....THE STOCKINGS WERE HUNG....BUT NOT BEFORE THE PRESENTS WERE WRAPPED...

...

A few of you today, heard me on twitter and FB, asking, or actually begging for some help with my Christmas gift wrapping. I have to take extreme effort to psyche myself up for this monumental task. It is all about the organization ...and believe me, I'm a  fairly organized person, but gift wrapping is truly a pain in the butt and back for me...NOT kidding. I require all the players to be lined up accordingly before I begin.

Here is my dilemma...

YIKES...I'm only showing you this picture so that you may understand my frustration with gift wrapping. I have all the accoutrements required for the task, BUT haphazard organization. If this is my gift wrapping area...where does the gift perch to get gussied up and how can I sort through this mayhem?

While finishing off my Christmas shopping today....yes it is done, finito...woohoo for me....I was wondering how to tackle the task of gift wrapping so that at the end I would be sane and my normal chipper self.

Enter my brilliant idea....

.... a plastic garbage can you say...

... and I say yes...but with these added....

...becomes this.....can you see where I'm going?...

....and then morphs into this......hellllloooooo!!!!

...with a designated spot for these.....

....and for these too....wait though...another brilliant idea is coming to fruition....

....it looks messy, I know, but each ribbon end is pulled through a different slot. If this goes as planned I can possibly keep them from unravelling onto each other.

I now have one strong plastic container for rolls of paper and attached to that, containers holding assorted ribbons, scissors, pens and tape in their precise spots, and one rectangular  8"deep plastic bin large enough for tissue to lay flat. I'm am taking over the dining room table, where I can enjoy the fire, Christmas music and a glass of red vino so that my marathon Christmas gift wrapping may begin in hopes that our gifts will look like these....

....by late tomorrow!

MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANUKKAH, AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

LET IT SNOW....A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS....

As if on cue, we arrived at our cottage last Friday to the 'white stuff'.

We had left Ottawa, a barren snowless landscape, to travel 1hr west, to buy a Christmas tree in hopes of bejewelling it and decorating the cottage for Christmas.

Even without lights and tinsel, our 10 1/2 ' tall Fraser Fir is a beauty.

We are lucky at Christmas to spend a week at the cottage...In fact our first night ever at the cottage was Christmas Eve, six years ago. Our rustic log cottage is nestled in a decidedly country setting, therefore our Christmas decor reflects that. I have bought very few Christmas decorations for the cottage...instead I have culled our antiques and more than 30 years of our traditional Christmas decor to decorate the cottage.

An antique chair and pine cone box I painted several years ago.

I bought these Matryoshka stacking Santa dolls when our girls were very little, thinking they could play with them ... 20+ years later they gaze down from the fireplace shelves.

Skiing Santa...one of seven different Santas I made.  I prefer traditional Santas... or St Nicholas.

Even the duck residing yearlong on our mantle gets gussied up for Christmas

Every Christmas Eve since they were babies, I have given the girls a Christmas ornament each. All of these meaningful ornaments are now divided between the city house and the country cottage.

Three traditional Santas...one for each daughter are the first decorations that are hung on our country cottage tree each year. 

Every December I lovingly remember my Grandma who crocheted several different snowflakes for all of her grandchildren.

I have 10 of these darling angels...meticulously made from pasta by a dear friend. 

An antique 'Crazy' quilt from Nova Scotia becomes the skirt surrounding our cottage Christmas tree and Rolling Santa ...another painting project I painted for my munchkins... patiently waits for Christmas Eve.

She's a wee bit wonky, has some boughs longer than others, and a few gaping holes (not to mention one string of white wired lights... gahh!), but she's perfection in all her imperfectness....inspiring our yearly refrain..."THE BEST TREE WE'VE EVER HAD"

....Bring on the snow

Christmas 2009

Wishing each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a Joyous New year!