28 days till Christmas....

..... and our big tree is in the house. My husband went out early this morning to look for fresh trees, and he came back with one that's nearly ten feet tall. Gorgeous tree, a perfectly shaped Noble Fir, sitting to the left of our fireplace so it can be seen through the front door of the house.

The day after Thanksgiving has always been The Big Tree Day around here. While nearly everyone else is shopping till they drop at the malls, we're ooohing and aaahing at our big tree.
Mickey Kitty was the first to inspect it, and AngelBoy was the first to drink the water out of the pan underneath the tree. The cats love when the real tree comes into the house... it's as if the tree is a gift just for them. Hopefully, they will all just look at the tree and not touch it from now till the day we take it down and carry it to the curb.

And that day will be here in a heart-beat... the month of December always seems to disappear more quickly than any other month of the year. And that's exactly the reason why I decorate the house so early... we truly enjoy having the house filled with trees and Santas and angels. Christmas comes and goes so quickly, so that's just my way of making it last longer than it really does.

Thanksgiving dinner yesterday was perfectly fine. Just five of us this year, since C & R have moved to upstate NY, and K & B are in Guatemala this week. Even with five, it still takes time for all the extra little details to make the table look special. "Dressing the table" is more fun than preparing the food, in my opinion-- but as my husband says, you can't eat the decorations. (But a pretty table surely adds something to the holiday.)

I filled the inside of the turkey with a large sprig of rosemary and an apple cut into halves, as I've done for the past few years-- it makes the kitchen smell wonderful, and keeps the turkey moist and very flavorful. And I'm not a big fan of turkey meat, but the apple and the rosemary really make the meat extra delicious.

My husband made oyster dressing and his famous cheese-y mashed potatoes. We used a cake pan to bake the dressing in-- a turkey-shaped cake pan that our friend V gave to us before Halloween. V thought we'd use it to make a turkey-shaped cake for Thanksgiving, but my husband had the idea of baking the dressing in that pan, and it worked perfectly. The oyster dressing came out of the cake pan shaped like a turkey. It looked so wonderful that no one wanted to be the first one to slice it. We all quickly got over that.

C's mom made her cranberry-apple compote, plus a spinach and feta casserole. Our neighbor S made homemade pumpkin pie and whipped cream, and a baking dish filled with candied sweet potatoes. Just for the five of us, we had way too much food, but I sent everyone home with some left-overs. We still have enough turkey and vegetables left in the fridge so I won't have to be cooking for the rest of the week.

Which is just fine with me, because we'll be decorating this big tree for the next few days. The tree is so full and so tall that our neighbor had to help my husband take it down from the roof of the car and carry it into the house. When B came into the living room, he looked around and saw some of my smaller trees and said "But you already have Christmas trees in here!" B is such an amateur when it comes to Christmas.

Turkey Day minus one.

Everything is just about as set as it can be on the night before Thanksgiving. I am most thankful that we don't have a cold snap-- the temperature was in the high 80s today, with more of the same for tomorrow, and the overnight low will be in the high 60s tonight. Perfect weather for the cats to sleep on the screen-porch. The dining room table is all set and looks great, so the cats are in the porch now till after all the leftovers are put away tomorrow night.

Last night was in the high 40s, so I let the cats sleep in the house. Mickey Kitty, who slept most of yesterday in his favorite chair in the TV room, was wide awake for most of the night. He was ready to start his day before five o'clock this morning. I was up out of the bed at least four times when I heard him playing around with Christmas decorations in the living room. That tiny cat somehow managed to get a gift-bag out from underneath the silver tree... the heaviest gift-bag that was under that tree. I heard the rustle of the tissue paper as he tried to get himself into the shopping bag. As soon as he saw me in the living room, he ran away and hid underneath the dining room table.

Next thing he did was to take a couple of the little wooden nesting dolls that I have sitting underneath a tall beaded tree. When he started to roll the little dolls around the tiles of the foyer, out I came, and away he went underneath the dining room table again. Next thing was to take a beaded ornament from a display of vintage ornaments on top of the piano-- he tried to roll that around the tiles of the foyer as well.

