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Tag Archive for Christmas

Our Christmas Tree Revamp

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Yes we have an artificial tree. Yes, I can put up my tree whenever I choose. Provided I have someone here to help me get it out of the rafters (thanks boys!). My artificial tree has (had) white lights Pre-wired to the branches. Lots of white lights. It’s a really pretty tree even of you don’t put any other decorations on it.

It would normally look like this-

Last Christmas I was having some issues with the lights on the tree shorting out. We bumbled along and made the lights work through the holiday time. When the tree came out for its annual decorating this year Travel Man helped me check the lights as we were assembling the tree. We figured out where there was a bad plug, got it repaired and thought we were golden. All of the lights were working, we were off to a good start.

Until……. the next morning. The entire middle section of lights on the tree had shorted out-again! Problem is once the tree is completely assembled , the branches are fluffed, and the tree is generally looking good it’s a total pain in the toukas to take it apart, and fix anything.

So, we made the executive decision to bypass the white lights all together. The white lights were not going to co-operate, and I had no patience for them. We were not going to take the tree apart, and we had two strings of colored lights to starts us off on the tree re-vamp. That meant we only had to buy three more strings to finish off all of the lights, and my budget could handle that expense. The white lights were unplugged and we put colored led lights on the tree, our collection of ornaments, and last but not least- the tinsel! Yes that’s right we have tinsel on our tree. I’m calling this our retro tree because the tinsel totally brings back childhood memories for myself and Travel Man.

Of course ours kids are divided on the appearance of the tree.

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What happened to the white lights? We changed them up decided to do something different.
Tinsel? Really who uses tinsel? We do. Another change to our traditional Christmas.

Grandson Evan tells me last night, “Grandma, I like the tree this way. It’s really pretty.” Melt my heart. I’ll put colored lights and tinsel on the tree every year just for Evan!

I have to admit I’m a huge fan of the all white lights on the tree. I think it’s because it reminds me of snowy winters in Illinois in a strange round about way. But going retro with this tree has been fun. Colorful, tinsselly fun. Is tinsselly really a word?

So for Christmas 2012, the decorations are complete, and my annual tree revamp is done, and I am happy. Maybe I’ll start doing a different theme for the tree every year. All Santa’s on the tree, or all angels on the tree. Maybe next year we’ll add garland, or the kids favorite garland – colored strings of beads!!

What your favorite Christmas tree theme? And was that a real tree or an artificial tree you put up?

2 comments Posted in Around the House, DIY Projects, Family, Holidays, Travel Man

How can it be December 3rd already?

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Hello dear friends and fellow bloggers. It’s been awhile since my last post, and I felt the need to just say hi, and get back into a good writing groove. My writing was definitely sidetracked in the month of November. I have a few stories to catch up on with you all.

Did you have as wonderful a Thanksgiving as my family did? We were fortunate to have my sister here from Montana for Thanksgiving dinner. That does not happen very often, so we were especially happy to have her smiling face as the table. My Mom was beside herself with emotion that day.

We also celebrated the birth day of our second grandchild, a baby girl. This is Evan’s baby sister, Miss Madison. Welcome to your Grandma’s blog, Madison. It was a special day, I’ll give you all of the details in another story.

And the past few weeks have been a rare treat for Travel Man and myself. He has been working from his home office for a few weeks, and it looks like we’ll have him home through Christmas. Everyone keep your fingers crossed please!

Now could someone, anyone explain to me how it got to be December 3rd already? My son will be celebrating his birthday this weekend. How did that date come up so fast? It’s the age-old adage, “Time just flies when you are having fun!”. Or in Renee’s terms, when you’ve been so busy the past few weeks that you finally look at the calendar and it’s time to turn the page to December.

So if your busy getting ready for Christmas, or baking, or making your list and checking it twice make sure you stop and have a latte, or maybe a nap. Happy Monday to you all.

*Photo credits to Hilary and Zachary Juedes.

4 comments Posted in Around the House, Blogging, Family, Travel Man

Halloween’s Past

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Renee Spindle

This being the last day of October, and Halloween I thought I would reminisce just a little with a few photos from the past. My kids have always loved costuming up for Halloween, and now Evan continues that tradition.

This is just a little mix of pictures from the past few years and beyond of our Halloween good times.

Evan loves to dress up and Halloween for him is such a treat. Here’s a few pictures of him from the past few years.

And some of the kids famous pumpkin carvings:

Some of my guys in their costumes:

And my favorite fall picture taken by my Travel Man a few years ago:

For me, Halloween is the first real signal of fall, which leads us to Thanksgiving, and of course the Christmas holiday season. To all of the ghouls and goblins out there have a fun Halloween evening.

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Holidays

Our Christmas Power Outage

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Christmas Day has come and gone, already, but I had to share our family story with you from The Day. The Party House hosted Christmas Day for the entire family. We are quite a group when all assembled.

This is our family picture from Christmas Day. It was a balmy 75 outside, doesn’t really put you in the mood to wear your best sweater when you have a house full of people.

Let me introduce you to everyone:

Seated (from l-r): Evan, the grandson; My Parents Joan & Jim (who are also the grandparents, and great-grandparents – they wear a ton of hats!); Tom, my husband(The Travel Man), and our fearless dog, Clyde.

