Tree Decorating, Parties and Cards

How is everyone's Christmas shopping going? I think I am pretty much all set. My kids may be older now but they still love their toys, including my husband! My favorite part of the holidays is receiving cards from old friends. We are able to stay in touch with people from our old stomping ground in Connecticut too. I love seeing the photos of everyone's kids. They grow up so fast especially when you only see them once year. It's fascinating to see how invariably one kid looks like one parent and the other, looks like the other parent. I especially enjoy the newsletters that accompany many of them, reviewing the news of the year.

I received a card yesterday that I have to share.


It was very amusing, and I can't, for the life of me figure out how they got the chickens to hold still with hats on their heads! Now these friends bought a beautiful farm in Pittsfield a few years ago and slowly built up their herd to include a lovely paint pony (I LOVE paints), some Highland cattle, some exotic chickens and a few angora rabbits. What a clever idea for a card.

Meanwhile I dug up our tree decorating photos. I have to say that even though our tree lights are eco-friendly LED's I don't like them. The outside LED's are much nicer. There is an overall impression of BLUE lights on our tree.

I've also included two of my favorite ornaments:


And he lights from outside, not a great shot but you get an impression anyway. I still need to work on learning my camera.

And finally my son Mike with his girlfriend at her house on the way to the school dance: