Monday Morning

Happy Monday to you all. I hope you had a wonderful time with your families over Christmas. We loved ours and our son and daughter-in-law joined us for dinner, and my in-laws, Celia and Gully too. They have been with us over the last several days. Couldn't have been more of a perfect celebration.

Celia and Gully will be leaving tomorrow. They have had a lot of snow down south and wanted to give the roads a chance to get cleared before they made the journey. It isn't so bad up here as we hardly had any at all, a few flurries and the ground isn't even totally covered. But from what we have heard from relatives, they had blizzard conditions yesterday.

I thought I would share a few of my decorations and tree ornaments, before putting them all away for another year. I bought a few things, like the snowman in the above photo. There is another on the other side of the mantle.

The angel I treated myself to a few years ago. The photos are permanent fixtures on our mantle. On the left is one taken of the three of us when we lived in Monterey, California back in 1983. On the right is my Mum and the baby she is holding is me at my Christening way back in late 1950 or early 1951. I think I may have shared these photos before.

This is my all-time favorite Santa Claus. It was my Christmas gift from Gregg's sister a few years back. He always makes me want to go find that cabin in the woods of the northwest. I sometimes yearn for the wilderness but Gregg thinks I wouldn't be able to do without my computer. Satellite I answer? Yes I would miss my family and friends but maybe they could row up the river and visit us occasionally, and yes I am jesting, sort of. We do have a trip planned when Gregg retires. He's looking forward to a great adventure with no time tables.

Below is my little angel teddy-bear tree topper, along with a few of the ornaments.

A treat this year from Hallmark. There are quite a few of them. I have collected a lot over the last 30 years. Many of my ornaments have a bird theme but I collect everything that takes my eye, and I also have very special gifts that were given to me, absolutely priceless in sentimental value.

The RCMP came into the tree family when Gregg and I visited Canada a few years ago.

Here are a few of my Santa's.

Whenever we go anywhere I always try to pick up an ornament. Lots of animals but from our last vacation in San Diego I added the Hotel Del Coronado to my collection. You can just about see it in the third photo at the top on the left.

Back in the day I painted wooden ornaments and this is one I made for our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

This is one I painted for my Mum and Dad as a small gift from our son to his grandparents.

Have I ever told you how much I love teddy-bears? I think so but if you haven't read that before, I love teddy-bears.

I bought this little lady a couple of weeks' ago.

Some people put a train that runs around their Christmas Tree, but every year I put teddies around ours. Gregg doesn't mind, he's always been a good sport.

The one in the center is my pride and joy. "Teddy" is over 59 years' old. Mum and Dad gave him to me when I was a year old. He has received much love as you can see. The Bobby came to live with us because my Dad was a 30 year career police officer. The teddy on the right my sister gave me.

Last but not least and before we got busy, I spent a quiet evening with Mark Harmon and all his lovable side-kicks on NCIS, one of my favorite TV shows.

Thank you all for visiting me over the last few days. I hope to catch up with you all in the next week.

I will also be sharing our Christmas Day in my next post.