~ Jolly Holly Elf ~

The lighted garland on the stairs was woven with velvet wired ribbon that I like to use because it is much easier to fashion into big fluffy bows. This is the stairway off the kitchen that I decorate more than the one at the front door in the foyer because most of our visitors are back door company. This is the door that John and I go in and out of, so voila, it got the Jolly Holly Elf treatment to great all who entered.

Today I'm heading up north for a few days. Dana has pictures that she says will work for my Christmas cards so we will be working on those tomorrow at her house which she has all decorated so I will get to be immersed in Christmas decor there. Then Wednesday is our Girlfriends party at Sheryl's where there will be lots of friends, food and fun as well as all of her gorgeous lady like decorations to delight us all. Last year we did a progressive dinner that was fun getting to see everyones house decorated for Christmas and their tables set for the course they were presenting, but this year we decided to just stay in one place and Sheryl kindly offered Friendship Cottage for the event. We are quite a chatty bunch and with the progressive format it was hard to keep up with the conversation. Any way, how ever we get together it is always fun and doesn't really matter how or where we do it but we are all pretty blessed to have so many lovely choices to choose from.

Wednesday or Thursday I will get to get my decorating out of my system by helping Aaron get his house dress for Christmas. He promised to have the tree up with lights on it for me so I just get to tackle the fun part.

It is strange not decorating this year. For most of my adult life I have decorated more trees, hung more garland & strung more lights than I can even remember. With the stores there were always trees to trim and vignettes to create. Several years I would auction off my Christmas decorating services to the highest bidder at our local annual auction to benifit the arts in our community and I had the opportunity to decorate some of the most beautiful homes in our area for the season. This year it is probably a good thing that Mr. A doesn't have too much to work with in the Christmas decoration department because it would probably end up looking more like the inside of a sweet little gift shop instead of a newly single daddy's cozy home.