It's Christmas time!

And I'm all ready!  I didn't think that I would be able to pull it together this year.  We had a wonderful time in Ottawa.  We had out appointment on Friday morning and were basically finished in an hour, then we had the rest of the weekend to explore.  I took lots of pics that I have to sort thru and then I will post some pics.  The only sad part was that I didn't even think of getting in touch with Dani and we could have arranged to have a lunch of something.  boo hoo!!!  Dani...Next time!

Got home from Ottawa...worked two days...and then came down with the flu!!  Yep full blown flu.  I thought it was just a cold.  I took Wednesday off because I felt like crap quite frankly, and still not feeling great got dressed and went to work.  One look at me, the Doc pulled me into an exam room, and I was diagnosed with flu.  Was told to go home, with an rx for Tamiflu and antibiotics and lots of liquids.  Temp that morning 103.3! 

I just watched the calender as the days ticked away and nothing was done.  The only thing...thank goodness...was that my shopping was done, and I had my village up before I left for Ottawa.  But I got it done.  Got the main tree up and trimmed.  Then pulled out the stitching tree and got that one all done up.  And then the new small one with the smalls and our family name ornaments on it.  I didn't bring up even a quarter of my Christmas stuff to put out this year.  My energy level is still a little under par, but I did get some nice pieces out, so I'm happy with how the house looks. :)

The trim and the ornies...

 The Main tree....our live Fraser Fir...it's glorious!

 The village...better known as "Barbi-ville"

 The nativity that my hubby surprised me with...gorgeous!

 My Stitching Tree!!!!!

 The stockings were hung...along with my reindeer collection.

 The smalls tree.

 the next two pics are actually close ups of the ornies the I stitched with I was 12 years old.  The drumming teddy and the candycane teddy...the were needlepoint kits that my mom got for me one year...after that...all bets were off.  I still treasure these. (as I treasure all my pieces)  but these ones were the first :)

 The view from my desk

My stitching tree

***Warning Picture Heavy***
The first of my sets of pictures. I had to start with my stitching tree...that's how Mom refers to it and she's pretty much right...this tree in our family room has nothing but stitched ornaments on it. the majority being stitched by me and then gifts from stitching friends as well. I love love love putting this tree up every year. It gets bigger and bigger each year.

Along the fireplace you will see our stockings all hung with care. These are all cross stitched by me as well, accept for Elexandra's and Judy's. Those one's were done by Judy, my sister-in-law. Who, pretty much after these stockings, retired her stitching needles. You'll see mine, My Hubby's, my three neices, Brent(Brother) and Judy's (his wife) all in a row. That was a very productive and busy stitching year for us. We decided that we wanted to have Stitched stockings and we pretty much started the day after Christmas one year, and stitched all year.

I've taken a couple of shots of the room at different angles as well.
You can click on all pictures to see bigger views.

Not much stitching going on...too many other things to do right now. I'll be building the village and doing the tabletops tonight & tomorrow. Standing up the tree in the living room tonight to drape, and wrapping the lights on it tomorrow. letting it drape again and then putting on the ornaments on the big living room tree on Sunday...then it's just a matter of sitting back and admiring all the Christmas gorgeousness!