And didn't my husband and I just tell one another yesterday how lucky we were that our cats never touch anything around the house? I guess Mickey Kitty forgot that rule-of-paw in our little cat-world here. The only reason he was trying to get my attention was because he was ready to begin his day, which means it's time for canned food. After the fifth time getting out of bed, I just gave in and dished out a little bit of Fancy Feast for all three of them-- by that time, AngelBoy and ShadowBaby were awake as well. After Mickey Kitty's belly was full, he didn't bother re-arranging our Christmas decorations. They all went back to sleep, including me.

Our friend V from around the corner stopped by yesterday with an early Christmas gift for me. She had seen my husband yesterday morning as they were walking the dogs and he told her that we had all the holidays decorations out and up and done, except for the big tree in the living room. V couldn't resist, and came over here to see everything, and to give me the Christmas gift that she bought for me right after last Christmas was over. It's a beautiful velvet-suited Santa, with bendable arms and legs so you can set him down however you'd like him. I've got V's Santa sitting on the keyboard of the piano, with one arm holding onto the music-sheet display. It's a glorious Santa, probably from the TLC shop here in town, which is too expensive for words unless you buy after the holiday is over and the prices are slashed down to nearly-normal.

Of course I couldn't let V leave here without half of her Christmas gift as well. I let her open just the holiday-part of what I had wrapped up for her. A couple of months ago, I found a brown silk pillow (her living room colors) with tiny copper bells sewn all around the edges. The bells are so tiny and the jingle from all the bells has just the sweetest sound. It's meant to be a Christmas pillow, but I have a feeling that V will keep it out all year long, just because she loves things in that rich brown color.

So we had our own early Christmas here yesterday morning, before either of us had set the table for Thanksgiving. V will start her Christmas decorating tomorrow night after dinner, and after her two sons have left the house to go visit friends. V is on Cloud 9 when her sons come into town-- one lives in Chicago, the other in Charlotte, but everyone gets together for the holidays.


I've been feeding the birds every morning.... three feeders are in the backyard and I can see them from the breakfast room and the kitchen windows, and the cats can see them all from the screen-porch. Along with the birds, we have a family of squirrels who come by for breakfast every morning. No way to keep the squirrels away from the feeders, and I don't even try anymore. About a week ago, I noticed a couple of new visitors at the lowest feeder--- a mama mouse and two little baby mice. Oh goodie.

Well, I guess they have to eat, too, and heaven knows we have our share of field mice all over the subdivision here. I'm thankful the mice have found the feeders-- could be worse, such as possums or raccoons, armadillos, or huge hawks. The mice, however.... I've watched them through the binoculars and they're as cute as can be. I'm not afraid of mice. I guess after being here so long with various critters running around, and our oldest cat Rusty (now passed away) used to catch mice and leave them on the backyard deck all the time. Surprise! Look at what I've brought you! And growing up with Walt Disney movies, I expect all mice to want to wear tiny little jackets and start singing and dancing and sewing dresses for Cinderella.

But these backyard mice aren't singing and dancing, and they're not wearing little red and blue jackets. They're just sitting in one of the feeders and munching on the birdseed. They run away if the squirrels get too close, but the birds don't seem to bother them at all. As for my cats, they sit by the screens and watch the mice nibble on the seeds. Three cats on that screen-porch, and we've still got mice in the yard.

Oh well, break time is over. Time to finish up in the kitchen. Seems like we've spent all day long in that kitchen, my husband and I both taking turns, and tomorrow will be more of the same. I am so thankful that I was able to get a small turkey. Anything over 12 pounds is just way too much turkey. If it were up to me, I'd be serving lobster or shrimp or salmon. Turkey just isn't my thing, but it's Thanksgiving, and that's what everyone is expecting. Gobble, gobble.

33 more days till Christmas.

I know that countdown because I have a little wooden calendar in the kitchen. I was in the Hallmark store recently and saw a cute Christmas-countdown decoration with dice-like cubes painted with numbers. It caught my eye because my Uncle Tony out in Arizona had made everyone in the family a little wooden house with two wooden cubes painted on all sides with numbers to correspond with the days of the month.

