Pre-Christmas friend's celebration

One tradition I really enjoy is getting together with my girlfriends for our annual holiday lunch.  This year, I hostessed at my house.  I decided to make one of my Home Chef recipes of Parisian Chicken, Vichy Carrots, and french potatoes.  It was good.  The company was even better!  These are my closest friends.  We've been friends for over 20 years.

Lesley, Stacy, Me, Julie

Love these ladies!

Merry Christmas

I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas.  It went off like clock work with lots of family, friends, love, and laughs.  This year, Nola came to town.  While I decided to "up my game" since she was here, we still worked to make it stress free and as fun as possible.  Because my place is small, we also decided to go out to eat for meals which turned out really nice.

Nola came into town on Thursday before Christmas.  We met Dad's side of the family for Mexican food at La Fountain.  This side of the family has grown and everyone is going in a bunch of directions so it seemed getting together before the holiday was a perfect solution.  La Fountain is a place Philip and I often enjoy.  The food is excellent and they could accommodate 17 people.  It was great fun.

Friday, Nola went to Wendover with Dad for the day while I worked.  Because they get home in the evening, I met my friends Lesley, Jason, Amy, and Boe for a cocktail and catching up.  It was great fun before I went to meet Nola and Dad to bring Nola home.

Saturday, Nola and I met Dad, Cindy, Philip, Jennie, and Tiffany for breakfast.  Then we went to Garner Village to the quilt shop Nola loves.  By the time we came home, Philip and Tiffany were here and we decided to order pizza and jump into a spontaneous cookie party.  We made Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, fudge, sugar cookies, ginger cookies, gumdrop cookies, and rice crispy bars.  Nola and Tiffany also made chocolate pretzel turtles that were a huge hit! 

Sunday was Christmas Eve.  Nola had a few projects that needed finished.  We also finished up cookies.  Mom and Chuck came into town to celebrate.  Philip and Tiffany picked up Jennie and we all went to Market Street to celebrate Christmas together.  It was delicious and so festive.  Sadly, it started to snow and the drive was a little hectic home.  Nola and I stayed up late wrapping and getting ready for the big day.  We did go out at midnight to take photos of the fresh snow.

Christmas morning was at my house.  We made a great Christmas breakfast and then we all opened stockings that everyone contributed too.  It was really fun and a tradition I really enjoy.  We decided years ago to not do gifts anymore so this is a fun and stress free way to celebrate.  Nola and I had a quiet afternoon and made a roast pork dinner and watched TV and rested a little.  Dad and Cindy came by in the afternoon for snacks and a visit.  Before we knew it, it was time to get Nola packed and ready for her flight early in the morning.  I took her to the airport very early Tuesday (4:00 am).  And Christmas is a wrap!

I had a wonderful time and was surrounded by family and friends.  I really enjoyed having Nola here and crafting and cooking with her.  I am truly blessed.

Market Street - Christmas Eve (Me, Nola, Jennie)

Mom and Chuck

Tiffany and Philip (they got engaged!!!)

The Gang

Christmas Eve Snow at Midnight

Sisters at midnight

Christmas Breakfast

Stockings

Bella loving it too

Twinning sisters

Relaxing between festivities

Christmas Day - Nola, Dad, Cindy, Me

The gift that just keeps giving

How are your holiday preparations coming along?  I'm doing pretty good considering I've spent the last few years simplifying the holiday seasons.  Cards are made and in the  mail.  House decorated.  Gifts purchased.  Lists for the day's events are made.  So doing pretty good here but there is one thing I want to talk about.

I think glitter is absolutely beautiful and it is exciting.  But it just won't ever go away!  I have worked pretty hard to minimize the glittered items I have.  Metallic decorations?  I'm all over it. Glitter?  While I love it, I hate the mess.  So I've been working to eliminate it from my world. 

I must have lost my mind because I accidentally bought some glittered ribbon for gift wrapping.  So I decided to use it on  my neighbor gifts because...well...they don't like me anyway.  What a lovely passive aggressive gift to leave at their door....right?  So I was in  my office/scrap room tying ribbons around the little chocolate boxes I bought for them.  The glitter was coming off all over my desk.  It was a mess.  When I got all done, I looked down and it was ALL OVER my dress I had on. Red glitter.....all over.

I decided the best way to get rid of it was to go outside on the driveway off my patio and shake it off my clothes.  And I did just that.  It was spread all over but not my problem right?  Later the next day, I stopped off to drop off some groceries on  my patio and laughed because the driveway was glittering like Santa had just come by with his  magic reindeer.  I snickered to myself and gave a knowing nod.  I wonder how long that glitter will be there.  Maybe that wasn't such a great idea.  But I kind of like it.

Hope your holiday life is pretty like glitter...but  maybe not quite so irritating.

Bella...Just....Can't....Stand.....it

So as Thanksgiving rolled past, it is time to start getting ready for Christmas.  Thanksgiving weekend, I went down to my storage unit and got the tree out.  Can I pause for a moment and tell you how nice it is to have a lightweight tree?  I can finally do my tree myself!!  Okay.  Back to the topic.  Anyway,  when I adopted Bella, I didn't think much about how to handle the excitement of the Christmas tree.  This girl is beautiful but she was once wild and feral to some degree. And the tree was clearly just a new toy for her to play with.  What a wonderful life size cat condo!!!

So I brought it up and set it up.  Immediately, she was curious.  Even as I took the parts out of the box she was thrilled.  So I decided to just let it sit for a while and see what she did.  Let's just let the photos tell the story.

What a cool cat condo.  It looks so life like!!

I'll start loving it from the bottom.  I can chew it!!

Why are you freaking out Mom?  I got up here
but I am not sure how to get out.

Look at all these cat toys on my condo!!  I don't know why
you will only let me look.  Every time I try to play with the
new toys, I get wet.  (I spray her)

I'm not doing anything Mom.  I'm just hanging out.  I promise.

I know this is a tough test for her.  I rarely provide negative reinforcement but climbing the tree and clawing the couches are two times the spray bottle comes out.  It is quite a challenge because she likes water so the other day, she was so worked up about the tree, I sprayed her so many times, her head was totally wet.  The great news is she hasn't "stolen" any ornaments the last 2 nights.  And the tree is still upright.  This year, the entire tree is unbreakable...just in case.

As you can see, Bella is getting to be so big!!  No longer the tiny kitten she was when we met.  She is in the "teen" years of rebellion and sass.  I am really looking forward to her growing out of this stage.  She is just so aggressive with my senior kitties.  She chases them until they are just so upset.  I think we are in the home stretch of her growing up.  I hope she still stays sweet.  She really is a great cat....kitteness curiosity aside.