Christmas Notebook

Genny arrived Saturday morning and we started on our Christmas preparations. I began by mixing together ingredients for two kinds of truffles. Almond Truffles and Raspberry Truffles. Both are easy to make.

Later in the day, after the chocolate had hardened a bit, I used a small cookie scoop to portion out the centers. Then I rolled them and left them on cookie sheets to harden again before placing them in the freezer. The day before the open house, I will dip them in white almond bark. The raspberry-flavored ones will get coarse red sugar sprinkled on top and the almond-flavored ones with be garnished with finely chopped toasted almonds.

I helped Genny with the chalkboard Christmas tree for a little while. There will be a large lamp post on the side of the chalkboard tree, and I needed to make a pattern for Genny to trace for the lamp. I also had a coloring page that I had printed from online, that had to be simplified for Genny to transfer to the chalkboard. While I was doing all the above, Genny was working on the chalkboard tree.

She likes to start at the top of the eight-foot tree to minimize smearing the chalk as she works. This is the beginning. Thirteen more panels to go!

We took a break from the chalkboard tree to work on the “Blue and Silver Tree” in the downstairs bedroom. The room is done in blue and yellow. The tree is decorated with vintage-style ornments in blue and silver. And finished with a sprinkle of silver tinsel.

My handy Christmas elf (DH) brought the tree down from the attic Friday evening and set it up for us. He made sure all the lights were working. The silver bead garlands are attached to the tree so they stay on while the tree is stored. That saves us a lot of time each year. To attach them, I bend the end of a stem under and over the bead string where I want it to hang. I squeeze it together and they stay on, even while the tree is hauled from the attic, down two flights of stairs, and down the hall into the bedroom. The beads usually need a little tweaking as they may be tangled around another branch here or there, but, for the most part, they are ready to go when the tree is placed in the tree stand. The lights stay on the tree, as well, of course. I used cool-white LED lights on this tree and they are perfect for the blue room.

The other interesting thing about this tree is that I spray-painted it silver. Yes. I spray-painted a brand-new tree when we got it in 2012. Here’s a blog post about the first tree I spray-painted in 2008 with some updates through the years. As the post points out, I didn’t use glitter on the second incarnation of the spray-painted tree. You can read about it here:  thanks, hgtv

I should have taken more photos as we went along, but I forgot. Here’s a video of the completed tree.

Then back to the chalkboard tree. Genny wasn’t satisfied with the picture she had chalked in the left panel below. You can see it in the chalkboard tree picture at the beginning of this post. It was too finely detailed to be at the top of the tree where it is harder to see than the lower panels. We decided to use the same picture, but we enlarged the picture using the printer/copier and will use the main part of that picture for the left panel. Maybe you’ll see that next week!

She moved on to the next panel, the children’s Christmas program. We’re going to have a little angel dangling to the right of the manger, among the stars.

This panel celebrates the annual Christmas Eve church service.

And below the church panel is Grandma baking Christmas cookies. Genny gave Grandma blue curtains with snowflakes to mimic my own kitchen’s Christmas curtains.

As you can see, we have a ways to go! Of the twenty-plus trees we put up, this one takes the longest to “decorate.”

While Genny worked on the chalkboard tree, I made a double batch of Butterscotch Gingerbread Cookies. I am storing the dough in the fridge until Wednesday, when I will bake them. I also made Double Chocolate Biscotti, which has mini chocolate chips and chipped white chocolate in the dough. I baked those, stored them in a gladware container and put them in the freezer. Before the open house, I will thaw them and dip one end in white chocolate.

The other project I finished today was to make ribbon tree toppers for the glass tree. I looped ribbon and tied it to the end of wooden skewers I had painted black. I enjoyed the fireplace and Christmas music on my computer while I worked.

I added some hot glue to hold the ribbons in place. On Wednesday, DH plans to climb the ladder to place these at the top of the glass tree.

Also on Wednesday, I plan to make more cookies for the freezer. Genny will be here on the weekend, as well as our older son and his family to help with more Christmas prep. It should be fun! Stay tuned and join us as we watch Christmas come together!

~~Rhonda

Yes, we’re putting up Christmas trees already. That’s just the way we roll around here. We do a lot of decorating, so we need to start early if it’s to be a pleasant experience!

This past weekend, my sister came to help. We put up the “glass tree” which is an artificial tree decorated completely in glass ornaments. Mostly clear glass but there is some colored glass and some frosted glass, as well. I still need to add more ribbon to fill out the tree topper.

A grand piano with a piano bench is surrounded by some of the 250-plus prisms that decorate this tree. The prisms came off two chandeliers that were in our present home when we bought it more than twenty years ago.

There’s something timeless about chandeliers—the way their prisms catch the light, scattering it in delicate patterns across the room. Even after being repurposed, those prisms still carry a bit of their former elegance, a quiet reminder of the home’s history. A chandelier isn’t just a source of light; it’s a statement, an anchor of the space that adds both charm and presence. Whether grand and ornate or sleek and modern, it has a way of transforming a room with its glow.

Of course, lighting isn’t only about spectacle—it’s also about comfort. While a chandelier commands attention in a dining room or entryway, a softer, more understated light is essential elsewhere. A well-placed stehlampe schlafzimmer can bring warmth to a bedroom, offering just the right glow for winding down in the evening. Light, in all its forms, has a way of shaping how a space feels, and whether it’s a shimmering chandelier or a quiet bedside lamp, the right choice makes all the difference.

As we move further into the age of technology, lighting has evolved beyond its traditional forms. LED lighting has become the go-to choice for many, offering energy efficiency and a sleek, modern aesthetic. The versatility of LEDs allows them to be integrated seamlessly into any space, from under-cabinet lighting in kitchens to bright, focused lights in workspaces. Their ability to provide a high-quality light while using a fraction of the energy of traditional bulbs is one of the main reasons they’ve gained popularity in recent years.

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We also use the glass chains from the chandeliers to decorate this tree as garlands.

One of my favorite ornaments is this bucking bronco, complete with cowboy.

The tree is a seven-foot tree. It stands on a two-foot high box that my husband made for use as a tree stand. The ceilings are twelve feet high, so it helps to fill the space if the tree sits on top of a box.

If you had asked me thirty years ago if I’d ever have a tree completely decorated in spun glass, fused glass and crystal, I might have said, “When pigs fly!” But the collection, which started with a glass hummingbird in 1984, has grown and grown. Now it is my favorite tree of all the ones we put up each year.

We also worked on another favorite tree, the chalkboard Christmas tree. As often happens, my original plan for the tree changes, and is edited and nipped and tucked until I think it’s just right. This year, the theme “I’ll be home for Christmas” stayed the same, but the pictures changed. I began with pictures of houses, but decided to go with pictures of the kinds of things that draw us home at Christmas.

I print pictures from online (many of them are coloring pages) and we arrange them on the floor, in a way that tells the story of our theme.

The next step is to tape them to the wall, step back and check the balance, then start the job of copying them to the chalkboard, using graphite paper.

We have a lot of work ahead of us. It will be amazing to watch how it comes together.

You can find links to our previous chalkboard Christmas trees here: Chalkboard Christmas Trees.

Stay tuned! I’ll bring you more updates to our progress as we move along.

~~Rhonda