Christmas Notebook

We had a wonderful Christmas Open House yesterday! It went by in a blur of friends, laughter and happy faces. We had about 170 guests. Many tell us the open house begins their Christmas season each year. Several weeks ago, I asked a young friend who is a great photographer to take a LOT of pictures for me during the party. She came early to get pictures of the decorations, then stayed for most of the open house, taking more pics. I’ll have those at the end of the week, after she edits them, and will post some party pics then. Meanwhile, I’ll post here some of the pictures my family took with their phones. Aren’t those phone cameras handy dandy!?

The weather was phenomenal. This may have been the only open house when we had to actually open the windows because the weather was so warm! When guests arrived, though, they were greeted by a roaring fire in the living room. A fake fire, that is. Genny chalked logs and flames on the fireplace cover. Worked perfectly! Here’s a picture of it, taken during pre-party prep. DH is taking a break from the decorating.

My usual schedule for the day before the party is to decorate the sugar cookies first thing. It takes five or six hours to finish them. After that, I work on the last chocolate work that needs to be done…dipping, dunking and drizzling. Last year, I finished at 1:00 a.m. Not good. This year, I was done at 8:30 p.m. Much better!

This is the kitchen table the night before the party. Boxes and boxes of cookies and candies. And my notebook on the table, with the cookie list. Check, check, check…

The cookie table…

BTW, my dear friend Laurie made (on Friday and Saturday) the snowflake curtains behind the cookie table. And she made a tree skirt for the silver and blue tree, valances for DD’s bedroom, added length to a bed skirt, and made curtains to hang in the corner desk areas of the scrapbook counter to hide all the boxes I stored under there. She was amazing! Thank you, Laurie!!!

Laurie did me another favor this season. She and her hubby have just finished a year long renovation of the entire first floor of their log cabin. Beautiful! And during that transition, she has had opportunity to bless others with furniture she no longer needs. She gave me a beautiful display cabinet that now showcases my Putz houses. I hope to have a picture of that to share with you soon. The Putz looked beautiful in it. Another big thanks to Laurie!!

My dear daughter-in-law found great Mr. and Mrs. Santa paper doll sheets at a thrift store. They were still wrapped in the original plastic. DD found frames for them and they are now hanging on the cabinets in the scrapbook room. So cute!

Today, we’re taking it easy, resting, watching movies, nibbling cookies…not much going on. I may take a nap!

Our thanks to all our guests for taking the time to share this special time of the year with us. God bless you, every one!

~~Rhonda