More Christmas tree photos.........

Last night when I had put the final touches on my tree and did the final clean-up, I took photos with my tablet and with my camera. As you know from yesterday's post, the photos taken with my tablet are not true to color. However, they look really nice. This photo is true to color but the lights don't show up as much on the tree.......but they show up in the reflection of the window! I couldn't post this photo last night because my computer died but this morning Steve took a look at things and discovered it wasn't a problem with my computer. For some reason, my power surge protector, shut down. He's not sure why but all is well now and I'm just glad it wasn't anything more serious!

In this next photo, I took a close-up of this section of the tree for good reason......See that cross-stitch ornament in the center? It was made by my husband's Aunt Lillian about 30 years ago. She was in her 70's then. This week, we got her Christmas card. Yes, Lillian is still sending cards and little notes at the "young-at-heart" age of 101! Lillian is the younger sister of my husband's dad/my father-in-law, Edmond Andersen. He was born in Hals, Denmark in 1909 and came to the United States with his parents and younger brother Karl. Another favorite ornament among those in this photo are the blue ornament we bought on a trip to Denmark and the three little painted rocks next to the gingerbread fellow. We were at a market area where there were stalls of crafts and foods. The little rocks "caught my eye", in part because when my kids were young, we had a lot of fun painting rocks. I bought three of them so there could be a Papa Rock, Mama Rock and Baby Rock. :-) The little German dolls came from the Black Forest area of Germany. I could tell you where every ornament on my tree came from or who made it. In the year 2000, I documented all of them and gave each ornament a number on a little tag. They tell a story of the years of our family! I need to add the ornaments I've bought since then. There were over 400 in 2000 and I can't help myself......I've added at least a half a dozen every year since then. I could write a book, and maybe I will.

So with the tree decorated, and Steve feeling better (the cold and cough are almost gone) and Collette doing better, it was time for some shopping. I had a list and went to meet son, Devlin, for a little Christmas shopping. We got lucky. We found just the right gifts for everyone on the list! Couldn't believe it! Plus we had a great lunch and nice visit. Then I brought everything home and did the gift wrapping!
This last photo is a little strange...........in order to leave the house today, I decided I had to set up a barrier to keep Kaiser the Wonder Beagle away from the tree. He likes to eat the tissue paper out of the gift bags. I have bell ornaments around the bottom of the tree that I can hear when I'm home but when I'm gone and Steve is here with him, Kaiser kinda gets in trouble. Ask me if he ate a travel size bar of Dove soap this past week. Yep, he did. And so while I was away shopping, I was taking no chances that Kaiser would eat tissue paper or worse yet, an ornament! Granted, I can't leave this up all the time, but I am thinking that I will move both footstools to the center of the room to keep him out of trouble. That is, I will try to keep him out of trouble. ;-)

Tomorrow, I'm going to decorate the railing along the stairs. I got a great idea that is different from what I've done the last few years. Pictures will come when I'm done. :-)
Have a great Monday, an awesome start to the week!
Sandi