Hanging the ceiling snowflakes.

Snowflake ornament collection.

Looks so festive! ~~Rhonda

Today is the beginning of the Christmas Notebook season!

I teach the Christmas Notebook plan for holiday preparation on the yahoo group Christmas Notebook. It helps members organize preparation for the holidays so they have more time in December to celebrate the season with friends and family. It walks them through each stage of holiday preparation: from evaluating what they want their own Christmas to be, to showing them how to make it happen.

The first introductory article has been posted to the CNB list, with many more to come as the weeks roll by. Membership will be open for a few more weeks. If you are interested, send a membership request via email soon. To do so, send a blank email to

christmasnotebook-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

After a few weeks, the membership will close for the season. Don’t delay!

~~Rhonda

A young lady from church who helps with house cleaning each week, is here today doing a double session. She will take care of almost all the house. We’ll leave the kitchen (still have cooking to do) and the upstairs hall (gathering place for all the leftovers from picking up the other rooms). The upstairs hall may be done tomorrow and the kitchen will be thoroughly cleaned Saturday afternoon.

I have walked through the entire house, with a stapled stack of papers, writing down everything that needs to be done in each room. This list covers lots of different last minute details. From “polish the banister” to “wash the crystal snowflake ornaments” in the scrapbook room. With this list I have a handle on what is left to do, and I can delegate the jobs to be done.

DH is off work until Monday, so he is helping. My sister will come back Friday evening after work to help for the weekend. I have really missed the help of DD23 and DD20 this year. This is the first time I haven’t had at least one of them here to help during the decorating season. Miss you both!!

Lunch break is over…back to work. ~~Rhonda

In the past, my older daughters (23 and 20) would decorate the trees in their own bedrooms. This year they are living away from home, attending college. They both gave me permission to do “whatever” to their trees. My sister and I took out the idea binders and pulled some pages that gave us ideas we liked. Just looking at the pictures was inspiring!

This page showed twiggy stars.

And this page showed felt ornaments.

We took those ideas and tweaked them a bit. Genny made stars using the hot glue gun, then spray painted them a cream color. She sprayed them with a glossy sealant when dry.

I stamped stars and snowflakes onto cream colored felt, then used my sewing machine to stitch the ornaments.

Genny spray painted twigs for the top of the tree, and we added large bows made from three kinds of wide ribbon.

The tree fits the room which features a horse theme, with a 22″ horse border, brown bandanna window toppers, and bandanna pillows on the bed.

DD1984′s tree was decorated with silver ornaments, silver tinsel garland, and white paper doves sprayed with glitter. This magazine page gave us the idea for the doves. Genny free-handed the pattern and cut them from card stock.

The tree sits on a small round table. We will cover the tree stand with white batting, then drape white lace panels over the batting to the floor.

Decorating continues today. Genny is making *another* run to the store for needed supplies. Check back later for more pics! ~~Rhonda

The downstairs is done except for the library (which functions as our family room) and the downstairs bath. The lights on the 9′ library tree had to be taken off and redone. They were too messy to leave on the tree. Lighting that tree takes about 6 hours. Today we will put the beads, ribbon, and ornaments on it, decorate the counter of the TV cabinet, and do the smaller “Three Kings” tree in the corner. Pictures will be posted later today.

The tree in the downstairs bath is an easy one and won’t take long to decorate. Then we move upstairs. Our bedroom is done, the two baths are done, DD1987′s tree is done, DD1998′s tree just needs the rest of the ornaments, and the tree in the scrapbook room is done. So it’s picking up, cleaning up, and doing the finishing touches on those rooms and we have DD1984′s tree to decorate.

I want all the decorating to be done by Wednesday evening. I need Thursday and Friday for the last minute cookies / candies, and Saturday morning is reserved for decorating the sugar cookies. That will take about three hours. The schedule is tight, but we do have enough time to get it all done.

Two young people from church are coming to help this week. One to clean the yard, rake leaves, pick up trash, limbs, whatever. And the other to clean the entire house on Thursday. It’s wonderful to have their help! Some of my friends from church will also come during the week to lend a hand where ever we need the help. There is always a job I can delegate, so their help is also fully appreciated. And a big thanks goes to my sister Genny who decided to stay an extra two days to help today and tomorrow. Yeah!

I will check in later with pictures of our progress. Stay tuned! ~~Rhonda

We made the popcorn and cranberries strings last Sunday/Monday.

We finished the “snow” tree in the dining room. DD helped put the shredded artificial snow on the tree. I made the snowball ornaments several years age.

We also put up the snowflake ornaments in the kitchen.

I stamped and sewed felt ornaments for DD1987′s tree.

I’ll post the final picture tomorrow. I need to get some sleep! ~~Rhonda

The recipe called for broken chocolate-covered toffee bars which I didn’t have. I used Heath toffee bits and mini chocolate chips. It also has chopped pecans in it.

The dough was a bit sticky, but not hard to handle.

I’ve never made biscotti before, so I wasn’t sure how to shape the logs. The recipe instructions were to make two logs “about 8 x 3 inches.” That was clearly too small. Mine turned out maybe 12-13″ long. Next time I will make three smaller logs instead.

First baking done. The dough spread a lot more than I had anticipated. As I began to slice the logs, I realized the pieces would be too big for the open house, so I ended up slicing the logs down the middle as well as across. Perfect size for the party. I have found guests prefer smaller cookies so they can try more varieties.

Finished with first, second and third bakings.

Ready for the freezer. There was extra room in the container with the chocolate mint shortbread, so I put the biscotti in ziplock freezer bags and set them on waxed paper over the shortbread. Hopefully, they won’t pick up the mint flavor.

The cookies are delicious! I will post the recipe soon.

Today, my sister is here to help decorate. I won’t have much computer time, so may not be able to check in until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll take pics and post them tomorrow.

This is the first time I’ve managed to make a post with multiple photos. I’m learning. I keep sending short emails to DS, asking “how do I….?” Thanks, Daniel!

~~Rhonda

Last night DH put the garland up in the kitchen. Standing on the counter is the only way to do it. The next step is to add the snowflakes.

We’ve had some frosts, so the geraniums came in. Not sure where they are going to end up, but they are so pretty right now that I hate to move them out of the kitchen.

The piles are getting bigger…