Just had to post a pic of my final happy dance for 2010. I finished it an hour ago and still have time to work on those ornaments for my granddaughters. The white in the piece shows up better IRL.
I worked at the hospital on Christmas day this year and we had our family celebration on Dec. 27th. Whenever I have to work on the holiday like that, my sons always spend Christmas Day at their father's home instead. Their stockings, along with my granddaughters', were all lined up waiting for them to arrive. When they did, it wasn't long before those stockings were emptied and the floor beneath the tree littered with torn wrapping. Most of the gifts beneath the tree now belong to the little ones and I fill stockings instead for the boys. They've always told me that their stockings were the part they enjoyed the most on Christmas. Things change and those stockings are now filled with toiletries, paperback novels, socks, gloves and gift certificates rather than candies and small toys.
Santa was pretty good to me as well. I knew that he was bringing a Kobo ereader to me but what I didn't know about was this fantastic teapot. My DH knows how much I love anything that's a cat and I also enjoy a good cup of tea. He stumbled across this teapot during our visit to Muskoka at the Blue Willow Tea Shop in Gravenhurst. As I waited for him at the table before our meal, I do remember wondering what the heck was taking him so long to park the car. Unknown to me he had spotted the teapot, waited while they wrapped it, paid for it and hid it in the car while I was perusing the menu. Gotta love him!!
I also received some money with which to purchase some stash from my MIL. She had already discussed this with me before Christmas and I ordered some items in advance to place beneath the tree. Here's what I can't wait to get started at stitching for next year!
In early December I took in one of my previously finished stitches to Michael's ( 60% off framing!) to have it framed. It had already been stretched but I still figured it wouldn't be ready before Christmas which they assured me it would not. So imagine my surprise when they called on the Monday before Christmas to say that it was ready for pickup. I was very thrilled to have BD Blessings Be Thine hung on the wall in our entrance in time to greet Christmas guests and family. I love how it turned out!
So today I headed into Ottawa to attend church for the first time in weeks and where did I end up? The mall! This was after our church service and it's the last place I expected to be on the final weekend for shopping before Christmas. Why did I endure such torture? Because yours truly forgot about an order for a gift. I'd ordered this gift a month ago and it only just arrived. I received the phone call on Saturday and knew that the only time I'd be in that neck of the woods was this weekend. It actually wasn't as bad as I expected it to be but there are still some crazies out there. People get nasty at this time of year!
The first is one of my Dad's picture which hangs on our tree every year since his death 16 yrs ago. What I love about this is that there is also an ornament of a Coke bottle which hangs beside it. Anyone who knew my Dad knew that he was addicted to Coca Cola. Even when he was hospitalized he had family members sneak some in to him. When he died we made sure he was buried with a can of Coke beside him! 
Not long after Bob and I married 9 yrs ago, I was looking through his photo albums and spotted a picture of him with Santa. I then dug out mine to show him. We put them aside to show the kids. In the meantime I found Christmas frames for them and decided to display them along with the pictures of my sons that had been taken with Santa when they were younger. We have had more comments on these pictures then any of our other Christmas decorations. Last year my granddaughters spotted them and were confused when we explained that one of them was their Papa!! Mine is the only black and white photo of the group and was taken with my sister when we visited the Christmas wonderland at J L Hudson department store in Detroit. I'm the one on the right. Don't you just love the outfits?
I can't believe that so many days have passed since I last posted. Time is getting away on me and I'm starting to panic as Christmas approaches. There don't seem to be enough hours in the day for me to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Add to that the fact that I'm always sleep deprived and you get the picture. I enlisted my son Daniel's help this week in order to get the house decorated. 
As you can see, the tree is now done!I also wanted to spend some time with Dan since he is celebrating his 26th birthday tomorrow. My husband Bob also saw a birthday pass on Sunday so we had a joint celebration yesterday. It was the only day that all of us could get together. With Bob being an organist and choir director, this is an extremely busy time for him and we haven't seen much of him lately. I had hoped to try a new dessert for them that I found on Carol's blog but there just hasn't been enough time so I bailed out and bought them a chocolate fudge cake from the local bakery. The neighbours came over and joined us too so there isn't much cake left now, thank goodness. It's just too tempting!! 
I've made a small amount of progress on Jardin Prive Christmas. The top line with the word Christmas and the church is the latest stitching on this one. When I stitched the church, it called for the windows to be left so that just the fabric beneath showed but my fabric was so light that you couldn't tell there were windows there. That's when I decided to backstitch the windows to make them more visible. After stitching in the top of the piece I decided to put it aside in favour
of my M design name trees. I ordered these last year (or it might even have been the year before ) to stitch for my two granddaughters, Oceanne and Summer. Oceanne's tree is stitched save for the beading but I hadn't even touched Summer's yet. Time to get my butt in gear if I want these done for this year. I'm still not even sure that will happen! In any case here's a pic of Summer's tree up until now as well as a pic of Oceanne's tree. If you look at Oceanne's tree sideways you'll be able to see her name within the branches.
