Before and after........

 Before:

After: 

We were forecast for snow, rain and freezing rain on Sunday, so it sounded like a day to hibernate, and put all the Christmas decorations away for another year.  I generally do it on Boxing Day but we were at our daughter's on Boxing Day.

The one thing I left up is this wreath which I got from Ikea, which will stay up until the 12th night.

Now granted I am going to be hoovering up glitter and bits of tree for the next few weeks 🤨  I am glad though to get everything back to normal.

When do you take your tree down?

Take your pick...............

 I was in Home Depot the other week with hubby, so I wandered around the Christmas section, while he was doing his stuff, and I stumbled upon these:

Yep, those are mini Home Depot buckets/pails for your Christmas tree.  They're ornaments???  As I said to the girl at the check out, what a waste of 98 cents...LOL  Mind you some enterprising person could fancy them up I guess?  Me personally I am saving my 98 cents!!

Then I got an email from the Stanley site letting me know about the upcoming release and I saw these:

I am sorry about the quality of the photo, you can see a clearer version on the site here.  Again they are Christmas tree ornaments and are $70 CDN for the set of four.  In this case I love the colour of them, but who would decorate their Christmas tree with water tumbler's?  Also I would never pay that for something so useless!!  I will say I love the colour ways of this Christmas release with LoveShackFancy, despite not knowing who they are..LOL.  You can see the collection here.

Just looked up LoveShackFancy, and I can safely say I won't be shopping there any time soon for myself!!

Busy day

I hadn't planned on doing much on Wednesday as I was really tired on Tuesday for some reason, but I ended up doing a few bits and bobs.

I put away all my Christmas decorations, other than these two miniature trees.  They will stay out until the 12th night.

I made a big pan of turkey soup.  I just added some soup mix (grains), an onion, carrots, tin of Italian diced tomatoes, can of coconut milk, turkey and turkey stock from yesterday.  It was lovely, very tasty and very filling.

A couple of you mentioned you liked my little man.  I think I got it from Kitchen Stuff Plus, here in Canada.  However there are plenty to choose from on Amazon.  They are called Silicone Pot Lid Lifters, you can see some here.  As I said yesterday, they work really well.

Before Christmas I was busy cleaning out my kitchen drawers.  I had cleaned out my cutlery drawer, but wasn't happy with it.  I think Christmas Eve I went to HomeSense and picked up some storage bins for the kitchen drawer.  I quickly put them all in my drawer and it has tidied it up.  Not 100% sure whether I like the layout yet.  I have put my larger spoons, masher, ladle etc on the counter top in a utensil container.  I am not a fan of those, but it makes more space in my drawer.

The knives are in a Joseph & Joseph knife holder.  Love the bottom layer, but the top layer doesn't work well.  I have our steak knives in there.  I lined the bottom of the drawer with contact paper.  I either got it from the dollar store, or Canadian Tire, I don't remember which.

Considering I hadn't planned on doing much I got a lot done.

By the way is your house like ours, covered in glitter?  Everywhere I turn, there are sparkles....LOL  And I have dusted, swiffered and hoovered.......

Before and After

First let me say I generally put up our Christmas decorations after Remembrance Day; so by mid-November.  By Boxing Day I am over it ...LOL  This year we are not hosting anything, nor expecting anyone.  As hubby was back at work on Boxing Day I decided to go from this:

Too this.  Now mind you I have not stripped the place down to give it a good clean.  It only got a quick clean.  I will strip the place down next week.

I do believe you should leave something up until the 12th night, so am leaving the small tree out until then.  I will remove it on January 6th.  It's not that big that it will get in the way and along with the Christmas arrangement it looks pretty.  Also I have enough bad luck without creating anymore by packing away all the Christmas things😊

When do you take down your decorations?  

Some Christmas photos for 2022

 All very British themed, no words needed.  Merry Christmas to you all........

Bit of a mystery that needs solving?

