Here's what I did.

I wanted to share some pictures of what the days before Christmas were like at my house. Not that I'm trying to excuse the fact that I didn't do any posting like I promised! ;-)

I decorated the house. That took quite a bit more work than I anticipated but the results were so beautiful. I love using fresh pine to decorate with. It just makes the house look so very Christmas-y. Not to mention the wonderful smell that pine gives off. There's just nothing like it.

So, I made wreaths. I think when it was all said and done, I made three wreaths and helped my little sister with one. They are all beautiful. They are very easy to make for any of you interested. Just a little time consuming. Here's what you do. Get an old metal hanger, untwist it from it's original shap and form it into a circle like this.

Now use some sort of twister, like flower wire or those little white twisters that hold bags closed and attach little sprigs of pine to the wire until you have a thick, full wreath.

Once you are all done with the 'body' of the wreath, you can add pinecones, red berries, ribbons and anything else you want on your wreath. I pushed the wire into the pinecone and attached it like this.

                                     And here it is. I was rather proud of it. Picture perfect, eh? ;-)

And I made these things that I'm going to call 'runners' even though I don't think that's what they're really called. I spread them out everywhere I possibly could. You just connect bits of pine sprigs together with the twisters and decorate to your liking. They make very striking accents to shelves and tables.

Pretty pinecone.

(In case you're wondering about our rather empty Nativity Scene, let me just explain that we put the pieces out, one at a time, ending Christmas Day with Baby Jesus. The Wismen make it on the 6th of January. :-)

And this vase of pretty-ness. Love it!

I hung garland around the house too, but I don't have any pictures of that on my 'puter and I don't feel like taking anymore pictures. :-) Just take my word for it.

At the last minute (here meaning about a week before Christmas) my sister and I decided to make cloth dolls for these kids we baby-sit for. "Three dolls," I thought. "No sweat." HA! I always forget how time consuming these lovely little dolls are. But they were so worth it. I mean, aren't they adorable? I think so. But of course, I am a little biased. I was up till midnight trying to get this done by Christmas Eve.

We did a lot of cooking and baking. Yummy. I always love all that hustley-bustley stuff on Christmas Eve. We made sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies. We made pizzels and chocolate dipped pretzels, chocolate crackle cookies, biscotti...yeah. We do love the Christmas baking. It makes the house smell heavenly.

I know you're all probably thinking, "this still doesn't explain why you didn't do a single post in twelve days." Let me just say, on top of all this stuff I do have a job, part-time though it may be, and my whole family basically dedicated every spare evening before Christmas to practicing the music for the sung Mass we did for Church. :-) And might I just add that I think we sounded lovely.


God Bless. And remember, Christmas Day is the first day of the twelve days of Christmas. Christmas isn't over till January 6th, so leave up your decorations and tree till then, kay? January 6th's is the day we celebrate the Wisemen giving their gifts to the Infant King.

Merry Christmas.
Amy