'Tis the Season to Be Jolly and Joyous!

We finally got to decorate the Christmas tree last night. Oliver is not co-operating with the Christmas spirit, so we had to use all unbreakable balls. Mom and I were laughing about it yesterday. It's a funny thought: we own, literally, thousands of dollars worth of vintage Shiny Brite balls and others from the 1930s to the 1960s. Beautiful glass balls of all sizes, shapes, colors. And what is our tree decorated in? Plastic, shatterproof glitter-covered balls from K-Mart. Ah, the joys of life with Oliver. Cutie pie.



So, I finally set about putting stuff on the tree last night while the other three worked on Christmas cards. Dad was a good Joe about it and helped me put the bins back in the attic once the tree was finished. These are some pictures of ornaments that I liked. Particularly, the large pink gumdrop.

One of our yearly traditions when decorating for Christmas is to have a box of chocolates while we're working. This year, it was a lovely Whitman's Sampler box. My favorites are maple, chocolate-covered cashews and chocolate truffles. Couldn't resist a nice shot of the candies as they looked before we decorated. :) It's a nice tradition, that's for sure!

After I finished decorating the tree, it was time to sit down and help with the Christmas cards. We bought a bunch of Christmas stamps at the National Stamp Show in August, and we've been collecting vintage cards all year, so we are sending out a bunch. Fifteen of them are in the mailbox today, but we're hoping to finish the rest this afternoon. Elizabeth decided that she should hand decorate each envelope, so that's why it's taking a while. These are some of the envelopes that she finished last night. Amazing, isn't she?!

Well, that's about all the news that I've got for now. It's really foggy here today --- and very dark and grey. More later.