Christmas Is Coming...

'Tis the season for a doll post. 

Christmas will be here before you know it and my doll family headed out to the Christmas Tree Farm to cut their own tree.

They picked a big one and it wasn't easy getting that tree in the truck.

Everyone pitched in and helped.

Before you knew it they had it secured.

Mr. Jeff gave a generous tip and said, "Merry Christmas!"

Everyone in the Vogue Doll Family (and Muffie) has the Christmas spirit.  It's easy to catch this time of year.

"E" as in EXCUSES for Alphabe-Thursday

This is a busy time of the year, but I'll spare you all the EXCUSES.  Everyone is busy!

I wanted to feature Houston places for this round of Alphabe-Thursday, but I didn't have time this week and probably won't have time next week to ride around and take pictures, so I decided to share a little of our Christmas with you.

We haven't had a normal Christmas in while.  In 2012 my husband died and my son was in the hospital for Christmas that year.  Last year we had just moved into this house.  So, I wanted to get out my Christmas decorations and decorate!  I have a lot of sentimental things.

I don't have a Christmas tree.  I have a Memory Tree filled with things the kids made, ornaments that have special meaning to us, pictures of the kids with Santa, and even some things that I made as a child and my mother saved.

Of course, one of my dolls had to get in on the act.  She's wearing the Christmas Boy hat.  It's been a family joke for a number of years.  Whoever passes out the packages is the Christmas Boy.  You don't even have to be a boy to get the honor.  It's something we picked up on a television show.  I don't even remember the show anymore.

Any tree of mine has to have a doll on the top!  A Madame Alexander doll is the angel.

The tree us full!  It would be difficult to find an empty space to hang anything else.

Another family tradition is the Christmas count down calendar.  I made this when the kids were little.

Back in 1980 we were living in a house with a large picture window.  Macrame was a popular hobby back then and I made this macrame Christmas tree for the window.  However, we moved and I've never had a picture window again.  This tree has been in a large plastic garbage bag for all those years.  I decided it's now vintage and collectible, so I'd find a place to hang it.  The kids told me one of the cats would probably hang from it, but so far nothing has happened.

Of course, I had to put up my vintage silver tree in the den for my Chatty Cathy dolls.

And the mangers.  The large one we bought in a department store in Catania, Sicily.  It's now 40+ years old.  It used to play Silent Night but the kids wore it out.  We even had a cat at one time who used to climb in and sleep.  The smaller one was my mother's.

In the 1970's ceramics was another hobby phase I went through.  We were living in Virginia Beach and they had a great recreation department where you could go and take ceramic lessons.  Some have broken over the years but I still have the tree, choir boys, Santa and a few other pieces not shown in this picture.  The red punch bowl was my mother's and it's filled with vintage ornaments.  The gold tree on the left my mother gave me while we were living in either New Jersey or Virginia, so it's also pretty old.

Did you ever make a stuffed tree?  I did!  That was also many years ago.  I decided to put that out this year too.  Some of my decorations hadn't seen the light of day for a long, long time.

The bells on the door I bought at a craft show in Oklahoma.  They're made out of canning jar lids.  They had some really good craft shows in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  I don't find those really unique items here.

I decorated the mantel, but can't hang stockings there anymore.  The mantel in this house is lower and I'm afraid the cats would play with the stockings.

My sister knitted stockings for each of the kids when they were born.  I hang them on doors now.

I love Norman Rockwell and I have a Norman Rockwell Christmas Village.  In the other house I set the village up on a large table that Jim built, but I don't have room here.  So, I set the village up on the bookshelf.  The bottom shelf is the main street in Stockbridge, MA.  I always joke that before I die I want to go to the Normal Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge!  (My son added something to the village as a joke.  See if you can find it.)

Of course, I have the Grinch sitting around.  I love the Grinch!

My sister-in-law sent us a little live tree.  It fit perfectly on the kitchen counter.  I love it!

This is where we'll have our traditional Italian spaghetti and meatballs on Christmas Day.  Then we'll play Christmas bingo.  We did it last year for the first time and everyone had a good time.  I've got even better prizes this year!

I've been busy.  Please accept that EXCUSE.  It took a while to lug all the Christmas stuff over here from the storage place and then put it all up.  I have no intention of taking it down for a while.  I'm going to sit back and enjoy it.  It's staying up until at least mid January.

