Oh, the holidays!

The holidays rolled through here like a giant snowball headed off a mountainside. It takes a minute to get the big boy started but once it gets going, then gains momentum, no one can get out of it's way. And it's always this time of year that I start thinking about how next year "It's all going to be different." Next year, I will have everything become a magical, winter wonderland. I will have my upstairs transformed into Christmas world with decorated trees in every corner. I will have a return of my weird, homemade Santa dummy who stands behind the door to scare the bejebus out of people entering Christmas world not expecting to have Santa get the jump on them. And speaking of tricks. I do believe we need more Christmas pranks. I'm going to work on that too. And then I want to extend a light show out into the Fuzzy Border area of our farm so that we can all go walking in a winter wonderland. And my family is getting a handmade gift! And I want to start working more toward world peace. How's that for a big dream?  I love Christmas and that is a big statement for me as I use to hate it. Can you believe that I actually hated Christmas? Why...you may ask yourself.. why would anyone hate Christmas? Well I think that attitude has it's root in my teen years when my mother gave me a Monopoly game. I knew it was all over when I tore into that package and came up with a board game. My mother could create Christmas magic like nobody's business and she gave me Monopoly and the magic was dead to me. And when I got a house and family of my own, I tried but feel that I miserably failed my children in the magic department. My grandmother Stevens started in September getting her Christmas program organized. And Mom would shop for gifts and put them in lay away and be ready to wow us all on Christmas morning and all I did was worry about spending too much money.  How dumb is that? I could have been pranking and making homemade crafts with those kids and now they are grown. Two years ago, I made a weird santa with a milk jug, a cut out magazine face and Goodwill red clothes...a cheap thrill Santa. And when the kids came around the door and saw him looking over their shoulder....Christmas mayhem! Ok, as long as there is life there is hope so a plan is now being hatched. Christmas 2010 is going to rock their world. Hide and watch!

Snow Days

It has snowed. Just days away from Christmas and we have snow on the ground...not a lot.... just enough to set the mood for the holidays. And speaking of setting the mood, you know how people set things out to decorate for the holidays? I set out a collection of figurines on the window sill. There was a group of 2 snowman figurines which went with three ceramic buildings, a group of 3 campfire figurines and a figurine of 2 kids dragging home a Christmas tree. Then my husband decided he had to open the window to adjust the antenna wire.  He put everything back in the window. Days later I noticed something was different. When I looked closer, I found the above pictured scene. A boy and girl sit by a campfire with their pet dog. They appear to be in a reflective mood.  The campfire burns before them. And across the flames appear another boy and girl with their old friend Frosty. They are dragging him on a sled to the flames. Frosty looks like he is trying to resist certain diseaster! This scene, created inadvertantly by my husband, gives Christmas decor a whole new meaning.

It snowed Monday. I woke to a snowy whitewash covering everything. It melted by midday but served as a reminder that winter is marching our way. Today the wind blew snow sideways. Wind scares me more than almost anything Mother Nature can send our way...though I'm not a big fan of fire either. A tree branch blew across my path as I headed down 14th street to the Nichol house. It was one of those Wizard of Oz moments. Two huge trees across the street from the Lincoln building were making a deep cracking - crunching sound. I was clearing ice off the steps at the front of the building. The wind was in my face and I kept hearing this sound that I at first thought was something clanging in the wind. So I stopped sweeping just to figure out what I was hearing. I have a hard time describing the sound correctly. Imagine an ice cube that cracks in your glass. Now record the sound and alter the sound to go real deep. I really expected that at any moment the tree would explode! And here's the weird thing, after all the cold and ice and blowing tree parts, as I was walking back into the building, I found myself grinning about it all and thinking "Not interested in living in Florida!"

p.s. back to Wizard of Oz moments..... I saw a huge, beautiful rainbow this morning.... it has been a weird day!