Happy Christmas to all, especially all the fine 'beans and Cats in Lee County Clowder:)

Yes, Paul AND Scotland celebrate Christmas, some years more than others. For Paul, this is the most Christmas he's had in years. Decades, really. I'm bringing him along slowly-next year it is my goal to have stockings hung. With our names on them. And things in them Christmas morning.

Last year we had a string of electric fairy lights and one (seriously) bauble on the lovely huge Sitka Spruce we hauled home from the Focus D-I-Y; this year we have several little handmade decorations on the very lovely little (20" if that) live dwarf Alberta Spruce we intend to pot up slightly after 12th Night (AKA The Feast of the Epiphany, 6 Jan) and keep for next year:



We also have designed window decorations (see below), a door spray (that gale force winds have blown the live greenery from:



and the entry hall is bedecked:



(Next year, bathroom and kitchen will be as well)

It's half ten here (10:30 GMT) and we've been up since six. The children next door have been also, I feel for the mum, I really do! Shrieks of joy caroled out into the general back garden area as they found new bicycles under the tree:) I was standing out there having an early morning smoke so I got to enjoy the Christmas cacophony-it brought back memories.

Paul and I outdid each other in the gifts department by buying a careful mix of new and charity shop items. I got him a nearly new pair of Levis at the British Red Cross yesterday, that was a bonus! LOL, I went in there because it was on my way to the grocery and I was so stunned at the luck of finding a pair of Levis in his size in that condition that I almost forgot to pop round to the grocery.

Gifts wise, it's been a rather lovely Christmas-he gave me a nice sum of money when he realised on the 23rd that he couldn't figure out what to give me, and I promptly turned that money into a top rated electric hand mixer, a string mop and bucket with built in twister. My Christmas cup runneth over:)

We are having a traditional Christmas lunch, which means I need to get into the kitchen and get the beef joint into the oven! I'm cheating this year with frozen Yorkshire puddings that I'll drizzle some beef drippings onto when they come out of the oven, and yes, we are also cheating by having a store bought Christmas pudding. At least the whisky drizzle on that is authentic, lol, Aberlour, distilled up near his home county of Moray.

We watched the Alastair Sim Scrooge last night, that was lovely too:)

We went for a walk to see who had Christmas lights up, that wasn't as lovely since very few people have them up this year. I'm thinking about organising a caroling choir so that maybe people around here will get a bit more Christmas spirit.

I can understand the lack of interest but Christmas time is not really mandated to cost a lot of money-the general excuse this year for the lack of Spirit in this town! By the evening of 15th I ran a battery operated tea light in each of the two front windows (to light the Christ Child's way), and wired together some fake holly, a twig star wand and some greens from our garden to make a door spray. The next day the rest of the people on our street had something up too, nothing fancy but at least something on the doors and front windows. And then we got a Christmas card through the door from one of the neighbours thanking us for putting up the decorations:)

So I'm thinking a caroling choir made up of the neighbours might go over well. It certainly might get us a bit more Christmassy-I have been greeting people all this past week with a hearty Happy Christmas and the shock on their faces to hear the greeting is sad to see, frankly. Perhaps if they are busy practising for Christmas Caroling all year it will prompt them to plan ahead for other Christmassy things as well. I've got my year planned chock full of gathering gifts, making stockings and decorations-I'll natter on during choir practices and maybe, just maybe...

So here I am, Christmas Mid-Morning 2011, with a word,doc open because I am planning Christmas 2012. I made all my goals last years (except the quitting smoking thing, blast it all, but hope floats for New Years Day)-we had plenty of homemade Christmas Tree ornaments, the entry hall had a lovely bit of holiday bedecking (found 50 metres of red Christmas bead garland in a charity shop. I combined that with some artfully scattered larch pine cones and some vintage looking glittered gift tags on the hall mantle), the front door had something like a wreath, and the windows had a designed decoration in the Christ Child candles (which come down today to be replaced with a strand each of multi coloured fairly lights until 12th Night).

I had Christmas gifts for my husband, although the stinker sussed the big one-a framed print of a Tuscany farmhouse he's been eyeing up in a charity shop for months. I was going to pick it up Christmas Eve so the woman took it off the display and had it behind the counter when my husband decided it would be a swell idea to go visit the print he wouldn't buy for himself, and saw it gone, then saw it behind the counter (with my name on it). Sigh. Well, he got his Big Gift early (the afternoon of the 23rd) and lucky me, I didn't have to carry it home myself. Sigh.

I Believe.

I believe in Father Christmas, and the Spirit of Christmas, and to keep it in my heart all the year. It's time to spread that to my fellows on the other streets of my newly adopted hometown.