Well, the tree is up and decorated, the village is done and only have one gift card and a couple of other quick cards to do. No packages wrapped, but that's next! Then clean house and maybe I''ll be ready! We won't be having Christmas until the 26th as our son and DIL won't get their respective children until 10:00 Christmas a.m. and will be going to her parents' house for dinner. We will go to daughter's house for dinner, but Fri. a.m. it's apt to be a bedlam! Everybody will gather early for breakfast - pancakes, eggs and bacon, hash browns - ummmm! After opening gifts, we will get get ourselves together and head for the largest table top mountain in the world for a fun day of sledding and snowmobiling! We are fortunate to live within about 30 minutes of the top of Grand Mesa and while it is called a table top, there are still lots of good sledding hills. We will pull our 21 foot camper up there so everyone will be able to come in out of the cold, plus having cocoa and coffee on hand to warm up with!

Between the decorating (Hubby did the tree, thank heavens!), getting the village set up, we had to take time to do some planning for this Friday. My hubby had purchased a motorcycle this fall and while I'll ride with him, I'm still not entirely comfortable (gravity works, you know, and those leans going around corners are big temptations for gravity in my opinion - LOL). I told DH not too long ago that I was much more comfortable riding a snowmobile than a motorcycle, so........... To make a long story short, he found not one but two Arctic Cat snowmobiles and the trailer for sale in the paper for a bargain price. They run great, the couple just had to give them up because she's on oxygen 24/7 and can't get out in the cold, so.....! We had hoped to make a trial run before Friday, but that is questionable!

I have gotten some stamping done - finished up all but two cards yesterday afternoon - and made a couple more gift card holders following the Technique Junkies technique in the December issue. These are so quick and easy to make! I've enclosed photos of one of them, since I made them essentially alike, as well as my daughter's birthday gift card. I used A Wish for Peace on Night of Navy for the one with the burnt edges technique from the TJ newsletter. For the other one, I used Garden Silhouettes on a TJ background I had done previously (don't remember what it was now!)

I'm also showing a photo of how our house is decorated for Christmas on the outside. Our daughter works for a landscaping company that also offers Christmas lighting, so being good parents, we had them do our house. The blue and white lights off to the right are the gazebo. Makes for a very festive sight! As you can see, it was snowing the night I took the picture and other than a couple of flurries, we've had none since! I don't know about you, but I love white Christmases, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Weatherman says 70% chance of precip through Christmas Day, so we'll have to see! Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas to all of you!