Christmas decorating, roses and a cookie recipe too

Decorating


I work in retail and am responsible for the Christmas tree decorating in the store. It's a huge undertaking. This year there are more than 30 themed trees. I touch every single ornament many times over from mid-September when I start sorting them, until I go to the gift market in Atlanta in January at which time, those that are left, are 75% off and I'm pretty sick of them.

Many comment that I won't want to decorate my own home.  It's very different.

I tell them that my tree is simple, doesn't have a theme and is a hodge podge of memories.  Many memories.  Some years it's really hard to get through decorating my tree without a few tears a good old cry.  I cherish the many memories. Like my sister who loved to give ornaments;  my parents, my dad also deceased and my mom so far away and old now. Ornaments from travels in the US and abroad abound. More memories of happy times. There are White House ones with lovely presidential stories given by our late neighbors each year.  There are many bisque angels from my ex-husband and I still put them on the tree because I still love them. Oy, and all those memories.

But the ornaments that separate my tree from the trees at work are the ones my children made and the ones with their little faces on them.  I can't pay money for anything as dear to my heart.

This year, I'll be in Portland for Christmas with Matt, my son, so I don't even need a tree but it's a tradition, something I do every year.  A comfort.  I actually didn't cry this year.  Don't know why.  I have a good reason with my house on the market now and this likely my last December here.  Perhaps I'm reconciled and ready for a simpler Christmas away.

Roses

In all other years, by this time I've pruned back my roses and taken out the thorny branches with the leaves.  This year they are tall and lanky, but for two weeks in a row, I've cut lovely bunches to bring into the house. I may not have said how much I love fresh flowers in the house.  {I adore them.}  I've been given roses in December before, but not these quaint old fashioned ones from the garden.

Today I did some more holiday baking for colleagues, friends and neighbors.  A few weeks ago I tasted some ginger snaps at a neighbor's house. She commented that they were made from a mix.  I was amazed, so I looked for a recipe online.  I've tried three recipes and have found a good one this time.  I also quite adore the Martha Stewart bags with a little snowflake box/base.

Easy Ginger Snap Cookies

18 1/4 oz spice cake mix

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground ginger {I used more}

1/4 cup water

1/3 cup molasses

2 tbsps vanilla extract

	Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheet.
	In a large bowl, stir together the cake mix, baking soda and ginger. Make a well in the center and pour in the water, molasses and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly blended. Roll into balls  Flatten slightly. Dip one side in sugar and place them 3 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheet. {I used silver and gold sugar for holiday sparkle.}
	Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops are cracked and cookies are firm. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks. Here is an example of a tree I decorated at work: the Santa tree. I had the idea to make the boots into a tree topper.  I stuffed a Santa hat into each boot to give it a furry cuff.  Then I stuffed red fabric into the middle of the tree, supposedly for the body {but all the ornaments pretty much hide that now.}  Then a day later I spied the Santa head, and put it upside down.  It's been a humourous tree for many, and bit troublesome for a few children who asked some cute questions.  It's my favourite tree {at work} this year!

PS. I love green too!

When people tell me that they associate me with blue, I tell them I have never met a colour that I don't like!

I am crazy about all colours really.  My home sports a lot of blue and white so that is why it is natural to assume I am a blue freak {and I am!}  But I really groove on all colours, be they pastel, bright or dull and somewhere inbetween.  It makes it hard for me to have a cohesively decorated house that flows because I have blues and then greens and then browns and blues and then red, black and white.  Oh well.  I love it all so that's what counts, right?

Recently, when contemplating redecorating what we call "the hall bathroom", I bought a shower curtain.  This is something I have not done in the past.  I have always sewn all the drapes, valances, comforters and duvet covers, cushions, and certainly something as easy as a shower curtain.  I just happened to see one that I really, really liked and it was sort of an impulse buy.  The colours sucked me in - that marvelous lime green, and also the leaves.  I haven't told you yet how much I love leaves!  Leaves are a recurring theme throughout my house and even my wardrobe with scarves I've made.  Yes, funny I'd love leaves this much because {in my new life} keeping up with them in the Fall, they have become the bane of my existence and one of the {many} reasons I don't get to craft or sew.

Back to the hall bathroom, I have just recently done a wee bit of updating with taking out a boxed-in fluorescent light and adding a new fixture, and then replacing the medicine cabinet with mirror-backed glass shelves - this was Susannah's brilliant idea and I'm doing it in my bathroom as well.  I replaced the mirror with a framed one that a friend found for a song, and then other things like taking down the wallpaper with Waverly ivy-violet border {what made me love that in 1998?}, new knobs on the cabinet and painting the walls {actually a neutral color, although I did contemplate lime green.  OK I made a mistake - I did have lime green mixed, brought it home and chickened out...it was going to be too insanely green :) }  

I needed something on the wall where a wicker shelf had been, and then I spied 4 unfinished mirrors that I'd bought from Ikea a few years ago and done nothing with.  I have no idea what I planned to do with those mirrors when I bought them, but I suddenly thought: aha they'll be perfect! I haven't painted anything with my craft paints in a long time, so I fished around.  I came up with some paint Shannon and I mixed for a garden bench years ago - green, but the wrong shade and then I did find some lime AND....I found some crackle glaze from who knows what year that I had never used.  My brain started into overdrive as I contemplated how to proceed.  I wanted the lime on the outside but whatever you paint underneath shows through the crackle, but the mixed green from the bench would be fine for the under color.  I don't have enough experience with this, and I obviously didn't paint on a thick enough coat of the crackle glaze, but I love how they look - even the spot where I put my finger {by accident} and there's a blotch.  Yep, that spot of lime green is just what that blank wall needed.  {oh, and I painted an old basket from the Goodwill pile for hand towels, and the ivy leaves on the laundry hamper...I'll unabashedly admit that I went a bit wild with the lime green!}

Glass shelves aren't in the "opening" yet.  Coming next week :)