So far Christmas at our house has been pretty much equal JOY JOY JOY to Be. Here. For. Christmas! and sad, sad missing my Mom and mourning the changes in our family , with a whole lot of OVERWHELMED by the season thrown in. We're working at finding our feet and enjoying what needs to be enjoyed.
Last weekend we got all dressed up and revived the tradition of seeing The Nutcracker. Noodle kinda remembered it but it was Goose's first time. She was enchanted until the pas de deux when she fell asleep. We had front row seats so we had both the dancers and the orchestra to watch (I was a bit anxious and may have actually purchased tickets the day they went on sale back in, oh maybe October?).

It was a closing weekend performance (University of North Carolina School of the Arts) without any hot-shot guest dancers so it was a bit uneven (though the Cavalier did not, in the end, drop the Sugar Plum Fairy despite a rather iffy hold - and the momentary look of terror on Sugar's face - and I'm guessing that beyond the second row no one even noticed) but it was FUN. And magical. And Christmasy.
Also Christmasy? Baking,

And decorating Christmas Cookies.

With assistance from Zora.

And support (for falling frosting bits) from Maizie.

Our windows are all holidayish.



A Victorian Christmas Village has appeared on top of the Cabinet.

Complete with the Horse whose legs Noodle broke when she was 2.

Yup, still broken.
And we have a tree. A big glorious real smelly Christmas Tree. We had to restrain ourselves from buying the 10 foot one (8 foot only) and we've been savoring it. Eating our meals by its light, sniffing indiscriminately, cuddling up to watch Christmas movies under its branches. I haven't yet gotten a good photo of it in all its glory, but trust me, it is NOT THIS TREE.

Noodle/Goose Household Tree 2010 Yogyakarta Indonesia.
So not that tree.
We put every single ornament we could find on our tree. Every single ornament. Including all the ones I brought home from Indonesia and from my Mom's house and the ones that Noodle made special for this year and the ones in our Christmas box and the ones in my closet and...

So many memories - Muttley's bone, the glass cardinal someone gave me the year we were waiting for Noodle, kitties galore, old glass bulbs from my childhood, so many memories.
Except for this one, which I just found under the tree this morning. Never saw it before in my life. I would suspect that Santa's reindeer left behind some sleigh bells, but, well, you know, as Goose says, "Santa Claus isn't REAL!!" and pretty much never early. The sad truth is most likely that Maizie brought these bells home from a neighbor's holiday display. I'm actually afraid that the holiday display may have been inside a neighbor's house. My dog is very social.

Ho, ho, ho.