My uncle called it his perpetual calendar because as long as you knew what year it was, the little cubes tucked into the wooden house would always give you the correct date if you remembered to change them each morning. According to Uncle Tony-- if you didn't know what year it was, and if you couldn't remember to rotate the cubes each morning, then you didn't need a calendar in the first place.

I didn't buy that little decoration in Hallmark, but when I got home, I took my uncle's wooden calendar out of my desk where it had been tucked away. I had always kept it on my kitchen windowsill, right over the sink, but little miniature vegetable people and farm animals sort of took over that space. I had a new idea for the wooden house and the calendar cubes, however, and out came the acrylic paints. I painted the little house red, but left the cubes just as they were-- gold with red numbers. I used some of my heavy card stock Christmas embellishments to decorate the little wooden house and now the little house is all decked out to look like a holiday decoration.

From the card stock embellishments, I also found a bright red "CHRISTMAS" printed in happy red letters on a white background. I attached that to the house, right underneath the spot where the number-cubes sit. My little Christmas-countdown house is now in the kitchen, sitting next to a vintage Santa. It looks great... a happy little thing... and as of this morning, there are 33 more days till the day.

I've arranged and re-arranged Christmas decorations all over this house. Green porcelain pixies and red-and-white-striped elves have found different spots all over the living room and dining room. Bright beaded stars are sitting on top of trees, angels are spreading their wings in every room and there are Santas and little trees in all the rooms. My cousin L told me the other day that I'm living in my own "little bubble of the world." I told her she was exactly right, and in that bubble of mine, everything is pretty and happy and stress-free, and decorated for whatever holiday it happens to be.

That conversation with L started because she had asked me if I had heard the latest story about Korea on the news. For the umpteenth time, I reminded L that I don't watch the news on television. I find out what's going on in the world by reading The Chronicle every morning. I go through all the sections and read most of the paper. Bad news from around the world is less invasive that way-- you can choose to read the article or not, as opposed to having the sound blasting at you from the television.

I told L that I had no idea what's going on in Korea, nor did I want to know. By the way she asked me if I had heard, I knew it couldn't have been good news. And whatever is happening over there, I can't possibly do anything about it, so my theory is that I don't need to know, nor do I need to worry about it. L, on the opposite end of the worry-scale, was fretting and worrying and thinking about Korea for hours after she heard whatever the story was on the news. As a result, she didn't get her grocery shopping done, she didn't get her laundry done, and she was over-whelmed because Thanksgiving is a heart-beat away.

I suggested to L that she find her own little private bubble that encompasses just herself and her family and friends, and keeps out all the bad news stories from around the world. There will always be bad news, and the reporters are going to focus more on the bad-news stories than the good-news stories. I don't know why that has to be, but it just seems to always be true.

I told L that life was short. If you live to be 150, life will still be too short. Why should I take hours out of my days to listen to bad news? I told L that during the very hour she was biting her nails in front of her television, I was making place cards for our Christmas dinner, and little candy baskets for the holiday lunch we'll have here for the secretaries in my husband's office. I told my cousin that while she was worried about Korea and whatever their latest problem was, the only thing I was worried about was burning myself with the glue gun.

Life is too short. Be happy, with whatever defines your own bubble of joy.

Christmas overload.

If there is such a thing as CDA (Christmas Decorating Anonymous) then I think I ought to join. I wonder what their 12-step program would be like.... On the first day of Christmas, you must kill the partridge in the pear tree and serve it for dinner. On the second day of Christmas, you must feed the two doves to giant turtles. And so on, and on...

Today was the opening of the Christmas rooms in the consignment shop. I went with our friend and neighbor J to see all the goodies, and there were hundreds of choices. We walked around the Christmas rooms so much that we had to sit down for a few minutes on the Santa-red sofa and love seat that was in the middle of the front room. We decided that it would be wonderful to be able to buy that red sofa just for Christmas, then store it away for the rest of the year.

The extra discount at the shop today was 20% off anything that was open or could be opened. J found a little blue cloisonne bell for her blue angel Christmas tree-- the bottom of the bell is open, so that qualified for the discount. I found a bright red tinsel table-top Christmas tree. I picked it up, put it down. Picked it up again, put it down again. Did I really need another tree for this house? But it's a red one. Not too big... not too small... just perfect. And very red. J and I sat on the red sofa to decide what color ornaments would look best on the red tree. I think we just wanted an excuse to sit on that comfy red sofa.

