It's Coming or Advent

Advent does mean "it's coming" in a sense - & I am sure that we all are scrambling about! 

I am knitting like mad, because - having not done my usual summer/fall Xmas shopping, I have decided to give everyone hand-knitted wool fingerless gloves.  I found a VERY EZ pattern free on the net & I dug up my yarn stash & needles & so on from storage.  It is messing up the living room - but I cannot really help it. I've already made half a dozen pairs, and it's 2 more weeks til Xmasin which to knit! (Hubby has NO IDEA, as usual about these things - a ball of WOOL costs $6-8 retail & I use about a ball per pair of gloves - so, the ones I have made already would cost almost $50 in retail yarn!)  Also made hubby a pair of wool slippers - my first.  None of these productions is perfect, frankly - but for that, get a machine, I say!

Decorated the apartment - & just as well, as we seem to be spending Xmas here - & going off between Xmas & New Years - trying to fit everyone in! Hubby went & got some pine boughs, so I could make my traditional holiday arrangements in vases around the apartment. Since I have never had room for more than desk top trees (I have several which I put up yearly) - I like having vases full of pine boughs, to get the piney Xmas tree experience.  And they ARE FREE at your local Xmas Tree stand - as they trim them, & they were just going to throw them AWAY! (Or you can get them for very little - hubby tipped the guy at the tree stand a few bucks - ) Then I decorate the boughs - you can even hang ornaments on them! 

I have picked up a few Xmas things on my thrift shop visits (One I know has good deals in decorative items, whereas everything else is nice, but not cheap...) But no more than $20 worth! And for an Xmas outlay that's not bad, especially when a box of VERY nice XMAS cards is included! 

But then I have never spent much in the Xmas rush - my idea of a splurge is buying a few $5 bargain Barnes & Noble books for hubby! (I always go to a certain Barnes & Noble, as they always have a better selection of bargain books...)

I do feel cozy - the wreath I snagged at a drug store sale a few years ago is on the door - & there are even little lights around what hubby calls my Xmas "altars"!  Because the trees are so small, I buy small ornaments to scale which I enjoy looking for.  I suppose it's back to my old dollhouse days, when I did the same! But Xmas brings back the child in all of us, no?

Hubby & I are playing Santa & Mrs. Claus for the 7th or so year in a row up at Channel Islands Harbor.  Hubby is a GREAT Santa Claus & I am Mrs. Claus & am generally a helpmate...(& they even pay us something!) The children are always so cute & we do enjoy it!

How are you guys holding up?  Baking cookies? Having parties?  Do tell!

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Santa is Coming

Hubby in part of his Santa suit!