It's begining to look a lot like Christmas... 'n' other stuff

Finally unpacked some Christmas decorations, and have had a bit of fun, placing them around our new home. The Christmas tree is just too big and there is just no room for it, so I have a cane obelisk from the garden centre, you know the ones that you grow runner beans on... have added some flowery colour lights, and Bob's ya uncle!

The Christmas decorations were the very first thing that I packed to move to Twizel, and they have been here since July!

I think we still need a real tree, and one night next week we shall go tree hunting, and grace our deck with a really big one to festoon with sparkly lights!

don't look too close, one of these angels has lost her halo

This door bell is my favourite Christmas decoration; it really belongs to Eco Girl (aka # 1 eldest daughter). When she was about 9, she had her tonsils out, and we got friendly with her roommate. The following week we invited her and her Mum out for lunch while both the girls were recuperation, and they bought this as a gift for Eco Girl - I really should offer to give it back to her shouldn't I...

and we finally have a letter box, and these arrived this week!! They were addressed to the Heath Centre as we have been using that as our postal address in the short term, but in true country fashion, the postie knew that we now have a new letter box, and delivered them here on Saturday

This is from Bev, in Australia, this was for the Snickerdoodles Festive Honeypot Swap, hosted by Darlene

and this is from Melissa in the USA, for the Four Seasons Holiday Quilt Swap (FSHQS), hosted by Margaret at the Quilting Gallery. Thanks to all you lovely ladies, these are truly delightful, and I shall treasure them indeed.

This is the quilt that I made for Narelle for the FSHQS, and I have just had an e-mail to let me know that they have arrived safely,

Narelle asked for a quilt with a snow theme, so I hope she is happy with this.

My swap partner Betsy - in the Advent Swap hosted by Fiona & Jo, still has not received her parcels yet. As some of you know, the gifts that I had made for Betsy, and for Narelle, and for Chookyblue's SSCS were lost in our move, and I had to redo them all.

I posted Betsy's gifts off in 2 parcels about 7-10 days apart (hard to remember exactly now as it has all been a bit of a hurried blur), about 2 weeks ago now, so she should get them really soon. I posted another parcel to the USA in between these 2, and I have heard that this has arrived so hopefully Betsy will not have too much longer to wait. Betsy has been so incredibly patient, and I am so very grateful to her for this.

I have not yet opened any of the gifts that Betsy sent to me, I thought it might be nicer if I waited 'til I knew that Betsy had hers, and then we could open them together.

...and I have not yet heard if my Stitcher's Angel parcel has been received by my swap partner yet, despite several e-mails to her.

Rowing man has been working away on the garden shed, but has run short of nails/screws that were no in the kit, we have ordered more and they are being couriered over from Timaru

so he's doing a bit of lying down on the job if you ask me!

he is back at work today anyway; (we have his work dinner tonight, yum no cooking!)

check this out - Adas Great Christmas Giveaway ends on 17th December, so pop on over and have a looksee.

....and I just wanted to show you these great little wonders, I have used a variety of them in different sizes and shapes and types for many different things, and have used a different one then this to hold all the Christmas light cords tidy,

but these ones are amazingly great for hanging up quilts! Unbelievably good, and no marks to either wall or quilt if you want to move it around later (and believe me I have done a bit of moving of late!).

I made this quilt a few years ago, for our Twizel bedroom, and it has finally found it's resting place. Rowing Man hijacked it as soon as I finished it, and it has been hanging on the waiting room wall at his previous surgery for the last 2 years or so. I am so pleased to have it where it belongs!

Well, that has been a long post, and I had to do it twice 'cos Firefox crashed whilst I was adding in links etc, and I had to start all over again!!! Hrrmph!

Anyway, I do hope that you are all having a wonderfully festive and happy week, albeit a busy one.