Tired of being tired?

Our Christmas Love

Well, this year was a bit different than Christmas past due to the fact that Skylar came down with something we can only guess as some sort of food poisoning.  Back when we went up to Portland to visit with the Macy's Santa Claus, he drank from one of the public, free-flowing, water fountains and 10 minutes later he came down with the worst sickness he has ever had in his 9-years.  Our Christmas eve and morning was spent camped out on the living room couch attempting to hold down even broth or Gatorade.  But needless to say, he is feeling a lot better as of late and I felt it was time share our Christmas celebration on my blog.

The night before Christmas I was watching Skylar temperature pretty close.  The highest it got was up to 104.8!  So we were on guard between making sure he was okay and playing Santa Claus in between bathroom trips.
I felt so bad for him.  In between trying to make him feel better, I had him watch Santa's journey on the NORAD feed.

We watched as he hit Little Rock, Arkansas and then onto Portland, Oregon.  Santa hit our house about 2:00AM this year. It seems Santa is getting later and later each year with his yearly "visits."



We set up for Santa with our annual "buffet" of random goodies.   And lit the tree up in preparation for Chris Kringle.
  

We left him two gourmet cookies from the Potbelly Sandwich Shop, a glass of milk, a mug of peppermint hot chocolate, and bit of the Yodder's Good Health solution.  (Just for laughs)

We set up all of Skylar's gifts in between monitoring his temperature.  Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep, but it was worth it.

Santa came and enjoyed his treats.

He even left his sparkly mouth print on the napkin we left him. :-)

He left Skylar a sweet little note with a can of chicken soup and a cute sugar cookie.  He even had time to pack his stocking full of fun items and treats.

Our living room at Christmas looks so festive in the middle of the night.

Our living room tree is always the festive tree and only gets covered in bird ornaments we have collected throughout the years.  And Santa's gifts were wrapped with such care.

The following morning Skylar made it to the recliner and Jeff set him up comfortable while he opened his gifts.

He felt okay, but throughout opening him he started to get tired.

Before we knew it, he was out.

After clearing off the gifts and stocking treats from his lap and letting him sleep for awhile, he finally got up and checked out his H0 Scale train Santa brought him.  

  
When we headed up to Macy's this year to see Santa I added to my bird collection with two cardinals.  I felt the cardinals were the right ones to add to the collection because the cardinal is seen throughout the winter season and is so bright and red.



I ended up getting all Cardinals this year. They look great on the tree.


Our house was all lit for Christmas night in preparation for Santa Claus.


Even the wreath was hung by the door with care.  Notice the Christmas Pom Poms?  :-)

Our Charlie Brown tree was on the entryway by the door too!


Our Christmas Card tree was overflowing with greetings from friends and family this year.

The black angel tree on my stove.  I have had this little tree for many years and never could find anything to hang on it that looked right.  This year's Pioneer School Christmas Store helped solve that with these angels. I just love it now!



Earlier in the day, when Skylar was feeling up to it, he went and laid the ground with his reindeer dust for Santa's reindeer and the glitter sparkled to get Santa's attention.



We placed the Santa Key under the front door mat too!

The table tree this year was covered in all the ornaments throughout the year and under the tree Skylar and Jeff set up his H0-Scale train to run around the base of it.

Baz camped out under the Christmas tree during the night.  :-)


Eco-Tip:  Put your ceiling fan to good use and take advantage of what it can do to help circulate your air.  In the summer use it to circulate the air conditioned air around your room or home and in the winter reverse the direction and have it push the heated air down into the room.  For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me Go Green.

The Christmas Ladybug

As I was setting up Christmas decorations this year, I had a little visitor on the small lit Christmas trees that sit on our front stoop.  I was straightening the branches and happened upon a small ladybug hunkered down in the branches.  He was so lovely with his red against the green contrast  I just had to snap a few photos.






Seemed so Christmas-y to me.


Eco-Tip:  Always find a way to recycled, metals (aluminum), glass, and plastics whenever you can.  Recycling helps keep virgin materials from being overused to make new products, so do you part and recycle every possible chance you get.  For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me Go Green.