The day after Christmas some people here put their live trees down at the curb. I've never had much luck with a live tree here.  They dry out so quickly.

Now head over to Jenny's blog for a list of this week's Alphabe-Thursday participants.  Thank you for visiting and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Deck the halls...

I went over to the storage place and brought back our vintage silver Christmas Tree.  I put the tree together and while I was out at the store Reid decorated it and put the presents around the bottom.

We squeezed it in between the TV and the desk.  This is usually my Chatty Cathy Doll's tree and we put up a large one for the humans.  However, since our Christmas is a few months late we're just going to use this tree for the celebration on Saturday.

Ooops...we discovered a Birthday present in among the Christmas ones.  As presents arrived we stored them in a large box and no one realized a Birthday present for me was in among the Christmas gifts.  So, I'll be opening that a few months late too!

I've had a change of plans for our belated Christmas.  I've gone from cooking a turkey dinner...to cooking a ham...to taking everyone out to eat.

I believe I've mentioned before that I'm old and tired.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

(Better late than never!)

Christmas 2012

The recipient and the donor playing Pandemic on Christmas Day.  Taken with my phone since I didn't have the camera with me.  

We have to wear masks and gloves when we're with Reid.  (Try texting with gloves...it isn't easy.)  When he leaves the room he has to wear them.

The Latest...

Yesterday was not a good day for Reid.  He was miserable all day with the expected side effects.  It was the first day he didn't get out of bed and walk.  They like them to walk around the unit three times a day, but he was just too sick to leave the room.  The stem cell doctor had told him that he'd be sick around a week after entering the hospital and he certainly knew what he was talking about.

This morning didn't seem to start out any better.  In fact, when we arrived he was on oxygen, but they said his vitals were fine.  He was put on oxygen because when he would take a deep breath he would cough and then get sick.  The oxygen and a breathing treatment really helped.  He was also given a platelet transfusion and by late this afternoon he had really perked up.  In fact, he and Keith sat and played a game for a while which was really good because Reid needed to get out of bed and sit up for his lungs.  He also took a short walk around the unit.  The doctor said he needed to walk and sit so his lungs would expand.  It was good to see him finally feeling a little bit better.

Tomorrow they're having a pole parade.  They asked people to decorate their IV poles for Christmas and parade around the unit at 1:00, but Reid has decided to pass on that one.  (That's definitely not his idea of fun.)  We've decided we'll celebrate Christmas after he's discharged and feeling a little better.  Keith and I will go downstairs for the Christmas dinner they have for patients (who are able to attend) and caregivers.  Reid won't be able to go, but he really hasn't been eating much the last few days anyway.  The fatigue is really bad and he sleeps a lot.  He also complains about them waking him up all the time.  If they aren't taking vitals his IV pole is beeping.  Although he understands the necessity of it all...he'd sure love some uninterrupted sleep.

I did decorate Reid's room for Christmas, but forgot to take pictures.  It's mostly decorated in Dollar Tree  merchandise, but staff members that come into the room often comment.  I also added some lights and the little Christmas tree my sister sent.

The staff on Reid's floor won the Christmas tree contest.  I thought it was really cute and original.  It's a regular tree covered with net type material that's all bunched up.  It looks like Santa and must have taken a long time to do.

And every year we look for the gingerbread village.  I believe it's the Houston Racquet Club that donates it to the hospital and it's set up in the lobby.

My photos don't do it justice.  It's really huge and I've only taken pictures of a small portion of it.  It's hard to take pictures because there are usually people standing around looking at it.

I apologize for not answering E-mails or returning phone calls.  I haven't even been taking my Netbook to the hospital because of the difficulty connecting to their Wi-Fi.  With Keith here this week we're staying later at the hospital and there always seems to be so much too do when we get home.  We walk in the door to a chorus of meows from hungry cats and a dog that needs to get right out.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

After Christmas Update...

Things have been a little crazy around here the last few weeks. It seemed to take me forever to get all the Christmas stuff put up which is why I have no intention of taking it down for a while. I normally leave my decorations up until the Epiphany in January, but this year I'm leaving things up even longer.

Although our winters aren't cold here...they are a little gloomy. I like to come out in the morning and light up the tree. It makes winter seem a little less gloomy to me.

