It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.....

I woke up with a bear of a headache today!  Got up at 6:45 and took a couple of tylenol and went back to bed.  At 9:15 it was still hanging on.  I gave up and got up, mainly because my back was killing me from laying so long!

 I did a little painting this morning.  This is a 6x6" canvas.  I am making a Christmas decoration out of it.  More later when I finish it.

I cleaned the extra paint that was still wet and put it on the mixed media notebook on the left.

Since we did not go out to dinner last night because we were too full from lunch, we went to Arby's for lunch today.  We both love their Loaded Italian subs!  YUM!

After we got back from lunch, I cleaned up the kitchen (my headache finally left right before lunch), and then I went to the basement and got the Christmas tree and the ornaments and decorations.  I remember why I dread this job every year!  I want a tree that I can take out of the box and plop it on the floor and it is ready to go!  The tree we have is in 3 parts and I double H.A.T.E. spreading out the branches to make the tree look full!

 
And, when I got it together and all of the cords plugged together from the 3 sections, only about half of the lights work this year!  The instructions said to begin the search for loose connections or loose bulbs!  Yeah, RIGHT!!  Where do you begin on that one?!  I'm going to $$Tree for a couple strings of lights!  I will NOT buy a pre-strung tree again, either!  It is a puzzle every year trying to get the right cords matched up!

So, the tree stands ornamentless til I buy more lights!

 
Well, I moved on to the decorations.  This is one of my favorites.  Santa is baking on a pot belly stove.  There is a place in the stove to sit an incense cone.  It is hard to tell here, but the smoke from the incense cone comes out the smoke stack on the stove.  Too cute!

I was totally surprised to open the ornament box (like a huge hat box) and to find it filled with mold!  That has never happened before.  The only thing I can figure is that during some of the very hard rains we had this year, water got on it.  Almost everything in the box was ruined and had to be thrown away.  That made me sad!  I had ornaments from the grandkids, ornaments from some of our travels, ornaments Jessica made for me.......

Jessica made one for every member of the family, including Brad, back in the early 2000's when we were still in Buffalo, WV.  Can you see the black on it?  It doesn't show up as much in the photo.

You can really see it on this ornament.

You can see the mold along the side of the box.

This is mold all on the lid.

This is an handmade ornament given to us from Terri Iles from 1987 when we were at Addyston Baptist Church.

Irreplaceable.  :(

So, out of this many ornaments........

 

I saved this many.  There were some metal ones that were OK, but I don't want any longer.  I set those aside in a box with some other decorations that I no longer want for the girls to go through when they are here for Christmas.

Every ornament hanger was rusted beyond use.  The few you see here are stuck to the box.  And you can see torn places in the paper that covered the box where ornaments were stuck to it.

 Oh well, that's the way it goes.  Nothing that is a matter of death or life.  I can't take any of it with me.  It's only temporal "stuff" and nothing of eternal value.

Which brings me to the Christmas program the elementary kids performed tonight at the Rockwell Christian School where Hannah, Ryan and Abby attend and Elisabeth is an aide.  They did a wonderful job in "The Best Christmas Present Ever!"  It has eternal value because it talked about being saved, trusting the best Christmas present the world has been given.  Jesus Christ.  His sole purpose for being born was to die for our sins so that we could be with Him for eternity in heaven!  He is the only Way we can get to heaven!  You can't be good enough, you can't go to church enough, you can't give enough money to the church, it isn't in being baptized.......it is only in realizing you are a sinner before a Holy and Righteous God and realizing that you cannot get to heaven on your own.  You need a perfect Savior to step in and take your place on the cross.  In exchange, He gives you His righteousness and He took your sins in stead.  Oh, the mercy, love and grace He bestowed!  Why not turn from your sins and ask God to forgive you and trust Jesus as your Savior?  Do it today!  Before it is too late!

Nite!