Christmas Decorations

The bottle brush tree in the living room.

Used an antique crocheted bedspread for the tree skirt.

The mantle with snowflakes and snowbabies.

In the sunroom is my tinsel tree decorated with colored Christmas balls and silver garland.  A very sparkly tree!  A view through the Dutch door from the reading room.

I used an antique crazy quilt for the tree skirt.

Lots of silver and sparkle!  Just the way I like it!

Panda seems to approve!

Today Debra stopped by with a homemade rum cake.  I baked cookies for the girls at the local post office, and making my grocery list for the get together with the neighbors.  Moving right along!

Let the Gift Giving Begin

Every year I find unsuspecting new friends to send a small gift to.  I love surprising people.  Being in chow rescue, each year I meet knew people that help in many ways, so I send them a framed chow painting (copy) that a friend had given to me many years ago.  I have plagiarized this painting many times, but everyone loves it.

Daddy is sending one to Angel in Ilinois, but it's really for my friend Toni.

Each year, no matter how I try to do something different, I always seem to decorate and wrap with a natural them, faux bois and owls being two of my favorite things.

First glimpse of the living room tree looking like a big old-fashioned bottle brush tree.  

Aside from chow rescue, I always bake a couple of my sponge cake chocolate rolls for unsuspecting friends.  This year Kelly and Yvonne, the girls I get my farm fresh eggs from, will be the recipients of these beauties!  Ziggy, my goat milk supplier, will be getting one next week when I go to the farm to get the next batch of raw goat's milk.

With the warmer-than-usual weather, the camellias are blooming for Christmas.

Made a big pan of spanakopita to get us through the weekend while we run errands and maybe get a hike in??

Into the fridge and ready to be baked.

A Christmas tour of the house will be coming!

Goodbye Guinness

Guinness got the royal treatment before heading to PA.  I took him for a walk on the Blue Wall Trail by the lake . . .

. . .  took some photos on the dock at the lake . . . 

. . . then a ride to the dairy my local coffee shop uses . . .

. . . I bought some cream, eggs and cheese all locally made . . . 

. . . and had the biggest size eggnog milkshake they have!

Then we had to put him on the Grateful Doggies bus to Lancaster, and both of us cried.  I wanted to keep this big hairy beast.

On the Christmas front:

My favorite coffee shop decorated for the holidays.

And my favorite store, Anthropologie, has opened in Asheville!  I have always loved their creative holiday windows!

Inside the store is pretty nice, too.

Then lunch at an Indian restaurant for our anniversary.  Decorating posts are next!

A Guinness and Some Decorations

Not the Guinness you're thinking, but a 92 lb. chow rottie?  tibetian? lapphund?  who knows, but this is one giant lovable beast that is staying with me for the week before going to The Sebastian Foundation in Lancaster, PA.  Bob brought him home from GA on Saturday.

This is one I am truly going to miss.  If I had a space in my pack for another giant male, he would be the one.  I instantly fell in love with this guy.  

A lot of blurry photos, my camera is about to be replaced.  He loves his twin mattress in the sunroom.  Best sleep he's had in almost a month being at the shelter.

All my decorations are up, including two trees in the house and my living room mantle.  I did a little bit outside.  We had pine saplings growing in the pasture.  I picked a few for Bob to mow around so I could use them in my galvanized container in the front courtyard.

Silver snowflakes line the porch at the farmhouse and sparkle in the sun.

A simple silver ball wreath on the front door that sparkles at night.  A lot going on in the coming weeks, our anniversary tomorrow, so celebrating this weekend, more gifts to buy and wrap, cookies and sponge rolls to bake, a small menu of eggnog and swedish meatballs for the neighbors.  Ken is from Sweden, so hope he likes them.  More to come!