I also found a Santa, made of red velvet, with lace and buttons on the rim of his boots and beads on wires floating around the top of his hat. A very different, elegant sort of Santa. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) And, when I brought him to the front desk, the girl told me that Santa could qualify for the 20% discount because he had two eyes, which of course, could open. I looked at J and we decided not to argue that point, then J asked about the red Christmas tree-- its branches are open, she said. And out came the girl's red pen, to mark the tree down twenty percent.

Added to my treasures was a beautiful gold metal sleigh decorated with gold stars... perfect for holding the Christmas cards. Open sleigh-- 20% off. I also found a beautiful china serving plate in the shape of a Christmas tree. I don't usually like those, but the design on this one is very pretty-- and it's an open plate... another 20% off.

J found a little Christmas angel that she said she liked but wasn't completely sure about. She opened her hand for me to take a look at it-- and she told me to give her my honest opinion. One look at the little angel and I nearly laughed out loud--- it was one of my own angels that I had brought to the consignment shop last week. I brought it there because even though it was nicely made and very elegant, it didn't have a face. No eyes, no nose, no mouth-- just a blank oval underneath her halo. I told J all of that and we just laughed-- she said that's what was wrong with the poor angel-- no face. She put it back on the shelf, and we both hoped that someone who doesn't mind faceless angels would give it a home.

Everything I bought today has been added to the Christmas fantasy-land around the house. Santa is in a little chair in the dining room, and the little red tree is on top of the piano. At the shop, J and I thought that red and green ornaments would look pretty on that red tree, but the red ones faded into the tree, and there are so many shades of green ornaments that they looked too mismatched. I had a bunch of small gold ornaments-- vintage glass ones, and newer glass ornaments made to look vintage. The gold looks great against the red tree, and I even had a vintage gold topper for it. Still needs a few more gold ornaments, but I'm sure I will find more when I go through the boxes of ornaments when we decorate the big tree. The red tree is sitting in a red velvet box (also from the shop, also an "open" item)-- it looks perfect there on the piano, this bright red tree set into a red velvet box like a gift.

Everything is done, except the big tree. Who am I kidding.... nothing is ever done. There's always just one more Santa, one more tree, one more star.

And as of tomorrow... 35 more days till Christmas.

Beat The Clock.

No... this isn't about a nostalgic television game show-- it's about beating the traffic on our too-busy, over-built main roads. The trick is not to be near the major intersections at noon or at dinner-time. Mid-morning is the best... everyone who has driven to work is already there, and the ones who go out for lunch don't get on the road until 11:30 or just before noon.

Between 12:00 and 1:30 is busy, but between 2:00 and 3:20 is manageable. Between 3:30 and 4:00, the roads are filled with mothers and their kids in trucks and large SUVs, either coming home from school or going to after-school sports activities. Anything after 4:30 is horrible, and if you're on the main roads around 6:00, then you might want to keep a magazine on the front seat of your car so you have something to do besides seethe and roll your eyes towards heaven as you're sitting in the bumper-to-bumper lanes. (Mayor White! Are you listening to all of this?)

But on a happy note...... I went to the local consignment shop this morning, as I've been doing every week. I've already found most of the favors I will need for our Valentine's Party in February, but this morning I stumbled upon a treasure. Part of the consignment shop is roped off with swirls of red crape paper as their "store elves" put out all the Christmas items. They will take away the red paper ropes on Thursday, and serve punch and cookies to all the holiday shoppers.

Well, I don't want punch and cookies... I just want some good bargains, and I found a great one today. In their blue and white room, there was a silver Christmas tree skirt tucked on top of one of the boxes waiting for an elf to make holiday magic happen. I saw the silver satin-- couldn't miss it because of its shine, plus the satin has beaded silver snowflakes sewn here and there on the fabric. Gorgeous tree-skirt, and very expensively made... but in the consignment shop, it was less than twenty dollars. Plus, today's special up on the board at the front of the store said that anything with silver and gold in it would be 20%-off the marked price. They change that board and the specials first thing every morning, so on any given day, something is always on sale.

