Christmas Mischief and Mishaps

Anything I would post about seems so frivilous after hearing the news from Connecticut yesterday.
I watched the coverage and was actually disgusted by the reporters asking for interviews from the children and their parents. I think they could have used a little more compassion.

I watched the interview with the teacher who locked her kids in the bathroom. What a brave, compassionate young woman. She is a true hero and if I had kids I would want her to be their teacher.

Anyway, I did write a post about my Christmas decoration progress today. If you want to escape the sadness for a few minutes read on:

I am finally getting down to decorating the condo for Christmas.  Last weekend, I decorated the mantle in the dining room but I am still tweaking it.  Tonight, I worked on the fireplace in the living room. It really doesn't take me long to decorate the condo since it's a small space.

This week I had a little mishap and it set me back on my decorating. On Tuesday, I fell in the parking lot where I work and I broke my nose. I tumbled feet flying behind me and I crashed onto the concrete face first. Well, first my knee then my hands then my nose and my forehead. What a bloody mess! I had my first ambulance ride and I spent about 3 hours in the emergency room.

I am one lucky girl. I did not have a concussion although I hit my head and I didn't break my kneecap although I hit my knee before breaking my nose. Just a broken nose, sore knee and facial cuts.
I think I have a guardian angel. It could have been so much worse!

Back to the fun stuff. I have a prelit garland that I use on the fireplace in the living room. This year I dressed it up with some gold leaves, gold pinecones and strands of gold beads. I wanted it to really shimmer.

I took about 10 seconds after I'd finished the fireplace for Percy to investigate. I think he can read, he went right to the stocking with his name on it. I should have known shimmery things would attract a curious cat.

How long do you think the garland will last on the fireplace? I am guessing not even 24 hours.

Right now he is back to resting on the cable box so hopefully he's done sniffing around. I'll let you know how it goes.

Holiday decorating inspiration

I don't know about you, but, I always look to magazines and blogs for my holiday decorating inspiration.  I saw this beauty in Matthew Mead's Christmas magazine. This was from a feature on Carol Spinski from Raised in Cotton. The chair is a little bit like my living room chair.

So I thought I would give it a whirl and pull out my own vintage ornament collection. I just grabbed the first few I could get my hands on since I haven't decorated yet. Mine is a little meagher but you get the jist of it.

I was admiring my work when ....

The one man wrecking machine awakened from his perch in the dining room. Of course, he had to investigate.

He just has to get in every photo doesn't he?  So the holiday styling session abruptly ended. I did not want to chance any of my vintage beauties becoming a cat toy for Mr. Percy or his siblings.

One last look before it is dismantled.  As you can see the chair is not in pristine shape as it has endured far too many kitty claws.

I decided to give you a close up view of some of my collection. I added a warm filter to the photo to give it more of a vintage look.

Where do you find your holiday decorating inspiration?

Christmas Light Police

Every year my Sister and I like to ride around our hometown and surrounding towns and critique some Christmas light displays.  We didn't do it this year but there is still time!

I decided to visit a few houses myself and snap a photo or two to share with you.  Mind you it is more fun to be critical. For example, anyone with inflatables on the lawn gets bonus points for bad taste. And if said inflatable is deflated that's even worse.  The worst one we ever saw was an inflatable nativity scene. We found it in poor taste.

This is much nicer than an inflatable manger don't you think? Although there are lots of lights on this home I actually don't mind it.  I tend to like a simpler approach.

This home in Wakefield caught my eye.  Sometimes when a homeowner tries to outline their home with lights it looks just awful.  I think these people got it right.  Too bad I did not get it right in my photo, too blurry!

As I said I go for a simpler approach, I like a flood light on the door with some well placed or interesting decorations.  My neighbors down the street get style points for this display.

They have some lovely architectural details over the door and the flood light does a great job of highlighting them.  Cool snowshoes too!

Another neighbor's home. The home is accented with a deep purple and lavender so hence the Christmas light color scheme.

It is a profusion of purple and blue led lights. They were much more vibrant in person! Like it or not it makes a statement. Very creative people live here.

