What we did on our Thanksgiving Vacation....

Does it remind you of your first day at school when you had to write what you did over your summer vacation?

Well, since we had our Thanksgiving dinner 2 weeks previous when my Mom and Dad were in town, with Turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings, there was no cooking that HAD to be done on Thanksgiving - leaving the time to do all sorts of other things.

So, Bree and I baked some cookies. We took down the Thanksgiving decorations (scarecrows, pumpkins, etc..) On Friday, while I worked at my Friend's Yarn Store (http://www.strandsofheaven.com), Bill and Bree worked on setting up the Christmas Tree. (It's a 10 foot tree!) We finished putting ornies on Sat morning, then went to a craft sale, then started the village. In between all of the above, we worked on the rest of the inside of the house. Well, here are the results of our efforts - I took these pictures at night - hoping the lights would show up:

The window shelf over the kitchen sink - the center is a "miniature" tree with all the Hallmark mini ornaments that my Mom has collected for Bree and I over the years - it's so cute. To the left of the tree is a "fiber optic" village and the colors change - it's pretty mesmerizing to watch:



Above the cabinets. When we were house/builder shopping, I saw in a model home, where instead of a soffit above their kitchen cabinets they left it open and had electricity run up there with a light switch in the kitchen in order to put village houses up there.. Thus our area above the cabinets. The evergreens in the background are the limbs from the Christmas tree we don't use.. Works perfect!



I will never own a house again without a fireplace... I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our fireplace, love fires! We will use it from October thru May! My Dad cuts down the wood (oak, birch and cherry) for us from his woods and splits it up and when it burns it smells SO good - So, have to decorate it nice too!



And then the "biggie" - we have 26 Village houses and are to the point where you just can't fit them all under the tree (thus the ones above my cabinets, and now we even have them under the "small" tree in the front of the house - including the train!). So this is the MAIN town... but the others are the "unicorporated" area - haha





And this is the security company we hired to protect our village... (some help they are - infact the "bigger-but younger" one in the picture decided it was "deer" season and has chosen a ceramic deer to destroy.. She's in the dog house these days!



I just realized I need to take photos of the front living room and foyer of the house for the rest of the decorations... Well,I guess I will do that today!