Turkey Weekend Triumphs!

We have been extraordinarily productive this four day weekend! Truthfully, this is not out of the ordinary. We have a rule in the Rocco household - the tree and the Christmas decorating has to be complete prior to MeLissa's birthday (that would be December 1 for those of you not *in the know*). To accomplish such a task, it pretty much requires the sacrifice of most of the Thanksgiving weekend - we don't mess around when it comes to Christmas, friends...and besides, we have a party in a week! The house has to be decked out for such a joyous occasion! We are happy to report, thought, that no elves were seriously harmed during the decorating process despite a flurry of pine boughs, ornaments and candles.

The first thing on any list when preparing for Santa is, of course, to hang those stockings with care. This year, we are using our knitted stockings which we received as a wedding present from MeLissa's friend Marlys last year. We really think they're special since she made them just for us! And, of course, we've hung a couple for Pixie and Banshee, too. We found a lovely garland with pinecones and faux apples to grace our mantle and added some white Christmas lights to add that extra touch of class as it twinkles through the silver and gold stocking holders and the various crystal pieces that we've used as accents. The mirror in the background really brings everything to life. Finally, we cleaned up the fireplace and put our candleabra (another cool wedding present) in there to make things bright and cheery without making it too hot!

Once the stockings were hung, our focus shifted to the Christmas tree. Decorating the tree is MeLissa's favorite activity every Christmas (though she could do without the shaping ritual that goes on before the decorating!). She has a lot of ornaments and so it becomes, at some point, a challenge to find an empty branch on our small tree, but we always manage somehow. Many of the ornaments are those which MeLissa's parents gave her as gifts while she grew up. It was MeLissa's mom's goal to have a boxful of ornaments to give each of her children when they grew up and moved away so that they could enjoy a fully decorated tree and enjoy some family memories at the same time! In addition to the many heirloom ornaments, MeLissa has quite a collection of Snoopy ornaments (which shouldn't surprise any of her friends and family members given her obsession over the world's greatest beagle!) and a nice sprinkling of S'mores ornaments. She's also interested in developing a collection of ice cube ornaments which she began last year with our "First Christmas" ornament - this lovely bride and groom!

Tomorrow, we'll be busy again - trying to finish up the last decorating touches in the entry way and we're also going to try to decorate a gingerbread house which we'd like to have available for our party guests to nibble on! Once we've finished decorating, we'll jump into making our Christmas gifts for the year. We can't give you any hints about those (well, maybe we could, but then we'd have to lock you in a windowless room until Christmas!), but we promise they'll be useful and utterly fabulous!