Why is it when you put up the Christmas tree and decorations, you end up with bits of tree, glitter and Styrofoam from one end of the house to the other?

You then spend the rest of the day looking like this:

(image credit)

It's as though the glitter takes on a life of its own and multiplies and spreads at a rate of knots?

It's a mystery that needs solving...........

Talking about glitter, you should take a look at this post from back in 2008, still as funny now as it was then!!

Still decluttering and a blast from the past.....

Found a home for the 100+ Prima magazines.  I dropped off a pile of stuff at our charity shop where I participate in the window auctions and mentioned to her about the Prima magazines and she said please drop them off there.  Also have a pile of This Old House magazines and she wants them also.  So I need to drive up there next week and drop everything off.  It is very liberating getting rid of all this stuff and it less to move to the other house.

I do need to go through the Christmas stuff and donate a lot of that as well.  Wrong time of year though to donate Christmas things, but again I don't want to move it.  I have decided less is more though!!!

One thing I do when painting is play music on the tv. This is one song that I thought was so nice:
Even the picture is lovely.

Do you remember this song?

Christmas Tree and painting....

Got the first coat of paint on the kitchen walls.  Can't say it looks much different to me; hopefully will look better when I do the second coat today.

I decided to decorate the Christmas tree on Monday after I finished painting.  This is my new ornament from my mother.  It's by Belleek and it's a snowman holding an umbrella.

 My first ornaments to go on the tree are all my Wedgwood and Waterford ones.

 Here it is in all it's "frothy" glory!!!

Can't wait for our Little Princess to see it, as they don't have a Christmas tree at their house.  Miss Nora will probably be asleep so she won't care!!!  And yes the Christmas crackers are huge!!!  The one small present under the tree is for Miss Nora it came in the mail on Monday.

I thought this song was appropriate for today's post:

Random photos.......

The sunrise on Friday morning.......

My new laptop, which dh is setting up for me:

 

Christmas Balls, not sure what I am going to do with them? Have two boxes of each colour, eaight of each size of ball in each box.......any crafty ideas?

Horses with their sunglasses on to remind me, that eventually this bloody snow will go!!

Haven't been on the computer much as my hands are sore.  Will update you on them on Tuesday after I have been to the doctors on Monday........

Getting back to normal........

little by little.

After blowing out the driveway on Thursday I set about putting away some of the Christmas decorations.  I now only have the tree up and the cards up.  I hope to take the tree down this weekend and I'll leave the cards up until the 12th night.  I enjoy having all the Christmas things in the house, but like to have the house back to normal right after Christmas.

We got this from dd best friend "K" for Christmas.

Inside was this; a lovely Crabtree and Evelyn gift set for Gardeners Hands.  I told dh he could use the case as a new lunch box, he said he would pass!!  I am going to use it to store some sewing supplies in.

I saw this great idea over at Cindy's blog.  If you dry out your potato peelings for 24 to 48 hours, you can put them on your fire to help clean off the creosote and build up on your chimney.  So on Christmas Eve this was what was sitting on the hearth:

You still have to clean your chimney, but thought this would help.  The peelings burn at a high heat when dry.

Took a photo of across the way on Thursday afternoon.  Winter bloody Wonderland, for those who don't have to shovel!!!

Yep, I still hate Winter!

Boxing Day Sales = Thumbs Down......

well at least for us.  I guess part of the problem is I won't line up in huge line's.  The line up outside of the Coach outlet store was just plain crazy and a lot of the other stores were just as bad.  I did pick up a couple of Christmas decorations at half price, but otherwise nothing else.  We are lucky I guess in Canada as we have good sales all the time.

My mam sent me another ornament for Christmas, another Waterford one.  It is gorgeous:

I have also been busy running back and forward to the local hospital as one of our dear friends has had a bad stroke.  Although no relation we are pretty close and he keeps asking for me.  So please say a prayer for him as he has a long road ahead of him.  He is paralysed down the left hand side and his speech is slurred, although I have no problem understanding him.

