A little Christmas decorating & some mail arrives

Hello everybody! First off I must apologize for not posting the handmade gift idea on Friday. I have had lots of things on my mind. We went shopping for some stuff, not Christmas shopping per sey, and the city was so crazy! I have forgot about the Friday posts I guess with the guys being gone and all. I promise I will post this Friday!

I hope those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving, that you had a wonderful one. Ours was slow and easy. We decided to stay home and have our own this year and it was very relaxed. The only things I had to do was make a pecan pie the night before and stuffing the day of. Hubby took care of everything else! Here is the wonderful bird he cooked.

It was a 23lb. turkey and we have lots leftover up in the freezer for other nights.

I also got some wonderful mail. I received this beautiful ornament from the lovely Sadie http://stitchingupastorm.blogspot.com/ It is LHN's Holly & Berries and is so so pretty! She added a very pretty cording with gold and deep red around the edge and she chose the perfect fabric for the back that had cardinals on it. Thank you so so much for the beautiful ornament and for all the hard work! I'll treasure it always my friend!

I dabbled with some ornament making this weekend. I will be making a few others for the little tree in the kitchen. So far I have a cookie and a little s'more man done. Here was the outcome.

Up on the Housetop.... that was the song that was going through my head when I went outside to check on the guys to see how the outside lights were coming along. I brought them out some hot chocolate. It was quite nippy outside while they were putting up the lights. It had started to rain before they got them all up so the rest of the lights will wait 'til later this week when they have a chance.

....and here's the tree. Still have room for ornaments from a couple of other exchanges and the tree will be all set. I just can't get a good closeup shot of the whole shabang so maybe I will take closeups of sections later. We even have a few presents under there already! There're kind of tucked away in the back.

I had wanted to make a tree skirt this year but we couldn't stand to fight the crowds at Jo-Ann's the other day. Hubby thought that a fabric store wouldn't be busy on the day after Thanksgiving! I told him that he must not know women very well and he said that no he didn't . We got there and it was almost wall to wall shoppers. There was a lady there that was practically crying because they wouldn't give her a certain percent off of something she wanted just because she had driven a hundred miles (so she said and no one believed her) to get there. I'll tell ya , the nutcases really come out this time of year don't they?

Well, that's it in a nutshell! Thank you all for all of your nice comments on American Star. Now I just need to figure out a way to finish it.

'til next time,

happy stitching,

Sharlotte