Merry Christmas!

A low-clutter Christmas is my wish for you!

A Clever Site

I just found this site and it's so stinkin' clever I had to share it.
http://anerroroccurredwhileprocessingthisdirective.com/

Keeping the Holiday Craziness at Bay

So, on Sunday I took the kids to visit Santa Claus. We went to our nearby mall, rather than to downtown since I really didn't feel like dealing with downtown traffic. Still it took quite a while to find a spot to park at the mall. I did have a lovely karmic moment though, when, by stopping so a pedestian could cross, I was just in time to get a perfectly placed parking spot.

This mall's Santa area has a policy of only allowing you to take your own pictures IF you buy at least the smallest package from them. I had actually forgotten my camera and wasn't about to pay $20 for likely mediocre pictures, so we just visited with Santa. The girls got to tell him what they wanted, sit on his lap, and received candy canes as they said good-bye. It was all really sweet. We did have to wait quite about twenty minutes in line, but it went fast. I called my sister while we were waiting and the girls both got to chat with her.

We didn't spend ANY money at the mall. It was a nice feeling, actually, to just be there as observers, enjoying the holiday decorations and the smells of cider and hot cocoa and candy canes.

Keeping it Simple for the Holidays

This year, we won't be putting lights up on the house. Too much ladder work, and my husband doesn't want to do it. Since I don't want to go up on a ladder either, well, that's that. In a year when we're more flush in the pocket, I'd love to hire one of those companies that come and put up your lights. If they installed permanent hooks, even better.

We compromise though by decorating the fence that surrounds our front yard with lights. For Halloween, I put up purple and orange lights. The other day, I dug out our Christmas stash. Found out that the icicle lights had bit the dust so to speak. I have about 24 feet of them that work, and since I really don't want to buy more lights, I'll fill in with some of the coloured ones that we have for the tree. There are always a few extra strands left after we decorate the tree so we should be fine.


I had a lovely pewter Advent candle holder last year, but it wasn't well designed and spilled wax onto the white-painted mantle. This year, I'm using four small glass tealight holders in a row. They hold three purple and one pink tealight. It's close enough. The photograph is of my mom with older daughter (at age 3), shopping downtown at Christmas time. The dry-looking things are palms from Palm Sunday.