I am in so much pain........

Now what did I do you ask?

On Wednesday I decided to put away some Christmas decorations, which then turned into a full blown lets remove the Christmas tree as well.  As I was putting everything down the old basement this time, I decided I had better tidy up that first.  So I tidied up there first which took ages, moving everything around.  While down there I decided also to put a couple of bags of salt in the water softener, the 20kg ones.

Then went upstairs to tackle the Christmas tree.  We have a 7 1/2ft tree and it weighs a ton.  The top and bottom piece isn't to bad and I got that down the basement okay.  However the middle piece is heavy and to be honest I wasn't sure who was going to win the battle me or the tree, as it wasn't happy about squeezing down those stairs!!  Anyhow I finally go it down there and then started the other battle of trying to squeeze all three pieces into the box.  After a few minutes of me battling with it and Molly watching with a strange expression on her face I finally got it all in the box and tied up.

I then had to move a huge Rubbermaid box of decorations down the same stairs.  I dragged that and slid them down the stairs so that wasn't too bad.  It wasn't until I had completed all this and the sweat was dripping from me that I began to feel sharp pains in my back.  So I quickly hoovered up, all the time the pain was getting worse.

Within a few minutes my back was throbbing and the pain down to my knees was just plain awful.  I took some liquid Advil and that didn't do much good.  I even went to lie down on the bed, but that didn't really help.  I struggled on until about 8pm and then gave in and went to bed.  As normally when I have done too much, a good nights sleep settles down my back.

I got up this morning and although I am not in sheer pain, my lower back and the outside of my legs to my knees are so sore.  The good thing is I don't have pain in my ankles or feet, as that would mean I have a bigger problem.  So I guess for the next day or two I am going to have to baby my back to see if it will settle down, and keep taking the liquid Advil to try and dull the pain.

Oh and another good thing, at least I got plenty of exercise as well, right?  By the way I do keep my Christmas Cards up until the 12th night, as it's bad luck to take everything down before then.

Someone asked yesterday what Quality Street are, they are a brand of chocolate from Britain which is very popular especially around Christmas time.  My favourite one is the Caramel Swirl, followed by the Strawberry Delight and Orange Creme.

Bits and bobs; and where did this pop up from?

You know the more I read your responses yesterday agreeing with me about how much work it is for such a short period of time, the more I am determined to so something different next Christmas.  No idea what yet, but I am also going to have a Christmas break.  I put my oven onto self clean for three hours on Boxing Day, and I am still going to have to scrub it down {{{SIGH}}}  The full pound of bacon I put on the turkey made a heck of a mess....so more work there.  So maybe next year we'll just have cold meat, salad and sandwiches...pretend we are in Australia and its too hot to cook!!

I forgot to show you my new Christmas ornaments this year.  The first one is a Waterford Crystal one there is a better picture of it on the link.  It's number 2792/5000, and my mother got it for me.  Its nice but I prefer my Wedgewood one.

My mother also sent me this beautiful Wedgwood one, I can't find one on the Wedgwood site for a better photo.

Finally the kids got me this Wedgwood one, and it is on this site

Needless to say I was very pleased to receive them.  I now have five Wedgwood ornaments and they are front and centre on the Christmas tree.

For the first time in many, many years we were not all up at the crack of dawn to go Boxing Day shopping.  Neither me nor dh really wanted anything and so the kids went out mid morning and were back by 3pm with only a couple of things each.  Me and dh went up to Chapters and Michaels and I got my Christmas cards for next year at Chapters, and picked up my Christmas crackers for next year at Michaels.

We had a full range of weather on Boxing Day, from rain, snow, freezing rain and fog.  It got rid of a bit of snow, but made everything slippery.  At least with it raining, it was a bit warmer.  Both kids went back home on Boxing Day night, and dd took Olive with her.  She never left dd bedroom the whole time she was here, however she did come out of under the bed so that was good.  Meanwhile Molly has got over the excitement of having a house full of people and is flaked out in front of the fire!!!

