It is starting to look a lot like Christmas...

We are within a hair's breath of being done with our decorating for the holidays. This is one of our favorite times of the year and E and I like to get everything up early and bask in the glow, literally!

One of the pictures is of our tiny Christmas village. This started with 3 tiny Dickens' buildings that the kids' gave me for Christmas one year (I think it was 1986 or 87). These were originally intended as ornaments on a tree and each has a hole on the bottom of the building for a light. The kids added a few more as time went on and they started to look a bit like the village of paper houses and cast iron figures my Nana use to have under her tree. Obviously, the collection has grown and E created this multi tiered framework for the village. There are now over 60 structures on Christmas Island (yes, after the J Buffett song). These tiny houses measure about 1.5 at the smallest to about 3 inches at the most and we have two lighthouses,two churches and two taverns! lol

Our big tree is up but still lacks the ribbons...hopefully we will get those on today. We collect hand painted blown glass ornaments of vintage Santa and these have front and center positions on the big tree. We also follow the German custom of a tree for each family member. E has his stick tree (no ornaments just lights) on the lanai and I have Lucille, my retro four foot Christmas tree. Her ornaments are all kind of funky and fun. And then there is our big tree...you know, the one without ribbons! lol

Santa is in his designated spot on the waterfall rocks above the pool. He quit dancing and singing a couple of Christmases ago but we keep him for sentimental reasons.

A bunch of the presents are unwrapped on my closet floor so that is on my to do list as well.

The Stocking Pal gift exchange is here on Dec. 12 and I sure hope my Pal likes the gifts I have been collecting for her over the past year. We get our new pal names the night of our exchange. This is our second annual event.

Off to work on my projects. The DT at KnKclub.com is doing a 12 Days of HOliday Gift Giving...each day one of us will post the directions for a fairly quick and easy gift to make and give. Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Have a great day and a great week as well!