scarf that my Mother-in-Law, Jean, brought me back from France. It was perfect weather for it the other day & looked gorgeous with my silver sweater and jeans.

I love it!

Thank you!

Favorite

It's so hard to pick because I love them all so much, but when pressed I think I have to say my Purse Snowbaby is my favorite!

tis' the season

I've started decking my halls and jingling my bells!!!

Every year I decorate two 12' Christmas trees, plus tons of other decorations all around the house!

(Yes that's 12 feet, not 12 inches, it's not a typo!)

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I decorated one of my trees and decorated

the family/kitchen area yesterday.

I'll post pictures of the tress & the rest

of the house later in December.

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This afternoon I set up my SnowBabies.

(There are two of each picture, one with the flash and one without, it's hard to see the figures without the flash, but you can't get the full effect of the ice cube lights with it...so there's 2. Click the pictures to see a large version.)

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Every year my Mom buys me these cute little decorations; she's never been able to see the cute display that I make with them so this is for her.

Thank you, I love you!!!

I hung glittery aqua snow flakes from the chandelier in

my den, BlingGirl can never get enough Bling!

Gobble, Gobble

We had a turiffik Turkey Day!

The turkey was done about 2 hours early! We figured that it's weight must have been mislabeled. Luckily I checked it when I did! It turned out great!

We visited, went for walks, watched movies,

and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate!!!

Oh & my pretty pumpkins looked great on the table!

Thanks for helping to make it a special weekend!

We LOVE you guys!

Pretty Pumpkins

Colleen and I got together and played "Martha Stewart" for a day. We covered real pumpkins with pretty paper. Then of course "BlingGirl" has to have some bling for her "Turkey Table" so I came home and glittered it up! We decided that next year we will do it on fake pumpkins instead of real ones, it was too much work to have to throw them out once the pumpkins go bad.