Christmas Aftermath

The nativity scene painted by my great grandmother.

Well I'm back from Idaho.

Christmas Decor

The plant shelf is where I collect all of the bouquets Tim has ever brought home for me. I dry them and bunch them before displaying them above the cabinets. Yesterday afternoon Timothy let his creative juices take over and the result was wondrous! Tim added some holly and evergreen bows that he'd collected, unbundled the dried flowers and scattered the color in a perfect arrangement. It was 100% his idea. I had nothing to do with it. I'm so proud!

Snohomish Holiday Market, Snohomish

Snohomish Holiday Market

Photo by Snohomish Holiday Market Blog

Located here at the historic Black Cat Building

Thursdays through Sundays until December 27th

Open from 11:00am-5:00pm

Bellevue Botanical Garden d'Lights

Bellevue Botanical Garden d'Lights

5:00pm-10:00pm, November 28, 2009 - January 2, 2010
12001 Main Street , Bellevue, WA 98005

Entry Fee is $1 per person or $5 per family - not including parking.

Photography by Charles Davis, check out his photostream here.

Dogs are not allowed.

Christmas Tree

Christmas decorating is more fun than Christmas Day - at least in my family. My mother and grandmother would put Martha Stuart to shame when it comes to decking the halls. Since I've moved to the Puget Sound Mom has tried to send ornaments from our family collection. I keep refusing because I know what its like to walk through the home of my childhood and feel like something is missing. Everything that says "Lacey lives here" is gone. That's no good. Therefore all my "baby's first Christmas" ornaments and macaroni art from kindergarten are still in Idaho decorating my parents tree. This of course means that my tree is empty.

To remedy this I held a Housewarming/Christmas Party in 2008. The idea was that friends would bring an ornament that reminded me of them. It was a great success. My favorites are from my nieces and nephews who each brought a hand-made salt dough ornament, and a co-worker brought a sock-monkey to remind me of an inside joke (we call ourselves shop-monkeys and welder-monkeys) and said co-worker also knew that I despise monkeys the way some people despise clowns.

I've decided to make the Christmas Party an annual affair. This year I'm making ornaments for my guests. I can't decide what to do, but let me show you some of the tutorials I'm interested in:

Salt-Dough Snowflakes & Gnomes:
Where in the world did she find those lovely cookie-cutters?

Ribbon Pine Cone Ornament:
I love this idea, it just looks time consuming.

Thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Any other ideas or tutorials would also be a plus. :-)

An another topic..... I'm finding it increasingly hard to get back on track with my writing. I've got an article on Pike Place Market in the works with some colorful pictures but my writer's block is making me nit-pick every word. Writing about home going-ons is so much easier and requires no research on my part. I'm giving myself a deadline: tomorrow. Any other day than today!

Arlington's Hometown Holiday 2009

Arlington's

Hometown Holiday

December 12th & 19th, 11:00am-5:00pm

Alright folks, after a weekend of Christmas tree hunting and holiday baking I finally sat down with the goal of writing about the city of Arlington's annual Hometown Holidays.

This last summer Timothy and I have spent a lot of time bailing hay, hauling hay, bucking hay, and itching with hay-fever. Earlier in the year, when hay was not being cut and bailed, we hunted around for some local grass that would bide us through the spring. This is how we became acquainted with a local Arlington man who participates in Arlington's Hometown Holiday every year. He does so by hitching up his team of Belgian draft horses (gorgeous animals) and giving wagon and sleigh rides around downtown. He said he looks forward to the event every year and with the weather we've been having it's likely that we will have snow this December. Hurray! I can hear the sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling too!

I am SO happy with Arlington's city website. Its easy to navigate, there's good content, and they seem really eager to get citizens excited about town projects.

According to our local Arlington man, the city goes all out for this Christmas event. I wouldn't miss it! The details are in the city's flyer here.