holiday love

This is my minimalist Christmas decorating. Last year I bought a little (mini) evergreen tree. I tried to keep it alive, but it died in the spring. Didn't make it to the next Christmas. So sad!

This year, I found some red bead garland on sale and strung that across our big livingroom window. Then I hung some of my ornaments from the garland. (They are big ornaments. They wouldn't have fit on mini-tree anyway). There's actually more decor this year.

I also set up grandma's creche on top of the piano. Not an ideal location, but at least it is out of the box. I don't have a picture of the creche. It is very sentimental to me, though. I love it because it was grandma's.This is my kitchen table view. The poinsettia was a gift from a friend. It is a pinkish color. It looks washed out and the lighting isn't great in the kitchen, but it is in fact pink, not red. The short blue vase has some dried pink hydrangea that Paul and I picked this summer (hence, it is very dry). The tall, skinny vase was a gift this Christmas, as are the white, satin flowers in it. This makes me smile, because the flowers are from a little niece. She picked them out for me in her shopping spree at the dollar store. So sweet.

And this is the cherry jelly. I was given some farm market cherries, which I used to make pies for Christmas. I don't think I took a picture of the pies, but they were so pretty! (if I do say so myself!) I was told they were tasty, too. The juice from the cherries was sitting in the fridge, and I decided to try my hand at jelly. Never done this before. It actually did "jel"! Yay! Caroline gave me some good advice about the canning process. I love the "quilt" pattern on these little 1/2 pint jars. Fancy-schmancy. ;-)

Overall, the holidays went well. Work still makes me a stressball. I had a couple days off. (It didn't help much.) One day, some day, some how... I want to take off for the holidays. Me and Sweet P, snuggled up in a B-n-B somewhere with a fireplace and no distractions. We love our extended family, but sometimes we need time just for us. We haven't had this at all; not even a honeymoon. We're constantly hustling, especially P in his quest for work.

We are a family now. The fact that we do not have children does not make us any less of a family. There has been some turmoil with family plans regarding my brother's upcoming wedding. Nevermind that bleh -- Yeah! Little brother is getting married! He's been dating a sweet girl for many years. It will be great to have her officially in the family. I'm so excited about that. I'm not going to let the crap of other people drag me down.