Finally, for some reason this song popped up in my head and I can't get rid of it....LOL, and I have no idea where it came from???

A question for you..........

When we were out and about on Saturday we saw a number of cars and trucks with Chirstmas Trees tied to them, "real" Christmas trees not artificial ones. Now me and dh were saying we thought it was a tad too soon for people to put up a real Christmas tree, as its still a month away.


So for those of you who put up a real Christmas tree, when do you generally put it up?


We have an artificial Christmas tree so can put it up whenever. I put up our tree on Saturday night, as Saturday night is hockey night and I don't like hockey, so figured I would do something useful!!  I still have the rest of the house to decorate, I'll do that through the week.

Dd went to The One of a Kind Show in Toronto on Saturday with her friend and she said there were a lot of lovely things there. Some were expensive though, but some things were well priced. She bought a hat from this lady for a friend for Christmas.  She bought this hat for someone else for Christmas.  This lady, she went to school with up to Grade 5.  We were trying to figure out the name of this type of paper art, but couldn't remember it, click on the cards to see the detail.

Look what I made on Sunday and other stuff..........

Quite proud of what I did and it cost me less than $7 to make.

I started out with a bucket, bought some foil wrapping paper, $1 from the dollar store, and wrapped the bucket in that. Added some stones to the bucket to weigh it down. Cut a circle of Styrofoam we had in the house, and inserted that in the top of the bucket. Cut some greenery from the garden, stuck that in the bucket, added the candy canes, $1 each from the dollar store (they're plastic and reusable). Added a couple of branches and hung the red Christmas balls from them, again $1 for all six. Stuck a big bow on the front of the bucket, another $1.

Wrapped an old brick, and empty Kleenex box, and the box the red ball decorations came in to make them look like presents. The little bows on top of the presents, were on the candy canes. I did weigh down the empty boxes. This way if someone wants to "take" the presents they can!! Then I set it all up on the deck by the front door. Its all waterproof, so should stand up to nasty weather.

Talking of the weather, I was talking to the vet's assistant on Monday and she was telling me I could go and pick up the crazy pink pills, as the latest set of pills are useless. They look like red jelly beans and are as effective as red jelly beans!! Anyhow, we were having a "discussion," which translates as me arguing with her over the amount of pills they were giving me, approx. 40 days??? Anyhow, she says that by then we'll see how Molly is "when the snow flies" and its colder.

Now I had never heard of that expression, "when the snow flies." I suppose its better than saying if ****ing well snowing again.........right? By the way you can add whatever word takes your fancy where I have inserted the **** It turns out that "when the snow flies," it's a time between Fall and Winter, when the snow just starts to fall. Not sure if that is just a local expression, or a Canadian/American expression. I know I have never heard that expression in Britain.

I must say though the weather continues to be glorious at the moment, and I think my mail lady was saying we're in for another good week? As I said to her, I wouldn't care if it didn't snow at all this year or next!!!

I have a "sitemeter" on this blog and find the whole thing fascinating. People search for the craziest things, but I am a numbers person, I just love looking at the numbers, and all the other stats on there. I love the graphs and the pie charts. I find it interesting that Saturday is my quietest day for visitors on my blog. Thursday's are generally the busiest, that's because I do a regular post and a Skywatch post as well. I find those photo meme's attract a lot of people. Mind you those people don't write as much on those type of posts, as people do on a regular post I find. I could do a whole post on the ins and outs of the stats from my blog but don't want to bore you!!

Finally DEAL ALERT for the Canadian's and American's!!! From now until December 31st, 2010, if you order $39 or more worth of books from Bookcloseouts.com you get free shipping. I have ordered from these guys a few times and am very, very happy with the service etc. There is a great selection of books at super low prices.