Right before Christmas Reid had a PET scan and a doctor's appointment at MD Anderson. His one lymph node lit up slightly on the scan. If it was you or me they'd probably ignore it, but because of his history of Hodgkin's they have to keep an eye on it. The doctor has told us before that even a scratch on his arm could cause that to happen. It's not unusual. If he had to put odds on it he'd say there's an 80% chance it is not Hodgkin's. He'll have a CT scan this month and we'll see what that shows. He went down last week for the clinical trial IV. He likes to joke that cancer doesn't take holidays off.

Jim also had an appointment before Christmas and in spite of the injections he's been receiving his PSA went up. He's been put on an oral medication and will begin receiving a different injection this month. He's been feeling fine, so I suspect the oral medication is helping. Meanwhile, he's looking forward to the Houston Texans playoff game on Saturday! (I'm looking forward to it too!) We'll try and get down to the stadium early and beat the crowd.

On Christmas Day we went down to the Hotel Galvez in Galveston for their Christmas buffet. I meant to bring my camera but forgot! That's OK...it probably would have been a series of blurry pictures anyway. The food was delicious and we ate like pigs. It was nice to see Reid eating well this Christmas since he spent the last two Christmases feeling yucky from chemo.

We came home and opened packages. Troy was "Christmas Boy" again this year. It's a family tradition that one member of the family is chosen (AKA stuck, coerced) to bare this title and hand out the gifts. Of course, he had to wear the official Christmas Boy hat.

Can't you see the joy on his face?


Of course, Zoom was excited and couldn't wait, so she began before the rest of us.



We didn't forget the cats. They received a sock monkey bed which went perfectly with my sock monkey collection that I placed beneath the tree this year. Ashley is actually sleeping in the bed, but it's kind of hard to see him in the picture.



Jim had a Houston Texans Christmas this year. He now has a very large Houston Texans wardrobe including a new hat, shirts, Snuggie, etc. He got just about everything except Houston Texans underwear.


This is the only picture of Reid and Keith that didn't turn out blurry. They were actually happy on Christmas Day, but you'd never know it by this picture.



While we were in the other room Ashley was busy. I came into the kitchen and found a bump under the tablecloth.



I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.

Happy New Year!

GO TEXANS!! (We're all fans around here.)

Alphabe-Thursday...those crazy days of Christmas

I thought I'd jump in here today with an Alphabe-Thursday Christmas break post. We're taking a couple of weeks off from our regularly scheduled alphabet related post and posting a holiday link. To visit other participants head over to Ms. Jenny's blog, Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent."

My holiday decorations are starting to drive me crazy. I spent the better part of two days trying to get the lights to work on the wreath for our front door. You know how it can drive you crazy when one light goes out and then a bunch of others go off with the burnt out one? Well, I decided to buy one of those Light Keeper Pros. It said on the package that you could fix light sets quickly and easily. I bought mine at Target, but I noticed on Amazon that it got a lot of really good reviews. I enlisted Murphy to help with this project.


I took the wreath down and tried the first thing the directions suggest which is to plug an empty light socket into the Light Keeper Pro and pull the trigger up to 30 times. The set is supposed to light up and the burnt out one will remain off and be obvious. I tried a few different sockets and then decided to try the second method which is to take out the bulbs one by one and test them in the bulb tester located on the top of the Light Keeper Pro. I quickly realized I'd have to mark each one with a Sharpie as I tested it or I'd lose track since the string was wrapped around the wreath randomly. So, I spent two hours testing the unlit bulbs. When I got back to where I had begun I realized that now more lights were out. That's when I gave up!

I'm sure the Light Keeper Pro works great for other people, but for me it was a bust. Please blame the operator and not the Light Keeper Pro. I ended up taking the light string off the wreath and buying a new one. Of course, that was no simple task since most of the stores were now out of white lights. I drove from store to store and finally found some at Walgreens. The wreath is now completely lit and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way until after Christmas.

Then this morning I was sitting in the den reading the newspaper when I happened to notice the Christmas tree shaking. I know it shakes a little when the cats walk under the tree, but this time it was shaking way too much. That's when I discovered this...





My first instinct was to grab the camera. My second instinct was to grab the cat. I think Zoom was glad when I grabbed her because she was having a hard time trying to figure out how to get out. She kept trying to go to the end of the branch, but the branch kept bending.

I hope everyone has a good holiday. Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!

To visit more Alphabe-Thursday holiday posts head over to Ms. Jenny's blog.