Almost Christmas!

Whew! The past couple of weeks have been super-busy with all sorts of activity around Christmas. There was a last-minute decision to travel down to Massachusetts to visit with my family before one of my brothers and wife and 5-month old niece left for a trip to Vietnam. They are there now and will be gone until the end of January. Being baby's first Christmas I just had to see her! Another brother, my mother and son and girlfriend met us as well and we had a lovely holiday get-together at Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass. Check it out via the link under the Links You'll Like section on the left (scroll down a bit). I'm a big "atmosphere girl" and a restaurant's ambiance is almost more important than the food! The Wayside Inn is the oldest operating inn in the country. Very cool! One of my brothers was married at the Martha Mary Chapel on the grounds. They delivered the bride and groom to the church in a horse-drawn carriage. That was many moons ago, not last weekend! We all had a great holiday visit, but my husband and I came home a bit empty feeling like the holiday was already over. Trying to shake that feeling and make it a special holiday for us.

The pattern shown above is Notforgotten Farm's popular "Jingle All The Way" cross-stitch design. I just got more in stock recently, it's a perennial favorite at Christmastime. Also available is another annual favorite, "Parson Brown". A new needlepunch pattern called "Merry Stockings" caught my eye and has been a new popular item. This is one I'll have to make myself.

Monday the 21st is the last day to ship packages in time for Christmas, according to the US Postal Service. Although I'm not sure about that, I'm putting it out there! Priority Mail has the best chance of reaching you before Christmas. I'll be shipping whatever I can on Monday and keeping fingers, toes and eyes crossed for good luck!

My little primitive tulip hooked mat got done in time for the rug guild holiday mat swap, which got changed to the February meeting without my knowing. Oh well... At least it's done! I'll post a picture when I can get hubby to upload things from the camera. It's cute but I might want to keep it instead of swap it! I've become attached to it! I can't figure out how folks can part with things they've made!

Hope your holiday plans are coming along! All the gifts bought? Wrapped? Tree up and decorated? Holiday meal all figured out? I'm not sure what I'll be cooking yet, leaning towards a wonderful pork tenderloin with a mulled cider-spiced glaze that I made years ago and got rave reviews. We'll see. We must decide soon!

Cold still, hope you are warm and snug on this Saturday night, less than a week before Christmas. I'll write again during the week.

Season's Greetings!