Still trying to get a good shot of this display. I had to give up. It was 28 degrees out and that was not the wind chill temperature.  It was very windy out tonight!

Since I've been battling a nasty head cold I decided to go inside and warm up and turn my camera to my own decorations. The ski over the french doors is a new addition this year.

Here's a closer look, the writing was done by an artist friend of the owner of Nesting on Main in Concord.

I put my paper Christmas angel (purchased last year from Nesting) outside of a vintage frame.

The angel looked lonely hanging on the large wall over the sofa. My sister thought I should put something in a second frame on the wall. So I looked through my Christmas decoarations and came up with these two peace doves. My sister had to do some repair work on the frame and then she hung it for me too.

Here's the finished project.  I like the color scheme and the two subjects seem to work well together.

Here's my feather tree. I decorated it with vintage clip earrings and pins.  It looks unfinished to me. I may have to add some bird ornaments to it.  The mirror underneath it is an antique.

Here's one of the clip earrings.

I love this crown tealight holder.

Here's a close up of the crown.

I have a pair of them on my bookcase. They make the prettiest shadows on the walls.

You can see it better in this shot.  Nice glow and firelight shadows.  I think I will keep this out after Christmas too!

I hope you enjoyed your little tour of my neighborhood and condo.  The kitties and I were glad you could stop by.

Recap of the Christmas Soiree and my 400th post!

Last night I held my 3rd annual Christmas Soiree.  Luminarias once again lined

the walkway. I got the idea from Martha Stewart's blog.

I ordered all of the food from Zuzu's Cafe in Wakefield and I have to say everything was perfect! They delivered my food at exactly the time I asked them to. Everyone loved the appetizers and sandwiches.

We had caprese bites with balsamic dressing and mini phyllo cups filled with salmon salad with mango salsa, buffalo chicken salad and one with spinach and feta.

The caprese bites were delicous, Tomato, mozzarella, and basil on a skewer, yum!

I ordered two small baked bries, one with fig jam and one with cranberry orange relish. They were complemented with crackers and berries.

The finger sandwiches were also delicious. There were three kinds: roasted vegetables with goat cheese, roast beef with cheddar and horseradish,and chicken salad with cranberries and almonds.

My friend Diane works at Starbucks and I hired her to make lattes and espressos at the party. She had a lot of customers and some people wemt back for three or four drinks. I really enjoyed my gingerbread latte.  If you are a long time reader of my blog, you will know that Diane is Oscar's foster mother.  They had a wonderful reunion prior to the party. Diane's beau, Michael, also helped with the drinks.

Diane makes a perfect latte.

I used tea cups for the hot drinks.

My friends Roger and Deborah surprised me with a visit from Santa. Their son Nathan was making the rounds last night and he stopped by briefly.

And he posed for photos with the guests. I was totally surprised and when he walked in the door I wanted to say you've got the wrong house but I was polite. Then I thought is he going to rob me?

There was not much left of my White Christmas Punch by the time I took this photo.

Lots of conversation with friends. And the party lasted about 5 hours.

I ordered these little Marie Antoinette angels from Australia. They arrived in time for the party but I had thought they would have been perforated and I would just pop them out off the sheet.  No, they had to be cut out. My sister cut all 16 of them out for me the night before the party.

This cake was the showstopper. Midnight Velvet cake made by my friend Mary. She also made

snowdrop cookies and shortbread and also gingerbread cookies and red velevet cupcakes.

Paul enjoyed many espressos.

I took a few shots the night before the party. My tabletop living room tree. I don't put up a large tree as Percy would climb it and destroy it.

I used some twinkle lights to illuminate the bird cage and later I added a flameless candle.

Percy loves to watch the "fire" in the fireplace.

Here's another shot of the teenage Santa Claus.  I think there's a seasonal career in the making!

Today, we were all exhausted and we lazed around a bit. The kitties loved my new Rachel Ashwell comforter.

The two boys looked so cute, I just had to take another photo of them.

As I mentioned in the title, this is my 400th post. Wow, it's amazing that I found 400 things to write about!

Hopefully, there will be many more.

I am linking to The Inspired Room's Christmas House Tour blog party.  Click here to see more posts.