More Christmas

So how is everyone doing with the whole holiday season?  I'm feeling a bit of panic settling in, despite my efforts to chill the heck out. 

I did have a fun weekend – my friend came to visit and we did lots of talking, shopping and drinking more wine than was totally prudent.  

One of the things we did was drag her out on Saturday night to go see the Christmas lights at Deacon Dave's here in Livermore.  There is no preparing anyone for Deacon Dave's.  It just has to be experienced.  

There is a team of over 30 people that start putting the lights up in August.  Over half a millions lights!  It's just a regular house, in a regular neighborhood.  

Can you even imagine?  Move aside Clark Griswold.  To quote a friend…"it's like Christmas threw up all over the place."

There that's better.  There's my nice, soothing palette.  That little cabinet with the teeny trees is a new acquisition.  I picked it up at the Paris Flea Market on Saturday.  I certainly have plenty of Christmas decorations but I do like picking up something new every year.  Last year it was the snowman in the first picture and this year it was this sweet, little cabinet.

When I was going through my Christmas decorations I pulled out something that I haven't displayed in years.  It is something my mother made for me back when I was in my early 20s.  One year she went on a miniature bender and made all kinds of Christmas vignettes.  There was a store in Palo Alto called Studio D that had, among other things, a huge inventory of miniatures.  She made this Christmas scene and for years it had pride of place on my mantel.  I'm not sure why I haven't included it in my Christmas decorating over the past few years.  Probably because I have scaled way back since the boys are grown.  But I pulled it out this year, chased out a couple spiders and put it in the guest room.   This time of year, especially, makes me miss her so much.  Having this out just reminds me how much she loved making Christmas magical.