Coming to the last countdown until Christmas and I still cannot believe it is just a little over a week away. I feel like I have been preparing for it forever and also feel like I am not prepared at all! I think about Christmas all year and look for things I think loved ones would like. I think I have come up with a humdinger this year. Humdinger. Where did that word come from and do only old people like me use it anymore? But anyway, I have worked on something I believe will surprise everyone this year. I can’t wait to give it to them. I have also planned some fun things to do. I will take pictures.
This year I decorated with snowmen, I have a collection of them. More than I realized. My Santas are not coming out this year to make way for the snowmen,

Here is our mantle this year. I made the quilt hangings with snowmen on them. David made the wooden fence that the stockings are hanging on and all the snowmen and ladies have appeared through the years and this year I decided to showcase them.

Funny thing about my decision to decorate with snowmen. We have been several places, including the hospital where snowmen were the decorations so I must be on something this year. Speaking of hospitals, my nurse practitioner at my cardiologist decided I needed an MRI and an echo of my heart as I have been feeling breathless for a while. I go see her next week to find out the results. Nothing different for me in the way I have been feeling for years, but suddenly it has to be checked. The MRI wasn’t too bad, but if you are claustrophobic I could see how it would bother some people. I kept my eyes closed the entire time and said a prayer and it was over before I knew it. So everywhere we looked in the hospital there were snowmen.

I love my Jim Shore snowman. A good friend gave it to me one Christmas. Years ago we were in Savannah, Georgia and there was a store with all Jim Shore things for sale. The man who owned the store knew Jim personally and said he had the largest collection of Jim Shore merchandise than anywhere. And he certainly did. The store was stuffed from top to bottom with Jim Shore creations. I like his things because each one has a quilt pattern on it. I have a nativity scene that was created by Jim Shore, also. I treasure it.

I bought this snowman online and he fits quite nicely on top of my clock. I painted the dog picture behind it. I love doing paint by number pictures. The company, Masterpiece Pictures, is not your usual paint by number company. The pictures are very intricate and there are a lot of different colored paints you get with each one and it makes things look real in the painting. These dogs just looked like blobs of paints until I stood back and saw they actually looked like dogs. The same thing happens when you paint people. A bunch of blobs until you step back. I have been looking at real artists’ paintings and it is the same with those. Up close you cannot see the picture then when you step back there it is. I could never paint something my self from scratch. It would look like a bunch of blobs! Even when you stood back.

The Christmas cactus decided to bloom on time this year. Last year it bloomed at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. At least it waits for the holidays. It has more blooms than ever this year. I put it outside this Summer and it thrived and next year I will have to put it in a bigger pot. It is about twice the size it was when it was given to me.

What tells it when to bloom? It still has several buds on it ready to pop so I am hoping it will still be blooming on Christmas morning.

I am so hoping it will snow for Christmas. Does it snow on Christmas where you live? We have not had a big snow for several years now, but the Old Farmer’s Almanac tells us we will be cold and snowy this Winter. It’s cold alright. Now bring on the snow.

We had dinner with our daughter and her family last week and then went to see the stage production of Christmas Story playing at the Nashville Playhouse in Nashville, Indiana. Nashville is such a pretty little town with lots of interesting shops. It’s a tourist town and people come from all over the world to visit here. Anyway, Christmas story followed Ralphie who wanted a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas and everyone kept telling him, “You’ll shoot your eye out.” The narrator was amazing. He talked all through the play with no script to look upon. All memorization. All the actors were good and Ralphie was played by the son of a friend of our daughter’s family. He did a very good job. I love going to theater. We are going to have a Beatles show at the music center in Nashville that is supposed to replicate an actual Beatles’ show from the sixties. I saw the prices for it and almost fainted. I saw the Beatles for real in the sixties and my and my best friend’s tickets only cost six dollars in total. Of course they were not the best seats, but we got to see and hear the Beatles and that is all that mattered. Best time I have had in my life. Well, almost the best. The center is also going to have a Barry Manilow concert without Barry, I think and those tickets are beyond our willing to pay. I saw Barry Manilow in concert for real years ago and could that man sing and perform! I remember after I had our daughter and had the baby blues, Barry got me through them. I would play his album over and over and cry. Thank you Barry.

So next week we will be busy shopping, cooking and cleaning and getting ready for Christmas day. Christmas is on a Monday this year which is nice. I pray everyone reading this has a blessed Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior. Jesus.. He may not have really been born this time of year since the shepherds were in the fields, but it doesn’t matter What matters He was born. . We celebrate Him and I, for one, am very glad He was born. His birth changed everything for everyone. So, Merry Christmas, everyone. I will see you on the other side. Stay warm and wrap your loved ones in your arms and thank God for His precious Son. Bye.