Christmas Trees from 2003 to 2010

Please forgive me for another Christmas Post, but I was searching my blog to try to find out what tool I used to remove a wallpaper border about five years ago (we are removing another one--the last one we have--hallelujah!) ..........I never found the tool, but I did find Christmas trees that I don't even remember (and it's only been  6 or 7 years!), so I thought I would do a post of all the trees I have had since 2003.
So here goes...

2003- This is the tree I had forgotten about--all gold and white.

2004- this must have been the year that I did not do a large tree, because all I found were these small dining room trees:  Gingerbread man/cookie tree

 and a scarecrow/sunflower tree that I did just for November of that year.

2005 - I used many of the same ornaments that I had this year.

2006 - gold, white and burgundy

 with a god-awful streak of green lights! LOL.

2007  - lots of trees this year - here are just the 3 main trees:

white/gold/bronze main tree

Dining room  Pink angel tree in sled

 Pink tree opposite side of the sled with a pink tablescape

2008

The year aqua came into my Christmas decorating 

 Pink and Gold dining room tree

2009 -- added green with the aqua

2010 - Back to the gingerbread men with A country sunflower/gingerbread man tree

It was fun for me to see all the different trees I have had over the past few years. Now that I have put them in one post, I can look at them next year to remember what ornies I have stored in the basement. I do have a lot of ornaments!

This was my kitchen teddy bear tree from in the 1990's.

Birch Candle Centerpiece and other 4:30 a.m. Inspirations

I was up early again (I wake up every morning at 5 a.m. without an alarm clock. But since the time change, I have been waking at 4 a.m.) That's O.K. because it gives me a lot of surfing time before I have to get ready for work.

I love this Pottery Barn centerpiece.

I would add a lot more greenery to it.
You can buy the candles here.  I picked up two pieces of birch bark that had blown into my flower beds last weekend. Normally I would just walk by, but something made me pick them up and actually save them.  Maybe I will just wrap them around a candle or two and come up with a centerpiece.  I need to go outside tonight and see if there are any more nestled against the flowers I never got around to cutting down.

As I sipped coffee and meandered through hundreds of holiday decorations on Google Images, I found my way to Horchow.com. I clicked on the tree skirt category.

Wow! Is this not spectacular?

It's $650.00

Here are the matching stockings:

They are $195.00 each.  These would go so nicely with my new green walls. But I don't think you will find   these as part of my Christmas decorating any time soon. 

I found these silver pine cones interesting. They are quite the bargain at something like $168.00.

I have pine cones that look very similar to these. I also have metal candle holders....hmmmmmmm....you may see a knockoff of this one in a few weeks.

I need to get moving on Christmas decorating this weekend. Betty R. already has 2 trees up---way to go Betty!

Christmas Tree Top and Chicken Stuffed Wonton Shells

I have spent the past 24 hours watching sappy Christmas movies on the Family Channel. I think I am on my 5th show right now. I am thoroughly enjoying these shows; Because I don't watch much TV, I have not seen any of them before, even though they are old shows.

This morning I did some sewing, cooked a late breakfast, took a shower and got right back into a clean pair of jammies as I knew I would be spending the afternoon decorating my main tree while the movies played in the background... a few times I had to stop trimming the tree to get a Puff's tissue. Yeah, sappy movies do that to me.

This year I did my main tree in lime green and aqua. You may remember that I did aqua and white last year. I had the lime green addition planned since last December and I bought some lime green balls during the December 26, 2008 sales.

Today I will show you my tree top this year; tomorrow I will show you the rest of the tree.


Do you see any of those branches I painted silver?


The peacock is perched on one of them.

I also used some in the window garland:


I used something else from my garden. Did you notice what in the pics above?

The same day I got the branches, I picked a bunch of silver dollar plants that were growing in my wooded area. I thought they would work nicely on the top of the tree with the other natural materials I had purchased last year. If I had more,I would have used them all through the tree.

Yesterday I made tonight's dinner in anticipation of spending the entire afternoon decorating the tree. I cooked a bunch of chicken breasts and made chicken noodle soup for tonight.


I also took some wonton wrappers and baked them in the oven in mini muffin pans.

I tried one after baking and I must say they were not very good. I almost threw them in the garbage.


I decided to save them and make chicken salad to fill them.


YUM! DH and I both loved them with the chicken salad. The shell was still pretty tasteless, but was very crunchy, which we both decided was much better than putting the salad on bread.

Tomorrow I will show you some pictures of the full tree.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas......

What? You don't think that looks like Christmas? Hee hee. Well, check back later and I will show you what I have used these dead branches for. I need to get some shiny silver spray paint to start their holiday transformation.

As soon as I got home from work today, I went out and cut down the rest of the Sedum Autumn Joy. It will be so nice next spring when I remember that I have that huge chore all done! I spent about an hour outside and that included finding the dead branches above.

I have been debating whether or not to host the family Christmas Eve party this year. It's so much work and I am not taking that week off for vacation this year (I am planning to take the week after Christmas off). I called one of my sisters tonight to see if she thought I should do it. "Well, of course," she said, "We have to have it."

She went on about one of her grandsons who had so much fun that he is still talking about it! So that made me feel good. If people actually enjoy it, it's a lot easier to do all that work. So I guess I will be the hostess again. My sister said she will help with anything I need. She is very good about that. Last year (even though I did not ask her to) she brought a bunch of gifts for the little games we play. I usually buy about 30-40 gifts, so it was nice that she helped out.

