'Tis the Season

I love the view from my front door (left). Now that the holiday wreath is in place, it fits into the redness of the Japanese maple trees. We have five such beauties growing in the yard and they frame every window view from the front of the house.

The trellis (right) outlines our yard (before the steep fall off into the ravine), and is covered with vines. Opposite the maple trees, each side of the entry walk has vegetation lining the path. This time of the year the color is vivid and stupendous!
The holiday season is moving up fast. Each day I try to accomplish something more towards the ultimate display for this year. So far I have accomplished a new table cloth, made from a fabulous piece of printed cloth. This fabric a gift from my sister during her improvisation-auction buying days. The border of double-fold bias with mitred corners was not easy and took longer than I had scheduled. But look at the results! The next step will be to find the 'apple cone' in the store room. Purchased years ago in Williamsburg, Virginia, the spiked cone will be covered with red and green apples and fresh holly and placed on a round mirror at the center of the table. Then I will feel like we are ready to celebrate Christmas.
As for gifts, without children to buy for our gifts come all year long. For instance Dear Hubby just got a brand new leaf blower. Just kidding.

My gift is a Bose speaker for the iPod that we can take on the cruise to manage our own playlists of dance music. In fact, I can now take my iPod and dance music anywhere and organize a ballroom class. Something that was problematic before as not having a good sound system is definitely limiting for dancing. DH just received new mouthpieces (2) for his saxophone. I never new that playing improvisational jazz required a different mouthpiece.

Tomorrow, December 5th is the OLLI/New Horizons Band Holiday Concert at the Durham Academy Middle School. This is the BIG one. DH and the band has been practicing for months, adding new music and perfecting others so the concert will be the best ever. This is the sixth Holiday Concert since the band was formed with OLLI's sponsorship. The music, the players, the whole culture of music has changed OLLI in the best possible way.

We watch the rest of the country white with snow and freezing temperatures and thank our lucky stars that we moved south when we did. We may not have a white Christmas, but the holidays will be RED and joyous and bountiful. May yours be so too.
bb