Hodgepodging Christmas Decorations

View from the front porch yesterday.
The sun peeked out for a minute or two and then hid again.

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1. Let's talk holiday decorating. On a scale of 1-10 where do you fall? (1=Scrooge and 10= Clark Griswold). What's your favorite corner-room-table-space to decorate? Is it done?

Probably a 3. The older I get, the less I decorate because the kids aren't here to help and aren't here to enjoy it. Still, my favorite space to decorate is the living room. Am I done? Not quite.  I'll wait until the night before the kids are coming to visit before I put up the remaining lights, candles, and cranberries.

2. Is there a nativity scene in your decorating somewhere? Post a picture or, if it's special to you in some way, tell us why. Or do both-it's Christmas!

Oh yes, we have a Nativity. Many of the pieces came from my cousin Bobby, and I bought the stable at the Humane Society of Barron County auction one year. The Nativity spends all of Advent, the 12 days of Christmas, and the remainder of January on the piano. I had once thought of getting rid of that piano because its sound board, pin block, etc. are beyond repair and we have a good piano, but my daughter said, 'Mom, where would you put the Nativity??!!' Yeah, good point. So we have two pianos in our living room. The little grandkids get to bang on play the Nativity piano. The older grandkids, who can respect a piano, are allowed to play the other one.

3.  Do you live in a social neighborhood? If so are you glad? If not do you wish you did?

We live in a very unsocial neighborhood. Although it's beautiful out here in the middle of nowhere, and I've loved it for 27+ years, I'm ready to move to a smallish town, and live right smack in the middle of it so I can walk my new, yet-to-be acquired German Shepherd puppy by the light of the street lamps, walk a block to the grocer, to church, to the pharmacy, and to the river or lake. And a hill. And an old English pub (not a sports bar or tavern). Or maybe 3 blocks would be acceptable. Oh, and a big city with lots of cultural events needs to be within a 20 minute drive. :-)  I really need to be able to teleport. Is this asking too much??

Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis

4.  As the saying goes, 'there's no time like the present'. How does that ring true in your life right now?

For me, that's certainly true. If not now, when? I hear the clock ticking faster and faster. 

5. Do you dread Mondays? Why or why not?

I have no dread of Mondays because I don't work outside our home, which means that I don't have to go outdoors in the dead of winter and scrape the ice from the windshield and slide off the icy roads into the ditch on the way to work.

 December 6, 2016
View SE from porch

6.  Poinsettia, Christmas Cactus, Amaryllis-which on the list is your favorite holiday plant? Are any of these on display in your home right now?

I LOVE all of the above, but the one I own is a Christmas cactus. I've started many Christmas cactus plants from this one mama plant and it's still going strong. It's ancient.

7. Share a favorite quote from a Christmas movie.

I love this entire segment from A Muppet's Christmas Carol with Michael Caine. It's SO CUTE!!

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

We had cookie baking and decorating here last Saturday, while the guys put the Christmas tree up on the front porch. Then they came in, drank coffee by the fire and snitched Christmas cookies.

 Oliver's mommy helping him decorate Christmas cookies.

He had just awakened from a nap and I think was rather dazzled by it all.

 From left: Christmas cut-outs, later frosted

Molasses

Peppermint

After the cookies were done, we divided them up and everyone took a pail of cookies home. My pail is out on the freezing cold front porch. It would be way too tempting for me if they were sitting on the kitchen counter. I LOVE Christmas cookies!

I need to collect more pine boughs to put across the rest of the railing 
AND move the Christmas tree back a bit, but you get the idea.
I think it tipped since they put it up.

Christmas 2013

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 December 4

Linked to: Thoughts of Home on Thursday

Have a wonderful Wednesday, everyone!

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Christmas - It's All About Jesus

'How did God choose to enter the story He was writing? God overcame the world and its evil forces by setting aside His omnipotence, and becoming a helpless baby. The Incarnate One now had pitiful limbs, had tiny arms and legs, but even they were bound up tight in the swaddling clothes that Mary had remembered to bring with her.

'God was taking on what Martin Luther once called "left-handed power," the authority that arises naturally from a certain kind of willed helplessness. We are not talking about the helplessness that is simply impotence fueled by cowardice. Rather, we are recognizing how to overcome evil with good, how a strong man turns the other cheek, how the One who could have called for legions of angels to rescue Him from the cross declined to do so. The One who humbled Himself to the point of death was given a name above every name.'

'St. John tells us that God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son. That giving began at Bethlehem, was continued in His perfect sinless life as the new Israel, and culminated at the cross where He died for our sins.

'He entered into His joy (and our justification) at His resurrection, and He now sits at the right hand of God the Father, where there is a torrent of pleasure forever.

'He is that cascading torrent of pleasure. He is that endless waterfall of joy, which is hard for us to visualize because there is no top, and no bottom, and no sides. But there is an endless motion of delight just the same, and because we are in Christ, we are right in the middle of it.' - This passage excerpted from God Rest Ye Merry, by Douglas Wilson

'All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall call his name Immanuel" 

which means, God with us.'

- Matthew 1:22-23

As the angels said to the shepherds:

Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger” - Luke 2:10-12 

'And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!'

Luke 2:13-14 

'In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.'  - Galatians 4:3-6

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Years ago, my cousin Bobby gave us the first several pieces of this Fontanini Nativity set, to which we've added pieces year after year. It is my favorite Christmas 'decoration,' a reminder of what Christmas is all about.

So whether we say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays (Holy day), we are proclaiming this to be the event that changed the world - the birth of Christ our Savior.

This post may be linked to one or more of the following: Mop it Up Monday  and Adorned From Above and   Home & Garden Thursday and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday  and Time Travel Thursday and Thrifty Things Friday  and  Friday Fences and  Thursday's Inspiration and  The Self-sufficient Home Acre and  I'm Lovin' it Thursday and Creative Things Thursday and  Freedom Fridays and From the Farm and   Anything Blue Friday and  Inspiration Friday(ThursNite) and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Share Your Creativity and   A Favorite Thing Saturday and Sunny Simple Sunday and Sunlit Sunday and  Saturday Nite Special