Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Photo via Black and WTF

My Valentine

My Heart Is Yours Valentine is back in my shop!

Party Dresses

My sainted mother invited my boys to stay with her over New Year's weekend. That meant that my Mr. and I were free to paint the town red. It was the perfect and long-awaited opportunity for me to dress up and I took full advantage of it!

Zoo Lights

This post should have happened before Christmas but I didn't quite make it.

Oh, well. Better late than never!

Our fabulous zoo outdoes itself each holiday season with their Wildlights display. Nearly every inch of the zoo is draped and adorned with colorful, twinkling lights. Christmas music is in the air. Stands are set up to sell hot chocolate, apple cider, kettle corn and roasted nuts. We were lucky enough to get a few warm days to go and stroll around.

Quite The Nod

A few weeks ago I was honored to have been featured on one of the my favorite (and what I think is one of the best) blogs. I'm talking about the Nie Nie Dialogues. Mrs. Nielson was generous enough to pick me as one of those featured in her Homemade Christmas. I should have posted about it right away but, with all the attention and all the Christmas frenzy, I didn't manage it. So here it is now.

Nie Nie's Homemade Christmas

Candlelit Nights

The marvelous Franklin Park Conservatory hosts several evenings of Candlelight Nights in December. They stay open late and dim all the lights. Every room and walkway is lined with little candles. It is magic. I love the dark hush of the place and the occasional surprising chirp of crickets that have found the perfect place to hide from winter. We listened to music, tossed pennies into the fountain and found a blossoming citrus tree to smell.

A little bit of summer's splendor on a cold winter's day.

And my other favorite part?

The delightful shadows.

Tonight, as we say goodbye to 2010, I would like to wish you a very happy New Year full of wonderful and marvelous things.

Christmas Cheer

The boys' favorite Christmas gift, by far. Balloons have been whizzing through our house since Saturday.

Seashore goodness.

Gifts from my boys.

Stocking stuffers for me.

Stocking stuffers for my boys.

Santa was so very good to us this year. He stacked piles of presents beneath the tree and filled our stockings to overflowing. We spent the day eating and playing and lounging and having way too much candy. We listened to Christmas carols, watched A Christmas Story and went outside to play in real, genuine Christmas snow.
A truly magical day.

Ribbons and Wrapping

We have been busy little elves the past few days. We have been wrapping, ribboning and tagging lots of gifts and boxes and bags. We keep The Man Who Came To Dinner playing in the background. It is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies. Bette Davis is simply wonderful as Maggie Cutler. If you haven't seen it yet, you must.

I hope that your Christmas preparations are coming along nicely.

A very Merry Christmas to you!!

A Strange Little Christmas

I stumbled across this video the other day and just had to share it. It's so strange and sweet. And I absolutely adore stop motion animation.

Enjoy!

Santa School

Suzy Snowflake

This seems like the perfect thing to watch during all this snowy weather!

Not Exactly Christmas Songs

These two songs aren't exactly Christmas songs but I still like to listen to them around this time every year.

I prefer the Bobby Darin version of this song but I couldn't find it.

The wonderful Billie Holiday.

I hope you're having a lovely December so far.

O Christmas Tree

Our tree is so fat this year that we named him Jolly.

He is strung with tiny colored lights and lots of mismatched home made and hand made ornaments.

The perfect little Christmas tree.

Sugar and Spice

Every year my incredible mother bakes individual gingerbread houses for each of her grandchildren to decorate. Here are our two beauties.

Now, I know that I am biased but I think my boys did a pretty amazing job.

And they smell wonderful!!

Thank you Mom!!

Gingerbread Lane

Tiny gingerbread chickens with poppy seed chicken feed!

A tropical gingerbread island on a blue hard candy sea.

What a completely fabulous idea.

The Charlie Brown house complete with sad little Christmas tree.

The Grinch down in Whoville.

The Franklin Park Conservatory, which just happens to be one of my favorite places to visit, holds a gingerbread house competition every year. They have several catagories-youth, teen, adult, etc. The last one of the Worthington Inn is my favorite. It looks exactly like the real one, flowers and all!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

My decorations are up and so is the tree (I'll do a seperate post on it soon).
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here and I couldn't be happier about it.

The kids pitched in by drawing festive pictures on the chalkboard.

In case you were wondering that's a christmas tree with a cat who is smiling because it is Christmas.

I apologize for the slightly dim pictures. I took these in the evening when the room was only lit by a few lamps and the christmas lights. Very cozy but not the best for taking pictures.

How are your Christmas preparations coming along?