Long Weekend~~~

So far,
It has been one long, busy, busy weekend.
I thought I'd catch you up on my preparations for the upcoming weekend, our Christmas With Our Loves and GrandLoves. How I wish I had Photos to Share...but, like old radio, You must use your imagination.

I started Sat. out with a hearty breakfast prepared by dear Hubby Bill. He usually makes weekend breakfasts and lets me wake to the smell of bacon, eggs and fresh coffee. Top the toast with homemade Peach Jam and our weekend was off to a good start.

Bill was finishing up the meat processing over the weekend, while I was working on letting the Christmas spirit in. I had not been feeling the best, and still am a bit 'under the weather', but onward to my chores.

I begged Bill to bring his chainsaw with and take me to the edge of the swamp to get cut two very tall, but thin trees. These had to be extremely thin on the top 6-7 ft. but still very full with their own cones and candles.
Buzz, buzz, and he had them down, lickety-split. What took less than 5 minutes for him, would have taken me a couple of hours sawing with my hand saw. Thanks Babe.

After dropping my Honey-Do off at the house to get on with his chores, I unloaded the trees, grabbed the loppers and the bough cutters and headed back to the topless trees to cut enough of the boughs that lay in easy reach, for decorating around the decks and the house. As long as I was in the woods, I spotted some perfect long red dogwood branches to make a wreath out of for the cabin. It will last for years. That's my kind of decorating.

Back at home, I get to work. It's in the 20's today, no wind and rather nice out, so this is going to be one of the warmest days I've ever done my outside decorating. Wonderful!!!

Tree number one, graces the corner of the deck with a hollow stump for its stand. It's wrapped in colored lights, and will hopefully get decorated with popcorn and cranberry strings, orange and apple rings and frozen peanut butter seed bells, all for the birds. It really doesn't need any more bling, as it is loaded with balsam cones and their candles. It's big on skinny and bigger on beauty.

The 2nd tree is our welcome on the landing next to the door coming into the main entrance of the house, holding green lights, afterall, trees Are green.

The railing and around the door are lit in white, with boughs down the rail which also holds the Home For The Holidays sign I made out of barnboard. The lettering is painted and it has large pinecones hanging from each end. The tree is decorated with 3 homemade stars that are of twigs tied together with raffia. Centered, is the Welcome to Grandma and Grandpa's House sign. A little wooden heart hangs off the side saying, Grandkids Spoiled While You Wait.

The deck lights are the LED lights in blue. I love these lights. They are supposed to be 90% more energy efficient. I guess we will see, when the light bill comes at the end of the month. I strung them all along the outside of the railing, and under each step to light the way onto the deck.
Of course, these are on a timer. Who wants to plug and unplug lights outside in the middle of a blizzard? Not me.

Bill helped me string the cord to the timer for the big blue star on the East side of the Barn. This is it's 2nd year on the barn and is especially special to me. Dad always had a huge blue star on the East side of their barn at the farm. I know he loved it as much as he loved doing it for Mom. Now, Bill does it for me, and we do it for our family and neighbors. The farm star could be seen all the way up the driveway. I always loved that drive on Christmas Eve. To see mine, we have to drive past and come back, but it's so worth it. I can see the reflection of it's glow, from the house. Last night, a couple of rabbits were sitting in the snow, under it. I have been told that, the neighbors that live past us, watch for it to first be lit. I'm so glad they are enjoying it, too.

So far, that isn't much decorating for me. Before my Nativity Set broke from dry-rot, it was either set up in the side yard or my favorite, in front of the barn. I will replace it someday. It was all white, and that's what I want again. Bill even made a cradle for the Baby Jesus. Who says Bill is a scrooch. He just knows the true meaning of Christ-mas.
There were also lighted snowmen, reindeer, another Nativity I cut from plywood, Mary, Babe and Joseph, painted them black and shined a blue flood-light on it. It's amazing how surreal it looked. It too, has seen its day. Maybe I will do that again. I really did love the wholesomeness of it.

Sun., I made a bee-line for the kitchen. I still have not turned on my failing oven, but did make 100-some, Truffles and Brandy Balls. The ones with a kick are rated Adults Only, but the Truffles are rated PG. Both are great. The X-rated ones have honey, brandy, butter, cocoa, crushed vanilla wafers and finely chopped pecans, all rolled in sprinkles.
The PG-rated Truffles are full of crushed graham crackers, honey, marachino cherry juice and it's cherries, butter and cocoa. They are rolled in different colored sprinkles and will be within GrandLove reach, unlike the adult version.

We had to eat, so I threw together some homemade pizza with carmelized onions, sauteed mushrooms with garlic, some of that awesome venison breakfast sausage and cojack cheese topped with Italian spice, oregano and more garlic. OH MY, YUM.

After cleaning up the processing center and the kitchen, I'm done-for, so off to beddy-by for this ol' girl. Life is busy. Life is good. Life is exhausting. So much for simplifying. Tomorrow, I will bake cookies for the kids yet.

Oh, at 11 p.m. yesterday, the marshmallow snowmen were made for the GrandLoves...sure wish I could show you, but, once again you must use your imagination. One regular sized marshmallow on top of a Campfire size marshmallow (they are the size of 3 reg. mallows), a peppermint candy for a cap on top of a vanilla wafer, all glued together with a dab of frosting, dots of red gel for the nose and mouth, dots of black gel for the eyes and buttons, licorice string for the scarf and the arms. Cute...one note (I would have used fruit leather for the scarves but didn't have any. I use what I have, but still cute.) I made a dozen and was in bed by midnight so I wouldn't turn into a frog.

I appologize. I turned into a real motor-mouth, carrying on and on.
So much for simple- apparently, not a word in my dictionary.

And, Yes, darling Little One, Darcie, the Scrabble board is waiting. I will gladly let you whoop my butt, or not.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Now I have to go get my beauty sleep so I can bake and maybe, put up a tree tomorrow. You may not hear from me for awhile. I might be a bit crazed.

BlessYourHearts