Twenty-percent off anything silver or gold....... a silver satin tree-skirt with silver beading-- can't get any more silver than that, and it qualified for the extra discount. I was thrilled....... I've been looking for years for a tree-skirt for my vintage aluminum tree, and now I have it. As soon as I got home, I took away the white lace tablecloth that I always put on the table underneath the aluminum tree. The silver satin looks beautiful, and the beaded snowflakes are shining and reflecting the colored glass ornaments on the tree. Perfect... couldn't have ordered anything more perfect than that satin fabric. Plus, I didn't get stuck in traffic this morning on my way to the shop.

It's beginning to look more like Christmas every day around here. I'm surprised that the consignment shop waited this long to put up their Christmas displays, but the girls there have been super-busy since Hurricane Ike rolled through. The furniture in that store has been flying out the door as fast as they can set it up, and nearly all the buyers were those who had lost part of their homes to the storm.

I told my husband that if I ever wanted to open up a business, a consignment shop would be the way to go. They split everything fifty-fifty... half to the store, half to the consignee. The store owner's inventory is brought in by all the customers-- and if you have the right location, you'll always have customers. They're careful to only accept items that are brand new or look that way. If it's an antique piece, then it can have just minimal wear or age to it-- nothing too shabby. The woman who owns this consignment shop also owns another one up in Pearland. Between the two stores, she makes a very good living, plus she loves the daily arranging and re-arranging that she and her "elves" have to do every day.

The invitations for our Christmas party have now all been either mailed out or given out. I was around the corner this afternoon giving "an invite" (as they all say here) to H and M, two neighbors who live down the street from V and S. When I told them we were inviting them to our Christmas Open House, H put his arms up in the air and said "Whooooo-eeeeee, we'll be there!" even before his wife opened the envelope to see what the date was.

We invited this couple to our Valentine's party last year, and they were so excited to be included in the party group that they showed up on our front porch the night before the party.... the right time, but the wrong night. They were so embarrassed, but we eased them out of being upset with themselves by telling them that a lot of our friends and neighbors had also made the same mistake over the years. (Not exactly true, but it made them feel better.) So today, when I invited them to the Christmas party, M told me that she would make sure they came to our house on the right date. Before I left, H said that no matter which night they came to our house, at least they "...wouldn't have to fight our way through the traffic on Bay Area Blvd."

Sluggish economy?

The headlines in The Chronicle tell us that the economy is slow, retail sales are way down, large stores are going out of business, and consumers just aren't spending money like they used to.

Well, if all of the above is true, then I would like to know why there are so many cars on the roads around here, and all of those roads are heading towards the shopping malls that have popped up on the landscape as quickly as bluebonnets.

What used to be a ten-minute ride to take care of errands in town has become a forty-minute nightmare. Should we try Bay Area Blvd? Or maybe NASA Road One would be better? How about El Dorado? The final answer--- it doesn't matter which road you take... they're all going to be backed up with traffic heading towards one of the shopping centers, and you can bet that the two lanes on each of those roads are blocked off to just one lane because road-work is going on. And on, and on... since around April or May. (Just how long does it take to fix some un-even pavement or replace drainage pipes?)

The Powers That Be have built a new overpass on NASA Road One, just past the Space Center. That downtown-looking overpass (which is a small-town eye-sore) was supposed to alleviate some of the traffic, which is does, but if you take that overpass you can't get off at Highway 3 and the overpass takes you to the feeder-road of the Gulf Freeway. Well, la dee da to that.... the feeder-road of the Gulf Freeway has been backed up for the past two years because of all the new mega-stores and mega-movie theatres that have been built over there.

I told my husband today that road-rage will be a daily happening in this town by the end of the year, if not sooner. We don't have that aggressive kind of driving here. Drivers let you into a lane if you need to make a turn; no one (no one, not ever, in all the years we've been here) honks their horn as soon as a red light changes to green; people on the road are generally courteous and kind.

But wait. Just wait. The holiday shoppers are going to be out in force the week after Thanksgiving. All of those people who don't start thinking about Christmas till after the turkey has been carved, served, and picked-over for the dog will be out on the roads, heading towards the mall or the 726 shopping centers that have bloomed in and around this once-quiet area. And all of our two-lane roads will have bumper-to-bumper traffic, and all the drivers who take the new overpass on NASA Road One and find out they can't exit on Highway 3 will be steaming mad. (Just who designed that overpass anyway?!)

