Christmas is coming...

...and we have a Christmas tree! This is the first Christmas tree we've had since we got married (you may all say "awww" now) so we really splashed out and bought the decorations from Walmart. Seriously though, it is a responsibility. I'm pretty sure many of my parents' Christmas decorations date from the early days of their marriage; it was a humbling feeling to be sizing up baubles with the knowledge that we might well be digging those very same baubles out of their dusty box in the attic in 30 years time. Nothing does longevity like a Christmas ornament.

In which case, of course, we also need some dusty photos to dig out along with the decorations, to show the very first time they were used. Thus we have Graham decorating the tree, and Martha decorating the mantelpiece. The ones of Graham with baubles dangling from his ears and Martha wrapped in tinsel will not be appearing on this blog. Some things should not be shown to future generations (or present ones for that matter).

I hope you agree that the finished product is pretty sweet.

It's a little early to say Merry Christmas, but today is the first Sunday in Advent. So a blessed Advent to you all.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Well that antler on the mantlepiece has already seen a few years since it left the Isle of Mull! May all your Christmases be well-decorated.

love Dad

1 December 2009 at 17:23

Growing things

For those of you who are interested in my attempts at balcony gardening, I thought I'd update you a little. For those who aren't, don't skip this post. You may find something else of interest. Apart from the ever-present herbs, tomatoes and cayenne peppers are on the go this year. The peppers are really on the go - we went away for a week and came back to find them twice the size as when we left. Now they're producing fruit which is growing at a similarly rapid rate, though none has ripened to red yet. I realised I should have given you some kind of scale, so I just went out and measured. They're about 22 cm long, or 8 1/2 inches for you non-metric types. I may have to find out how to dry peppers if they all ripen at once. A couple of tomato plants are looking pretty healthy and beginning to flower. A few died; one, apparently, by being eaten whole by a bird, a trouble I've never had before. I had two seedlings left so used those as replacements, b...

Hosting Thanksgiving

OK, I have to confess. This will be a very boring Thanksgiving story. Everything went right and it was a lovely day. For an interesting story you need a few things going wrong. I heard a couple of interesting stories this year - like the one about mis-measuring bourbon to go in the stuffing. Apparently if you put far too much in, all the alcohol doesn't boil off. Or the one about going to cook dinner at an Asian friend's house, and discovering at the last minute that she doesn't have any baking trays, and it's quite difficult to roast a turkey in a wok. But as I said, we didn't have so much as a lumpy gravy panic. Where's my food??? We're working on it, baby! So what do you want to know? Well, it was my first Thanksgiving dinner cooked on American soil. Back when I was free and single and shared a house with lots of people who liked to eat, I got into the habit of celebrating the American feast for a few years, until the...

Anticipating

Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. Song of Songs 7:11-12 The Bible passage comes first today, because it sets that tone of anticipation so well. Let's go see! Are there buds yet? Are the flowers starting to open? Is anything in full bloom? I love the anticipation of spring flowers. First the dainty bobbing snowdrops, then the rainbow spikes of crocuses and the golden trumpets of daffodils. Then the trees get in on the act. The ornamental cherry with its over-exuberance of pink fluffy blossom is my favourite, and the waxy white magnolia which lasts for too short a time. Every year the same pattern, and every year somethi...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog