Girl in Grey/Gray (depending on your country)

Boy in Beret

The boy cheerfully sporting a favorite Christmas gift...

"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas..."

It was a white Christmas for our little family out at the farm.

We drove out to the farm in rain Thursday night and awoke Christmas morning to a winter wonderland.

Christmas Memories

I found this old photo of me and Jolly Ole' St. Nick...

Here is the story behind the photo - at least what I remember of it from over 30 yrs ago!

I was shopping at The Met Store (where I later got my first "real" job) with my mom. I had just made a purchase, on my own (evidenced by the paper bag) and was on my way to find my mom. I was clutching my change in my hand as a child typically will do, rather that putting it safely into a pocket.

I noticed that you could have your picture taken with Santa. I think I was about 8 years old in this photo - I'm sure I was not still believing in Santa. A lady working at the Santa photo set-up, asked if I'd like my picture taken with Santa. I said "sure". She held out her hand and took my money (which I naively thought she was just going to hold for me while I had my picture taken).

I had my photo taken and THEN realized the lady was keeping my money b/c even though Santa is a very generous fella - giving gifts to ALL the good little girls and boys - he had to make money somehow.

When I finally found my mother and told her the story - she was not pleased. We did not have much money back then and the $2 or however much it cost for the photo - was surely not to be "wasted" on a photo - especially when the girl having her photo taking with Santa - needed to have the grape kool-aid stain washed off her face BEFORE the photo was taken.

Clove Apples

Today the kids worked for 2 hours cloving some apples.

Last year they made clove oranges that ended up rotting...I made a clove apple last year and it dried successfully, so this year we just stuck with apples.

The kids worked on the apples up in the kitchen and yet I could smell that delicious clovish scent when I was in the basement!

Christmas Cookie Decorating

Wednesday was our annual Christmas Cookie Decorating "party".

I'm thinking this is our 4th year decorating cookies with friends of ours.

Back in Business!

OK - it didn't take me long to decide that I like the format of blogging better than Facebook...besides my mom isn't on Facebook so she wouldn't be able to see photos and the like.

Hopefully my few regular readers will find their way back :)