I am so glad my Christmas shopping is done, I swear. But I shouldn't be saying that out loud. With all the frustrated drivers around this town, I don't think they'd much appreciate my efforts.

Mr. Claus

Not that this matters in the whole scheme of the universe, but it just bothers me when names and things are misspelled. As a child of the 1950s, spelling was drilled into our heads by the nuns, and misspelling a word was as bad as saying a bad word. Spelling every word correctly is so ingrained in me that I proof-read everything not once but twice, and if I do go back into these essays and find something misspelled, I will immediately edit and correct it, no matter how long ago it was typed.

But of all the words to misspell, you would think that everyone in the western hemisphere would know how to spell Santa Claus. Not so, Virginia... not so.

There was a movie out a few years ago with Tim Allen, titled "The Santa Clause." The Clause in the title was not Santa's last name of Claus, but was meant to be Clause, as in a contract or an agreement. However, Hollywood being the great social and cultural icon that it is (and there I surely jest in a big way), everyone on this side of the planet took that title to heart, and half of the population now thinks that Santa's full and correctly spelled name is Santa Clause. You can see Santa's name misspelled all over eBay, various Internet sites, and hundreds of thousands of holiday ads in newspapers and magazines.

As I said at the beginning.... with everything going on in and around the world, that "e" at the end of Santa's name is the tiniest speck of a microscopic blip in the universe, and it doesn't hurt anyone and won't change anything. But it just bothers me to think that a title of a movie coming out of godforsaken Hollywood could make so many people think that Santa's name has that e at the end of Claus.

Get real, people...... take out your vintage Christmas books and look at Santa's name. Nowhere, ever, in any Christmas story, are you going to find that Santa Claus is spelled with an e at the end.

Pay attention, class: The correct spelling for the name of the jolly red-suited guy who finds his way down your chimney on Christmas Eve is SANTA CLAUS. Now... write that name a hundred times on the blackboard, then hand in a two-hundred word composition on the history of Santa Claus who was doing just fine on his own till modern-day Hollywood got hold of him.

The World Market

I spent most of the morning shopping for favors for our Christmas party. With more than 40 people coming here, and everyone leaving with a gift, I try to find different things for every party that most people haven't seen before.

"The World Market" is a great store not far from here, and as long as the traffic isn't bumper-to-bumper on our main road, it's fun to go there. Our traffic problems here have escalated since they started building so many townhouses near the Gulf Freeway. All these multi-level townhouses means more cars, much more than this area can hold on the roads we have, so during the rush-hours, we have city traffic just like the downtown areas. And why is it that The Powers That Be didn't realize what would happen to our normally quiet main roads after all those townhouses went up?

Anyway, before I get really get started on the traffic problems.... The World Market had lots of interesting things for Christmas-- uniquely shaped chocolates in cute packaging, ornaments from around the world, scone and biscuit mixes from England, cookie mixes and plum puddings, marzipan animals and fruits, plus lots of nice glassware to fill up with holiday candy.

I bought some of the marzipan fruits for us, for Thanksgiving. I made little candy-cups from ribbons, crape-paper and silk leaves, similar to the Halloween candy-cups that I had found on eBay. My Aunt Dolly always had those tiny crape-paper candy cups for all the holidays-- they sold them at the Five and Ten-Cent stores in the 1950s. I bought some on eBay and used them for a lunch surprise for Miss C one afternoon-- she had never seen them before.

The little cups looked simple to make so I tried that last night, using Thanksgiving leaf-design ribbon and gold crape-paper. I used the small paper bathroom Dixie cups-- cutting them in half to make them shorter... they came out very nice, and I made enough for each place setting at Thanksgiving. After I got busy with the hot-glue gun, you'd never guess there was a plain white Dixie cup underneath all the copper and gold paper and ribbons. Each of the little cups will be filled with the tiny marzipan fruits. We're having just five for Thanksgiving dinner... I don't know that I would have gone to all that trouble if I had to make a dozen.

