a rush (of activity) and a push (of frosting)

It's the time of year to pull out all of our favorite Christmas decorations!  They were boxed up last year, so it was nice to see some old familiar faces...like these guys.  I hand-cut these Star Wars "snowflakes" for Todd in the early years of our relationship.  A good reminder that I will never, ever indulge in paper cutting by hand again!  #ouch

Our decorations aren't fancy, and they never match.  Some of the interior lights are colored, some are yellow, and some are white.  They line nearly every interior window and are fairly tacky-looking...but I love Christmas lights and I don't care.

We didn't get a tree this year, but have two smaller evergreens that were pressed into service.

All of our ornaments have some significance and many are handmade, like these hanging over our fireplace (we're just starting to build the fireplace frame, so for now this old window is hanging on the wall itself):

I hand-stitched that vintage coat and cross-stitched the Nordic glove, and they are very dear to me...as are these two:

One signifies all the strays that we feed (this particular stray is Clothilde), and the other has Oregon on one side/Indiana on the other...our home states. The others are mostly store bought, but each one means something, so I wanted to hang them up, tree or no tree!

I *love* tiny Christmas trees and put them everywhere...red bows, too.

I love, love, love paperwhites in the winter, so of course I have a little teacup-full in the living room.

At night, with the fireplace on and the mismatched Christmas lights blazing, with the ornaments swaying on their strings and the little trees and pops of red bows and red flannels everywhere, with our cheerful plaid stockings looped over the ends of our bed frame and hanging over the stair railing...it feels very festive indeed! 

I made a Christmas cake for a party this weekend but got no good photos of it.  It's a standard white layer cake with vanilla frosting, but I cut up some waffle cones to serve as pine trees both on top and against the side of the cake. I ran out of time for careful decorating but I think the overall effect was nice:

After covering just one tree, the star icing tip stopped cooperating and no matter how hard I pushed on the bag, only strands of frosting shot out. I gave up and looped them around the trees in a pretty haphazard way.  It was only when washing the tip that I discovered a piece of butter lodged in the end - argh!  Well, now I know, and this information could be useful for when I make this cake again...and I definitely will.

The weather's been chilly overnight but rather mild during the day.  Each morning, the sun warms the light frost, making a pretty little shower over the eaves of the barn.

The cats luxuriate on the heat pad...

...and we watch birds on the tree outside the living room windows.

Sunrises and sunsets have continued to be amazing!  This is our back yard with the sun just coming up.

I like to enjoy these little pleasures in the midst of a very busy time.  Christmas sales are hopping and there's always so much going on this time of year, with first Thanksgiving, then my birthday, and then the few frenetic weeks until Christmas itself.  I love holidays, but I'm always glad for the post-holiday lull, which usually means lots of pajamas and soothing television/favorite books. 

Until then...have a great week!