Standing (from l-r): Cassie, Zach’s girlfriend; Zach, #2 son; Mary, #1 niece: Hilary #2 daughter; my brother Jim, and his girlfriend, Elaine; #1 daughter, Naomi and her husband Brad; #1 son, Bryan, me of course, and our #1 nephew Jim. Whew! That was a mouthful!

After the picture-taking festivities, we nosh on some appetizers, have a few cookies, and then it’s time for opening presents, Evan was very, very excited. At the suggestion of our nephew Jim, we opened the gifts by family. So each family was giving their gifts to everyone and then we got to enjoy seeing all of the present opening. I’m kind of a stickler with this, even though it takes awhile with such a big group I love seeing everyone opening their presents. It’s a giving thing.

So we are at the point where we only have one or two rounds of gifts to go, and……the power completely goes out on our street. What happened next will go down in the family history books under the “Remember When” section. Everyone who had a cell phone handy brightened up the room with their screens, and some of the kids have a flashlight app, so those came on right away. I remember hearing my brother asking the kids, “What’s the name of the flashlight app?”. It felt like you were at a rock concert with the lighters waving in the air (am I dating myself?). So hilarious, I cannot begin to explain how funny this was, and how funny it looked in our dark living room.

Now, we have a generator in our garage for an occasion like this, and Tom was at the helm getting the generator started, and a few lights on so we could finish opening presents. The guys were rigging up extensions cords, and trying to figure out how to keep the oven going so the ham could stay warm. And, of course,just as they were about to pull the stove out from the wall, voila the power comes back on. All in all I think it was only out for about 10 minutes, and it was definitely and adventurous 10 minutes.

As soon as we could corral everyone back in the living room, we finished opening presents which ended with my Mom passing out our family calendar. This is an annual event for our family, and is a wonderful way to put together pictures of the years past happenings. More on our family calendar in another post. It deserves its’ own story.

Evan was the paper pick up master for this event. I could not let this post go by without posting this sweet picture of him. Such a cutie pie!

Picture credits in this post go out to my nephew, Jim, and Elaine. Thanks for always keeping the shutters flying at our family events.

So we have marked another year of memories on our calendars. It is always such a treat to corral all of the kids in the family for a nice holiday dinner. And of course we always miss our long distance relatives who cannot join us. Thanks to all of you who contributed to our Christmas feast. I’m thinking next year were just doing appetizers and desserts!! Did anything wild and crazy happen at your Christmas Day festivities?

No comments Posted in Holidays

My Christmas Crafting – Phase 2 – The Crocheting & Then some.

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Renee Spindle

To continue with my crafting theme I wanted to share with all of you the gifts that I crocheted for Christmas. I wish I would have had time to do more, because this is a mind relaxing little hobby for me.

First, I made a gray heather colored scarf for my brother’s girlfriend, Elaine. This is the project that got me back on the crocheting train.

It was a really simple pattern, and the color was just right for Elaine. I made this one right after Thanksgiving. (Thanks for providing the pictures Elaine.) Leave me a comment if you would like the pattern.

Next was my gift for Travel Man. I made him a granny square afghan from red, white and blue yarn because he is such a patriotic guy. He is retired from the Air Force, and if you met him and had a conversation with him you would understand the depths of his patriotism.

So, I started to make the afghan right after Thanksgiving. Went to Michael’s, bought the yarn, dug out my crochet hook, and got to work. You see Travel Man was on a trip the day after Thanksgiving, and he was out-of-town for 10 days. A perfect opportunity to “get my crochet on”. And I did, by the time he got home from that trip I would say I was 75% done with his afghan. He was travelling again in a week so I would have plenty of time to get the afghan done.

Well then life happened. Travel Man was home with me for a week, and I was totally into my sewing projects that week, and not really paying enough attention to the crocheting. So then he left on his next trip and I got a little more crocheting done, and when Travel Man got home he was soooooo sick. Bad cold and cough. All the yuckiness that goes along with a bad winter cold. (And yes we do get bad colds even though we are in California. It is not always sunshine!) He got home on a Thursday and was supposed to leave on a Sunday, and that was not happening.

So now my dilemma sets in. I have about 4-5 rows of crocheting to finish, and I will now have to do some sneak around crocheting to get this done. In order to get the rows done I was getting up at 5:30 am ish, and working on it. If I was up late (which happens quite frequently) I would get a little crochet on. Then, Christmas week while I was working on some early morning crocheting, Travel Man walks down the hallway while I’m in the living room with my crochet hook flying. Luckily my son, Bryan, clued me in with a loud throat clearing, and “Good Morning, Tom”, so I was able to get the afghan back in a bag before he could see it. And then when he shuffled into the kitchen Bryan grabbed the bag and tossed it in his room. Whew! Gift exposure surprise avoided! On the morning of Christmas Eve I actually had to banish Travel Man to his office for an hour to finish the last row of crocheting and tying off all of the yarn from the color changes. Not my original plan at all. In my perfect crafting world this would have been completed last July.

These are my homemade gift-giving experiences for Christmas 2011. I hope to create more gifts in the New Year, and learn a few new crafts too. What’s your favorite crafting experience?

4 comments Posted in Crafts

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