I also went to the consignment shop today, and their 20%-off special was anything made of porcelain, ceramic or glass. That gave me an idea for the favors for Valentine's Day, so I walked around the shop and picked up all their heart-shaped candy dishes, which were marked down anyway, plus the extra 20% off. Those will make great favors for the Valentine's party-- I will fill them with heart-shaped cookies or heart-shaped candies.

The girl at the register asked me if I was buying all the heart-shaped dishes for Christmas presents, and I told her that I was already finished with Christmas shopping, so I've started now on Valentine's Day. She thought I was joking.

It's beginning to look....

..... a lot like Christmas....

Ever since the Halloween decorations came down, I've been taking out the Christmas table-top trees, the Santas, the angels, the little porcelain elves.... and today, Miss C spent most of the afternoon here helping me put up the larger of the trees. She did the aluminum tree in the living room by herself, as well as the gold feather-tree in the breakfast room. On each of those trees, she made sure not to have ornaments of the same colors too close together--- that was her idea, not mine. I make it a point not to tell her how to do anything, other than to say this tree goes on that table.

Miss C also re-decorated the top of the buffet in the dining room. I had already done it last week, but she reminded me that I would have to re-arrange everything when we have our Christmas party, so she moved the tree that was on the buffet into my bedroom so the small teacup tree is now on my dresser, and not in the way of the plates and flatware that will be lined up on the buffet for our party.

We decided (or C decided) that more decorations were needed for the glass shelves of the coffee bar, so all the little angels are now arranged inbetween the glassware and the cups and saucers, as well as some of my red and green glassware-- "You might as well use those Christmas-colored glasses as decorations!" -- and Miss C was right..... the coffee bar looks very festive, all decked out in red and green and angels.... all ready for the party next month.

C gave me some pictures of herself with the three cows that she's taking care of for the Longhorn Project at school. I didn't realize how big those cows really are, especially when petite little C is standing next to them. So I now have photos of C with Natalie, Bubba, and Cookie-- her three longhorns, which have already won her nearly a thousand dollars in scholarship money at their first showing up in Dallas last week.

The senior pictures from the high school are already printed out.... her parents have to pick out the ones they want enlarged. I saw those also this afternoon, and it was amazing to see how grown-up and mature C looked in the photographs. When C comes to our house, she's usually in shorts or jeans, with her hair piled up in a high pony-tail at the back of her head. For the senior pictures, of course, she's in her graduation cap and gown, then in a black sweater, then in her school jacket. Her hair is down and flowing long past her shoulders, her smile is happy, and you can tell from the pictures that she's excited beyond words to be a graduating senior.

Last year, C raised a tiny bunny; this year, she's raising three huge longhorns. Next year-- college. Lots of changes next year, for all of us. But for right now.... we're getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Pass the tissues....

I have never been more interested in a Presidential election. I made it a point to be at our local library on the first day of Early Voting. I watched the debates and read all the articles. I rolled my eyes towards the ceiling when McCain called himself a Maverick. I cringed when McCain picked Miss Alaska for his VP. I looked at the intensity in Obama's eyes when he said he would make a difference and I truly believed him. I compared Obama's life history to McCain's and decided that John and Cindy's eight houses and thirteen cars wasn't a reflection of everyone's American dream.

When I voted for Obama, I had tears in my eyes just because of the powerful history behind that moment. I thought of the 1960s, and the killings of the Kennedys and of Martin Luther King Jr. On Election Night, when the numbers were so close, I sat there hoping that McCain and Miss Alaska wouldn't get near the White House. Surely, the voting couldn't go their way. Surely, the country wasn't falling for the "we're different than Georgie W" platform.

And I continued to watch the election numbers coming in.... with the sound off so I couldn't hear the commentators. My thought was that if Obama didn't win, then I didn't want to hear what anyone had to say. When the numbers got further apart, when it looked like Obama had the lead, I turned the sound back on. When CNN declared Obama to be the winner, I grabbed the box of tissues. It was a beautiful moment, and I was hoping that Martin Luther King Jr. was looking down at Obama and smiling because his dream had finally, finally, finally become real.

