Christmas Cookies and A Bad Tradition

Today I am spending the day baking Christmas cookies. 

I make the same ones every year, the ones my mom used to make for us.

This is a tradition that is expected and I love to make them for my family.

  There is nothing special about these cookies other than we only make them for Christmas.

That is a tradition I love!

However there seems to be another tradition that I was hoping would not happen this year.

BUT IT DID!

You see my oldest son has been sneaking into his gifts every year since he was about 4.

I started trying to hide them where I thought he would not look.

HE FOUND THEM!

I tried to quick wrap some so that I could get ahead of myself.

You see, I have to shop for presents from the kids Grandfather and Bonnie and I also shop for his other Grandmother.  There is a lot to keep track of!  I am only human, I forget where I put things if I hide them TOO good!

HE FOUND THE ONES THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO BE FROM SANTA!

So I would have to REWRAP the Santa gifts and change them with the gifts from my father or their grandmother.

I do NOT want to be the BAD mom who lets her son find out there really is no Santa.

This year I put the gifts, half wrapped again, only because you know I will forget what I got and I will have to unwrap them, and YES that has happened......several times.

This time, I put them behind a locked door.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

There is more than one key.

bam, bam, bam,

pull, pull, pull.

That was the sound of my head hitting the table and me pulling out my hair.

This happened yesterday.

What did I do?

Oh I did contemplate harm,

 so off they went with their father for the day.

Goodbye.

When they came home the children found bags of toys in the kitchen.

I was done being nice.

I took them ALL back.  

I went shopping for ME!

A new sweater,

 an ornament for my stocking,

 a garden angel from my father.

 

Oh, I had a grand time, I was in one of my favorite stores, T.J. MAXX.

Where else can you get all of that and have money left over.

Then I went to Target to return more toys!

More shopping for me!

And so this was repeated

4 TIMES!!!!

I made sure that I shopped until the kids were tucked into bed.

NO sugarplums dancing in their heads!

Today I am not as MAD but we did have a chat this morning.

I had to ask

DO YOU WANT SANTA TO COME?

I think one of the elves is going to have to make a visit tonight, maybe leave a hint of,

THE NAUGHTY LIST!

What do you think, do these three angels belong on the naughty list?

Has this ever happened to you?

Were you a peeker or shaker?

I feel better talking about it, it is a new day and I am off to bake.

Have a wonderful day!

Vintage Friday Christmas Inspirations

Happy Friday!

Vintage Inspiration Friday that is, with Debra at Common Ground.

I wanted to live in an old house.

He wanted new.

We compromised.

I think we both won.

When building our home, we wanted it to look and feel like it had been around for a long time.

Vintage shall we say.

Some of the many trees of Arbor House Lane light up the house on a snowy night.

I think we did a good job.

Would you guess this house is only 12 years old?

Inspiration can come from many different places.

It is a very good day in my home, my children are excited as if it were Christmas day.

Why?

The table set.

Is there a dinner party today?

No, Mr. M. is coming home after being gone all week.

That is a celebration!

I hope you enjoyed my inspiration. 

 Make sure to stop by and visit Debra at Common Ground and become inspired and Cindy from My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday.

Who says you have to stop at just ONE tree!

Have a wonderful weekend and may your love ones be near!

Dinning Room Whites

I'm late with my White Wednesday post, but better late than never.

I had to make a stop at my favorite shop and get a new candle and work on my wish list for Santa!

I am joining Kathleen from Faded Charm for White Wednesday.

I may have all my Christmas trees up, but the house is definitely not finished being decorated. 

You see, I have this problem, and I found out I am not the ONLY one, I can not leave a clean room alone.

I try, so hard, I do, ask  Mr. M., the day after a party when the house is at it's cleanest I have to go and start a project.  I am going to blame my parents and grandparents for passing on the craftiness gene to me.

Anyway, I finally finished most some of the dinning room.

Welcome to my dinning room!

I am just loving the silver at white that I have been using more in this room.

Just because there isn't a fireplace in here, doesn't mean I can't have a mantel!

This great cabinet is spending the winter in the house instead of the shed. 

It may just stay too!

This pine cabinet is one of the first pieces of furniture I bought when we built the house.

I love looking in this room from the kitchen with the tree lit at night.

There is one of the stockings I have been working on.

See, I just can't help myself, always working on one project or another.

Thank you for stopping by to visit my dinning room.

Now I have to work on the kitchen. 

Make sure to visit all the other white loving bloggers for White Wednesday at Faded Charm.

I hope your holiday decorations bring you joy when you see them.



Special Delivery

I ordered a magazine.

This is what came in the mail.

Have you ever had a magazine delivered this way?

This was no simple magazine.

This is Jeanne d' Arc Living

MAGAZINE

That special packaging came from

Urban farmhouse.

If you know me I am a details person and the details were perfect!

Look at that key tied in twine around the package and the card on top.

The key and twine, I kept them, they are hanging from a cupboard in my kitchen.

LOVE IT ALL!

Now if only find time to read it.

I don't want to just flip through the pages like most magazines.

  I want to sit down in a comfy chair, hot coco on the table next to me and enjoy this magazine from cover to cover.  I had better do it soon because.

 Urban farmhouse has the new magazine for preorder.

I can tell you I did peak and the pictures are amazing.

I think this magazine may be have caused some bloggers to par down their Christmas decorations.

  I know that it reaffirmed that I just love white in my home and I went with a white tree in the dinning room this year. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful day, as for me I am off to make some coco, I have some reading to do.

How about you?  Seen any inspiring magazines lately?

Winter Wonderland

Someone shook my snow globe and I am sitting in a

Winter Wonderland!

This is one of my favorite trees.

This tree sits on our back deck just outside the french doors that lead from the kitchen.  I light it in the morning for a few hours and then again at night.  With all of that snow it makes the tree look not so fake.



We are having a small snow storm today, just enough snow to make me want to stay home and decorate but not enough that the kids have to have a snow day.  So I know the kids just can't wait to get home so they can go and play in the snow and then come in to enjoy hot coco and marshmallows.

During the holiday season after homework is done we watch a different Christmas movie, tonight we are watching Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.

How about you? 

What is your favorite Christmas movie?

Mine is White Christmas!

Christmas Tree Winner

THE BIG ONE!

Our 10' living room tree.

(I have no idea how many ornaments that are actually on it, but there really is a tree under there.)

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who stopped by and entered into my giveaway and stopped to see all of my trees.  My favorite part was reading about all of your wonderful Christmas traditions.  

The common tradition most of you had was spending time with family.

As my children would say in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold fashion, "drum roll please!"

There are

 11

Christmas trees in my home.

One in the living room.

One in the dinning room.

One in my office.

One in the kitchen.

One in the master bed room.

One in the future master bed room.

One in my daughter's room

One in my son's room.

One in the hallway for my youngest child.

One in the basement.

and finally

One in the cupola.

Another drum roll please..........

and the winner is

Julie from SALTBOX TREASURES!

I will be visiting you soon to get your address.

I wish I could send everyone a giveaway.  Thank you to everyone who entered, but don't go too far because

Wooohoo that was fun!  I may just have to try another giveaway in the future.

I am sharing ALL of my trees with Cindy from My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday and Tinsel and Company for Deck The Halls Friday.

Make sure to stop by and visit all the other wonderful bloggers too.  I know that's where I am headed, I may get some new Christmas decorating ideas.

Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend. 

I think I need a break, I set a record getting all of those trees done in one week, I must say it normally takes more than that.