Christmas Decorations

After Bruce got the Christmas lights up on the front of the house, I was thinking of ways to jazz up the empty flower boxes. A quick shopping trip to Big Lots and 10 minutes of arranging and the boxes don't look so empty any more.

More Christmas Fun @ CVS

Buy three American Greetings cards at CVS and you earn the privileged to buy these singing Christmas Bears for $4.99 each (see video below). Not sure what the big deal is... they don't even move.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Fun at CVS...

Fun in the Christmas Aisle at Lowe's

We had to go to Lowe's this weekend to pick up a circuit breaker. Not much fun to be had in the electrical aisle so we headed over to Christmasland to check out the holiday kitsch. We were not disappointed.



Guitar Hero Christmas Edition

Let the Christmas Season Begin

I stopped by CVS this week for Halloween candy and saw they already have their Christmas lights out on display. They were squeezed between the fake pumpkins and the turkey basters.

One More Week of Christmas Lights

Living in the country was a lot easier than living in a subdivision.

In the country you don't have to rake your leaves. You simply let the wind carry them out into the fields.

In the country it doesn't matter how loud your dog barks.

In the country you can leave your Christmas lights up until the snow melts in the spring.

Here in suburbia, if you don't take your lights down by January 2, you become known as the hillbillies of the neighborhood.

Elkhart Farmers Market

Beautiful Christmas lights at the Elkhart Farmers Market. This incredible display caught my eye as I got off the bypass on our drive home from Indy tonight.

Family Christmas in Indy

This was our first Christmas spent in Indy at sister Laura's new home. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and visiting with family.

Spike's Road Trip

Cousin Dozer invited Spike to come down to Indianapolis for Christmas dinner with the whole family.

Spike was pretty excited because his normal road trips end at either the vet or the kennel.

We took a pit stop near Peru at the Grissom Air Museum where Spike and Bruce were able to check out this 1950s T-2C Buckeye Navy plane.



Spike also liked the YS-11.

Our Traditional Christmas Eve Dinner

This year, as we've done for the past several years, Bruce and I took Grandma to her favorite Chinese restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner.

After dinner, we drove through the Winding Brook subdivision to enjoy their display of Christmas lights.

Most homes in the neighborhood are decorated with bright and colorful light displays and blow-ups of Santa and Frosty.

This one stood out from the rest -- the actual sculpture in their yard is a bit out of focus in this photo, but check out the shadow it cast on their house.


We ended the evening with the candlelight Christmas service at the Osceola United Methodist church.

Perfect Christmas Gift

During our summer summit at Patoka Lake, Bruce spent about $30 in quarters winning nearly all of the stuffed animals in the Claw grab it machine.

For Christmas this year, friends David & Kelly from Evansville send him his own personal Claw grab it machine.


How perfect is that???


Merry Christmas D&K.

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with Grandma, Gretchen, Jim and Kelly.

This is a rare moment when we were able to tear ourselves away from the food table and ham it up for the camera.

Throwing Up Christmas

Every town has one... a house that is way overdecorated with the most hideous Christmas decorations.

I think it was my mother who coined the term "throwing up Christmas" as in, "Wow, looks like someone threw up Christmas on their front yard."

This beautiful display of Christmas vomit is on Mishawaka Road in Elkhart.

Christmas Baking

This year's Christmas baking included:

• 30 dozen monster cookies
• peanut butter fudge
• chocolate fudge
• 60 pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate
• haystacks (nuts/Chinese noodles/white chocolate)
• 100 peanut butter-chocolate cups
• 30 dozen white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies
• Chex mix
• three pans of morsels from heaven

Chicago in Style

Most of the South Bend office staff traveled to the company Christmas party in Chicago in a limo. Not sure, but I think there were 11 people squeezed into the stretch limo for the two-hour trip.

Bruce and I drove into Chicago ourselves because we planned to go to the Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry on Sunday.

But, our hotel was not within walking distance to the restaurant so after the limo driver dropped off everyone at the party, he came to our hotel to pick us up for a private limo ride. Cool! We felt like rock stars.

SantaCon Chicago

While we were waiting for the limo to pick us up from our hotel in Chicago for the company Christmas party, we were nearly stampeded by a pack of Santas.

Turns out it was the start of SantaCon Chicago. It's an annual pub crawl that requires all participants to dress in full Santa suits.

Christmas Crunch

I love the Cap'n and was tempted to purchase his Christmas Crunch cereal. After calculating about how long it might take the roof of my mouth to heal after enjoying a bowl of his festive barbed wire, I decided to pass.

Our Christmas Card Photo

Runner up for this year's Christmas Card