Deck The Halls

I miss being at my house right now and I think about my lovely Christmas tree glowing in the window but at least I get to see alot of familiar decorations at Andrea's house.  She has a railing that is perfect for "decking" with decorations!  I love what she did this year!  Those ornaments were made by my Grandma Dorothy.  The needlework is a traditional Norwegian method that originates in the Hardanger region of the country.  It would be very romantic if she had learned it from her ancestors as an art that was passed down through the generations but she actually learned it from a minister's wife in the 80's, I believe.  Either way, she is very good at it and her work is perfectly done.  It is not possible to find a mistake in anything she makes.  She gives each of her grandchildren a Christmas ornament featuring Hardanger needlework every year at Thanksgiving and we each have between 10 and 15 ornaments.  Andrea and I have small trees so all of them don't fit on them (well, they would if we didn't have any other ornaments but we do because we have been given ornaments since we were children!).  I love how Andrea hung some of them on the garland. 

 Very festive and out of reach of their snoopy dog! 

Oooh yikes!  Well...they are almost out of reach!  I have never seen him do this before tonight when I took this picture! 

Speaking of misbehaving animals, Justin sent me this picture a few minutes ago.  It is the wine rack/cocktail bar in our kitchen.  It seems that sometime during the day Allan decided to check it out and broke one of my martini glasses

What a little brat!  He's lucky that martini glasses are not a heavily used item in our house.  I have so many impractical peices of glassware!  I wish I had a picture of the collection of martini/wine/champagne/bourbon glasses, flutes, decanters and snifters that Justin and I have accumulated through years of proms (my junior class picked some ridiculous martini glass with a twirly stem to drink our punch from at prom.  A few weeks later my mom broke it when she was cleaning.  Fortunately there were a few extras so she quickly got a hold of our class advisor to reserve one before she broke the news to me!  I still have the replacement and haven't had a drink from it ever!) college fraternity and sorority formals and our wedding.  Allan, I guess you are forgiven.  Who could stay mad at that cute little kitten?!