Christmas Wrap Up

Christmas dinner brought 16 family members to my house.  My parents, siblings, and most of my nieces and nephew came.  The oldest niece is 22 and the youngest is three.  I think the little one was a bit overwhelmed by all the people and being in a strange place.

As one of the desserts, I made Midnight Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting. Those cupcakes were so moist and chocolate-y!  I also made a cupcake tower that turned out looking like a Christmas tree.

The Homestead is small and as such, I had to borrow a table and chairs so that everyone had a place to sit when it was time to eat.  The dinner table ended up about 14ft long and took up the entire length of my dining room.

Originally, I had planned on putting paper doilies underneath the candles on the table.  After searching through my craft supplies, I came to the realization I didn't have round doilies!  What's a crafty girl to do?

 

Paper Snowflakes!  Remember making these in school?  I made one for each candle and each one was unique... just like the real thing.  My mom thought they were adorable.

 

In wrapping up Christmas 2013, I'll leave you with more decorations and the cards I received this year:

 

This is a Santa's Workshop music box.  See the player piano type paper?  It plays 16 melodies as this paper rotates throughout the workshop and winds down underneath.  Each room in the workshop is lighted and has animated characters.  It is so cool!

 

This is another animated music box called Welcome Santa.  It plays Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  The tree lights up, the rocking horse rocks and Santa rotates from his bag of gifts to the little girl.  See the photo of the baby in the Christmas frame?  My mom thought it was her great grandson and was asking his 16 year old aunt if that was him.  Finally, I told them both it was my niece (the 16 year old)... even she didn't recognize herself, lol.  Too funny.

 

Does that little face look familiar?  A long time ago, a friend bought this Hamilton Mint ornament for me because it reminded him of Celeste.  I always set it on a hard surface because I'm afraid it'll fall off the tree and break.

 

These three guys spent the holiday season party-ing it up in the living room beneath one of my smaller trees.  Aren't they adorable?

 

 

Remember a while back I blogged about my "first" camera?  My mom asked if I still had the camera.  In anticipation of the holidays, I got out the camera, pack film, and flash bulbs.  After a few tries, I was able to get a good polaroid shot of my parents with that almost 50 year old camera. 

It's a bit overexposed, but I attribute it to my not knowing how to use the dials on the camera properly.

Until next time,