It's an official contest and more decorating

Ok, it's official, "Name the Snowman" is a real contest. I'll tell you that the winner will be getting a hand-made ornament of my choosing and if I were you I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with the contest. So, you have until Christmas Eve morning at 9 AM to post a comment with your suggestion or suggestions. I will then put all the names in a hat and have my mother choose the winning name. That seems fair. This means that multiple suggestions gives you multiple chances to win. I'll post the winner's name Christmas Eve and will send you an email as well.

Ok, that's out of the way, now for pictures of decorations. Yesterday mom and I must have thought we had all the time in the world because we decided to head outside and cut some branches from one of the magnolia trees and use them on a table in the Family room. The idea was simple, but we got a little carried away with our cutting and ended up with lots of branches and leaves, much more then we needed for this.It doesn't really show up that well, but some of the leaves I painted silver, so in person it looks much better. (To the left is the snowman who shall be named later.) To the right of this table is the fireplace.
I liked this picture, even though it's kind of dark, because you can sort of see the lights.

You may be wondering what we did with the left over magnolia branches, since as you can see I didn't use all that many. Well wonder no more...There it hangs in all it's glory. I added in some boxwood, since mine needed to be trimmed a bit anyway, and of course painted some silver. Decided it would look wonderful hanging outside the Sun Porch. You can see my father inside enjoying a good book while I did work. Must be nice to be retired.

I actually managed to send out almost all of my Christmas cards this evening. I have a couple that didn't go out. I ran out of cards with just a couple to go. That's just my luck. Went shopping for most of the food I'll need for Christmas Eve. We still haven't decided on what to have Christmas Day. I'm leaning toward either a pork loin or standing rib roast. I'm going to take a stroll through some recipes and then decide what might be the easiest.

Tonight more cookie baking ensued. I need to get up early and start back at it in the morning, plus do any prep work for Christmas Eve. I almost forgot that mom and I have tickets to see "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" in Jacksonville Sunday night. I can't imagine having a show that close to Christmas, but it's part of our series, so we're going. That means Sunday I won't get any cooking done. But I'm sure I'll enjoy the play!

A Snowman in Florida

That's right, we have a snowman right here in north Florida! He may not look like any snowman you've ever seen, but just remember, he's going to be different since he's a southern boy/snowman.
He's all decked out and ready to have a good time with some bear friends. (On a whole other note I realize that on some level it's kind of sad that I have no children and that many bears. Plus there's some you can't see scattered around. So, yeah, I like bears...and rabbits...and the occasional penguin.)

Mom says he needs a name. I've been trying to think of something really interesting, but I'm tired so nothing is coming to mind. Feel free to make suggestions. If I choose your name, I'll send you a surprise (but it will take a little while to get it to you because first I have to make it so bear with me. No pun intended...I really am tired.)

He's sitting in the rocking chair my grandpa B. gave me right before he died. I was just a little girl, but he wanted me to have it. The chair was his mothers and she rocked all her children, then he got it and rocked his kids and me. I had to have the seat rewoven several years ago and was lucky to find a man here that could recreate the original fairly closely.

Today was a lot of clean-up work. Going through a room and picking up things, sweeping and dusting one last time. I have some pictures of the lighted pieces on my piano. I realize that in the real London these three pieces would not be this close, but work with me here, this is pretend.
Tonight was the children's play/musical at church. They did a fantastic job. My friend's daughter L. had a huge part, in fact, she was one of the main characters. She did a great job. She's only in the 1st grade and she had a lot of lines to memorize. I was very proud of her and all the kids. No pictures, since I completely forgot my camera.

Tomorrow I have to finish those small details and then put together the menu for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I keep trying to talk my family into having pizza on Christmas Day so I can stitch and knit all day, but I don't think they're buying it. Oh well, at least if we do turkey there'll be leftovers and some good soup at some point!

Long week

...or at least it feels that way. I don't have much to say. I've been busy with work, or at least with answering the phone and talking to a lot of people. Not sure how much actual work I accomplished, what with a set of house plans that I picked up yesterday sitting on my desk without me looking at them.

On a more positive note...my dear Heather and her DH closed on their new place today. I'm very happy for them. (Mainly I'm relieved. I was beginning to be scared we'd have to find H. a new head when hers exploded from all the stress.) She also blogged pictures and more information about the HP movie party, so go take a look at It's Geek to Me.

Tomorrow evening I'm looking forward to some major stitching time. I didn't stitch tonight, but I did work on a design for the crochet class I'm teaching in a couple of weeks. I think I've got one design down and will have to decide on the other 2 by Sunday night. I'm hoping to teach something with the basics, but show people how you can get some interesting texture. The class is called "A Trio of Crocheted Washcloths" or something close to that. At the least the participants will hopefully have a couple of nice small gifts for Christmas, which is coming up much sooner then any of us expect. Can't start too soon on gifts you know...how many do you have done?