Once I get going, I do enjoy all the planning,etc.


A few days ago I got the December issue of Martha's mag. I have not opened it yet. I hope it's a good issue.

It seems that last winter I made up some new games for this year's party. If I remember correctly, I have them all printed out and ready to go. I think I stored them in the china cabinet in the dining room. I will have to go look later.

Now that I will be having the party, I will most likely start decorating this weekend. I do a TON of decorating and the longer in tooth I get (my college business instructor's favorite saying--it means "the older I get"), the longer it takes me to decorate--and the longer it takes me to remove it all. That is the part I don't like very much!

All the Trimmings Have Been Packed Away

And what a job it was! This is today's stack to haul down to the basement. Yesterday was even worse.

I am just happy it is finally done.

I have also been busy turning all of my holiday leftovers into new dishes. On Christmas I cooked a ham with a bone. I told DH to skip the trendy spiral hams (I find that they dry out pretty quickly) and get me a plain old ham with a nice bone for flavor. He did and we were not disappointed.

I took the leftover spinach dip and cheese ball from Christmas Eve and put them in my filling for twice baked potatoes. There were only four of us for Christmas dinner, but I made 20 potatoes and froze them. I think twice baked potatoes are pretty labor intensive and why do all of that work for just four potatoes? I now have numerous side dishes for future meals. After a nice dinner and a very tasty day-after-Christmas breakfast of ham and eggs, I took the meaty ham bone this morning and made navy bean soup. I soaked the beans overnight
and the soup turned out delicious.


For dinner tonight, I tossed my leftover meatballs into some jarred spaghetti sauce and made a quick,easy meal.



Boy, do we have the snow this year! Doesn't it looks like DH was making a maze in our front yard? He snowblows paths all around the house so the meter readers can get to the meters.

Tomorrow I go back to work. Actually I worked much harder this past week than I ever do at my job, so it will be like a vacation to get back!

What's Christmas without a Wreath?

I had a bare mirror in the dining room that really looked stark with no holiday adornments. I decided to make a quick wreath since I hadn't done one yet. There's one of Santa's elves hiding in the wreath. He must be checking to make sure I am being a good girl.

I don't think I've shown you the dining room chandelier either.
Here is a full view, except that the tree hides the mirror.

Here is where the mirror is.


I never did get back outside to cut fresh greens, so I used a second wreath to make a centerpiece for the extra table. I decorated it with those candy ornaments that I forgot I had. They were in the gingerbread man tote like I expected.
This gumdrop/candy cane tree is right near the table with the gumdrop centerpiece.

All I have to do tomorrow is bring up the white linen and skirt the food table.

I'm no Prude, but I Don't Like Seeing Naked Necks

I went to the library today. Then I went to the mall. It was only 9 degrees outside, but I purposely parked far back so I could walk and enjoy being at the mall at 1:00 p.m. on a work day. I can guarantee you that this was the only Monday of the year that I was at the mall at 1:00 p.m. There were people everywhere. I literally bumped into an old school friend in the Walden book store. I was trying to walk and look at books at the same time.

When I got home mid afternoon, I thought I would while away a few hours snuggled up in an afghan, with my big stack of books.

The chair I chose to relax in faces my garland. I rarely sit in this room, so I made sure to turn on the lights so I could enjoy the holiday scene whenever I looked up from my book.

Unfortunately every time I looked up I saw the bare necks of all the reindeer. I've been ignoring them all season because I just didn't have time to do anything about them.

Today I had time, so I hopped up and went to the basement to gather some reindeer neck attire. So much for sitting down with my feet up.

Do you remember when I painted these lily seed pods last summer?
I bet you (nor I) never expected that they would end up on a reindeer's neck!

But they worked nicely with the pine cones I used, and the black color matches the lampshades in the room.

In less than an hour with a pair of scissors, a glue gun and a bag of basement junk, I had all the reindeer necks properly bedecked.
Now maybe I can relax.

2008 Christmas Slush Libations

I had fun making my slushes yesterday afternoon. This year I was my own mixologist and made up my own recipes.

Doesn't this flavor combination look interesting--Cranberry, raspberry, strawberry and orange?

Zoey’s 2008 Very Merry Berry Slush

3 oz. pkg of strawberry daiquiri jello
12 oz. frozen cranberry/raspberry concentrate
12 oz. orange juice concentrate
2 cups cranberry juice cocktail
3.5 cups (1 bottle) of Raspberry Vodka

Mix it all together and freeze.

To serve, scoop out ¾ glass of slush and add a splash of 7-up or Vernors.

What a rich jewel-tone color it turned out to be!

This is what it looked after it froze overnight. I think it will freeze a bit more solid before Wednesday night. This one packs a little kick as it has a high alcohol ratio.

Zoey’s 2008 Golden Splendor Slush

3 oz. pkg. of apricot jello
12 oz. frozen pink lemonade concentrate
12 oz. orange juice concentrate
8 cups water
3.5 cups (1 bottle) of Peach Schnapps
1 tsp. orange extract (I threw this in just because I had an almost empty bottle and I wanted to make sure I had enough flavor. If you don't have it, just go without it)

Mix it all together and freeze.


To serve, scoop out ¾ glass of slush and add a splash of 7-up or Vernors.

This one has a lot more water and it froze more solid. It will be much less potent than the red one and won't need much (if any) soda added.

Most of my family likes drinks that don't taste strongly of alcohol, so I think they will like one. It is sort of like a fuzzy navel.