Do it Yourself Christmas Cards, aka, we all make mistakes

This year, I was a little bit overzealous and decided that we could make our own Christmas cards.

Let me first of all apologize to those of you who won't be getting Christmas cards in the mail this year.  A Christmas e-mail will be forthcoming very soon.

It turns out that I vastly underestimated the amount of time required to make your own Christmas cards.   I just assumed this project could be done in a weekend.  I assumed wrong, my friends.

Some of you (especially if your last name begins with A through F) might be lucky enough to get a real handmade card from us this year.  If your name begins with G through Z, cough, stammer, mutter, mutter, um, then, please refer to the aforementioned forthcoming Christmas e-mail.

Anyway, if you're interested, here are some of the Christmas cards we made.  We painted, glued, glittered, glitter-glued, and generally decorated for 2 days straight.    It was great fun.

But next year, I'm going to start 3 weekends ahead of time.  Or maybe I'll just make a snapfish photo card next year.  Somehow that sounds appealing again.

What DIY project have you bombed?  Hey, at least you tried, right?

The Earliest I've Ever Put up a Tree

This is the earliest I've ever put up my Christmas tree. We usually travel at Thanksgiving, and then I put my tree up a week before we leave to travel again for Christmas, and then I get home after the New Year and feel guilty about keeping the tree up forever, and then I finally take it down mid January.

But not this year!

This year, I'm going to enjoy this tree for a few weeks before we travel for Christmas. I'm going to turn all the lights off in the living room and sip hot cocoa and listen to Christmas music in my pajamas and just stare at the tree.

(I promise I'm not 70 years old--I just like pretty things--and hot cocoa--and pajamas!)




Anyway, you can see that Flanna helped out a lot! (First, by putting every ornament on the same one branch.)



This was just too cute to move right away. But I let my OCD tendencies get the best of me and had to spread them out after a few hours.

Flannery was thrilled to be allowed to use the step-stool to decorate, and even though I kept having visions of her leaning into the tree and taking a face dive straight into the pointy icicle ornaments, she was amazingly careful, and no ornament or 4 year old came to any harm, whew!



Some of my favorite touches on the tree this year are:

the new icicle ornaments I got for a crazy bargain at the end of last season (they add so much shine!)




the tiny bird ornament I've had for 2 years now. It's simple but so cute.



and this special rose bell ornament that used to belong to my Grandma Norma before she passed away. Five years ago, I would've scrunched my nose up at those pink and mauve flowers on a bell, but it just so captures her love of all things pink and shiny, that it makes me smile to see it now.





What special objects do you treasure? And when do you normally put up your Christmas tree?