Christmas and Holiday Decor

Green and White Tree

Christmas is coming, right? Yeah I know, being the 30th of October I know it's not really even Hallowee'n yet, but people start early when getting ready for Christmas, whether it's early blog posts they need a quick image for, or whether it's images for use on their home made gift tags, people start preparing way ahead of Christmas.

These images can be used for all of those Christmas related things ... gift tags, your own greeting cards, blog posts, table-seating cards and even used in papier mache wrapped christmas balls to hang on your tree. Whatever you can create from paper or card stock, and I suppose if you really wanted you could print one up on iron-on transfer paper and make yourself an ugly Christmas sweater.

Most of the images of objects are items either I, or one of the family have (or still) owned over the years. My favourite things are my village pieces (right now about 60 or so), but I also love Hallmark's singing snowmen items. Then of course, there are the elves :)   The Christmas tree is one I don't own any longer. The older I get, the less I want to deal with a huge tree and all the ornaments. After our kids grew up, I was the one who had to decorate the tree, usually alone. With kids, it's a fun job but alone ... not so much. While it looks pretty, it's also one of the most time-consuming jobs for me, and I'm sort of done with it.

Thanksgiving and Halloween

Are you ready? I'm not. We're never ready for holidays any more. I used to be a lot more organized when it came to holiday times, but the older I get, the less important it is to do all the decorating and gearing up.

We used to "do" Halloween to "the nines" when my children and grandchildren were small, but not so much anymore. We get all the goodies to hand out, but there's very little in the way of decorating. A jack-lantern here and there but that's about the extent of it.

The same for Thanksgiving. Sometimes I'll have a bunch of small fall gourds in a big wooden bowl, and there's usually a small outdoor wreath, and uncut pumpkins outside on the porch, and in the front entryway of the house two fall floral arrangements. That's pretty much it.

Since our kids married and started their own families (families who are now grown up - the grandbabies are all between 18 and 20!) the only holiday I really take time to decorate for is Christmas. For most of the other holidays our small family is somewhat split up and it's rare for all of them to be here for Thanksgiving.

That happens to be the big racing weekend in our area (usually in Peterborough - "Fall Colours") to end the official race season and sometimes one or both of our kids families are at the races, leaving us to do our own thing.

It's February - And Time for Sweethearts

Heart Ribbons

Sapphire Ring & Teddy

Our last post promised some free stock photos for the next holiday - for me that's the one coming up on February 14th. How many of you celebrate this day day for sweeties? Oddly enough, this is one of the holidays we really haven't spent a lot of time celebrating. I guess it could be because my husband hasn't ever really needed a reason for giving me gifts - and odd times of the year he'll bring me things; nice things in small packages, or flowers...just because. He's always been that way, so celebrating the "day" hasn't really been a big thing for us.

Sterling Silver Watch

It used to miff me a little when I was young and we were first married, but I quickly realized that he didn't need a special day to say he loved me with some special little gift. But, in honour of the upcoming red-heart day for saying "I Love You" - for those who do celebrate it, or blog it all, here's a few special gifts for the lady on your list.

Garnets and Gold

And for those who haven't really read much of this blog - yes, you can re-use these photos in your blog, article,  or on your website.  A link back would be nice if you can manage it, but if not you can still use these freely.