Saturday, November 15, 2008

Carol's Christmas Village

Tonight my new friend, Barbara, took me over to her friend Carol's house, to see Carol's Christmas Village. Barbara told me it was "big." Now, when someone tells you a Christmas village is "big" what do you think that means? I thought it meant maybe one wall of a living room. Something the size of one six foot folding table. Maybe an eight foot one.

So, we walk in and at first I'm looking at the Christmas tree and accoutrements.



Obviously, this is very cool in and of itself. Then I look to the other side of the room and find the "big" Christmas village.



Yes... big... This is a four car garage space... and it's all Christmas village...



She said if she doesn't have the village set up before Halloween that she's behind. I know how that is. She said the rest of it goes pretty quickly, but that takes a lot of time, especially putting down all the cotton.



Some of the buildings were gifts and some were specially made for her. There are some rows, and then a large flat area, all covered with buildings. Barbara told me that she asked Carol before what happened if a light went out on one of the houses in the back row. Carol's response, which I think is genius, is "those people are out of town for the holidays."



That's Barbara on the left, Carol in the middle, and Mary Lou, another friend of Barbara's who wanted to come see the village. I met Barbara at the blogging class I spoke at a few weeks ago.



This is what they're standing in front of. Can you say Santa?

After we looked at the village, Carol took us on a tour of the home, where Santa's abound. We walked into the dining room, where there are more Santas per square inch than most holiday sections in stores.







In the office she had a Coca Cola Santa. I love these.



I took this closeup in the dining room for my brother, who used to collect John Deere things.



Carol said people give her Santas, too. And she had some really special ones. She showed us one that is made with Mount St. Helens ash.



It was a lovely evening. I'm so thankful to Barbara for arranging it and to Carol for letting us come into her home. She was so generous to share her holiday cheer with us. Thanks to both of them. It's so fun to meet others of my kind. We need a Christmas fanatics club in town.
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Friday Night



On my Friday night agenda was getting ribbons and decorations on the Christmas presents I had wrapped. The tree isn't finished for me until I have the presents under it.

I have this "thing" about the paper being coordinated. I found this ribbon three or four years ago and had to keep gathering paper to go with it. The photo doesn't do the ribbon justice, but it's an airbrushed look of purple in the middle, then blue on each side and silver on the edges. So, the paper is blue, purple, silver and white mixed. I really like it. I'll eventually get a photo with more packages and you'll be able to see the mix of it. I just took a quickie that got some of all the colors in it.

I'm so glad it's the weekend. I want to get a lot done around the house this weekend and also enjoy the tree a bit. It seems there's never enough time to enjoy it once it's done.

I also want to write some this weekend. I haven't worked on the novel any today. I'm close to being done with the writing. Then it is just a matter of doing some rewriting, editing and rearranging. So, I'm eager to have some time to focus on it.

Tonight I also added a Christmas tree to my front window. It's a tree that already has the lights on it that I got on clearance after Christmas last year. I always have a tree in there but it's usually a three or four foot one. This one is 6.5 feet. I'm going to try and decorate it sparsely, which is so not like me. But, I'm going to give it a try. We'll see how that goes.

As I was taking some present photos tonight I snapped a couple of ornament pix. I realized when I was looking at them on the computer that I had taken a photo of my newest ornament - this little clear plastic tree bought at Wal-mart for $1...



... and one of the very first ornaments I bought...



It's a clear glass ball with white and gold glitter added in places. I bought balls and bells of the same design. I've broken some over the years, but still have some. I remember the night I bought them - I was coming back to Kansas from a Kentucky Christmas visit and bought them along the way. (Yes, I know the pix aren't great - I just snapped them quickly with my little camera. They're not Greg's professional quality photos.)

This year I realized that I've been doing trees long enough that some of my ornaments have "history" in the sense that they're getting old. I'm not sure I like that. But, it just is. So, there you go.

I'd love to be able to say that back when I bought those I would have been out partying on a Friday night and not at home. But, alas, that would be a lie, an untruth, a deception. I've always been a homebody.
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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more. Friend me on Facebook.com, Follow me at Twitter.com.