The phone rang and it was our friends K and B. They had stayed up way past their usual 9:30 bedtime and were jumping for joy in their living room. When they asked me if I had been doing a happy-dance in our TV room, I told them that I had been crying into my tissues and hoping that all of heaven's angels would protect Obama and his beautiful family.

Ten minutes after I spoke to K and B, young Miss C called to ask if I was still watching the election. She immediately noticed that my voice was low and quiet and she asked me if I had been crying. "Well, of course I was," I told her..... "but they're happy tears, not sad ones." This is the first election that C has followed from beginning to end, and she knows that she will be eligible to vote in the next one.

I listened to McCain's speech when it was made clear that Obama had won. His concession speech was the most heart-felt, the most real speech he's made since this entire campaign started. In today's Chronicle, there was an article stating that Palin had wanted to speak to the crowd before McCain came to the podium that night-- she was told she couldn't, that it wasn't proper for a VP candidate to make a speech on Election Night. Miss Alaska wasn't happy. Well, that's how the moose-tracks crumble.... wink, wink.

When CNN announced that Obama would appear in Grant Park, I knew that I wasn't going to sleep until I heard every word he said. We had been in Chicago this past summer and I knew how large Grant Park was....... when I saw the thousands upon thousands of jubilant people in that park, waiting for Obama, I was wishing to be there. It was electric, it was magical.... you could just feel it, right through the television.

I went through more tissues as I listened to Obama speaking to the crowd, and I knew that people all over the world were hearing every word he said. Was everyone thinking the same thing? That finally, finally, we have a leader. We have a president who commands attention simply because he stands with quiet dignity even before he says one word. He can look into everyone's eyes with confidence and a certainty that he will hear what they're saying and put his heart and his mind and his soul into their shoes.

What was that line in "To Kill a Mockingbird" --- Never judge a person, Scout, till you've walked in their shoes. In my opinion, I feel that Obama will bring dignity and wisdom to the Oval Office, something which has been so very lost there in Washington for so very long. He is, in my opinion, one who has always made it a point to stand in the other person's shoes. And that, in my book, is high praise.

Election Night.

There must be a lot of Election Night parties in our subdivision. There are lots of cars parked on many of the streets, and you can tell which house has all the company.... every light in the house is on. I just turned on the television news, but it's too early to tell if there's a clear winner. I'm hoping whoever wins is just that-- a clear winner. I'm also hoping that you-know-who goes back to Alaska when the winner is announced.

I never thought of having an Election Night party, and that's one party that I wouldn't even want to have. Too many differences of opinion when it comes to politics, and there's no way that every person is going to be happy with the decision. I don't see how that could be a happy party, unless you serve a lot of mixed drinks and beer, which we just don't do.

Speaking of parties.... I've written out the invitations to our annual Christmas party, so that's already a work-in-progress. I won't give and/or mail them out till mid-November, but at least they're done and ready to go.

We've also made plans for Thanksgiving... some of "the usual suspects" (as my husband says) will be here, along with our at-the-corner neighbor, who was very happy to be invited because she would have spent Thanksgiving alone this year. Her family will be here for Christmas, but they didn't want to travel to Texas for a turkey dinner.

Our friends C and R will be in their new home in upstate New York for Thanksgiving, and by Christmas time, they will be more than settled in their northern neighborhood. They already have a snow-plow company lined up for their first snowstorm. R was born and raised in Michigan, so she's quite used to northern winters, but C is a Texas-grown guy, and has no idea just how cold it's going to get up there this winter. We joked with him that he may just decide not to come out of his house till Spring of next year. They invited us to fly up for a visit, but we told them we wouldn't do that in any of the months when snow could still be on the ground, which probably limits us to June, July and August.

All of the Halloween decorations are tucked away now, and I've started to take out some of the Christmas decorations. It takes me nearly a month to decorate this whole house with Santas, tree, angels and reindeer, so I don't bother much with Thanksgiving decorations. By the time the turkey is set to come out of the oven here, only the dining room table will look like Thanksgiving... the rest of the house will be totally Christmas.

Still warm and beautiful..... 80 to 85 during the day, 60 to 65 at night, and not a raindrop in sight lately. Now that the clocks have been turned back, it's dark by seven o'clock, which is ridiculous when it's still so summery outside.