A little sentimental-Christmas decorating and stuff...

I drug all the boxes down from the attic on Sunday afternoon and all I accomplished was making a big mess. :) Actually Britni usually does the decorating. She has a knack for arranging things and making it look really neat. I worked on the fireplace mantel Monday and Tuesday and it doesn't look half bad. I hung the stockings Wednesday. I have to embroidery Rainey's name on hers and I need to make one for my son-in-law to be. I finally got the tree out of the box on Wednesday night. It is one of the 3 piece prelit trees and I told my husband that it looks pretty good just like it is-without ornaments!! hee hee I worked on my village Tuesday and Wednesday evening. You know I can't quite get finished because there is always something that I need. I need a couple of light bulbs for the village so maybe by Sunday I will have everything together. When the kids were all still at home I would separate their ornaments into a pile for each child and we would turn on Christmas songs and decorate the tree together- maybe even taking a break to drink some hot chocolate or a good old Coca Cola in a Christmas decorated bottle.

My mother loved Christmas- the true meaning and everything about the Christmas season. I remember her bustling around- decorating, shopping for gifts or making homemade gifts (which were the best)and buying ingredients for pies, cakes, candies and the big Christmas meal. So...as I put the tree up by myself I got a little teary- even though she has been gone for 19 years, 4 months, and 5 days- it is the special times that make me miss her as if it were yesterday. She didn't care when we had our Christmas get together as long as all of us were there together and with five of us children with families of our own- that was sometimes hard to do.

One year for Christmas (I was about 5th or 6th grade)- I had seen this outfit in the Sears catalog. It was a white lacey dress with a red sash. Then it had a black skirt that you could actually wear over the dress for a different look and then red corduroy pants where you could have a pant suit. Surely some of you remember the pant suits. :) Well...anyway...when I got up Christmas morning there was the whole 3 piece ensemble. I was so excited and so proud of that outfit. Only years later when I was digging through my mother's box of scraps did I realize that she had made the entire outfit herself. The fabrics were the same as those in the catalog. She was an excellent seamstress and the outfit was perfect. I will never forget that sweet gift- not so much the clothes- but that my mother took the time to get just the right fabric and spent time sewing the outfit at times when I wouldn't see her so that it would be a totally wonderful surprise for me on Christmas morning.