Signs of the Times...

The other day, I did some Christmas shopping in Lakeland at one of my favorite shops there. I found this porcelain sign for a good friend of ours who is the "Father Extraordinaire" to a clan of both family and friends. I'm hoping that no one will see this and let the cat out of the bag, but I thought it was a pretty cute sign for a Santa like Bill (oops!)...shhhhhh, please don't tell! ;-)



Then I found these little porcelain hearts, complete with their own guardian angels, that you can hang on a tree or the wall. I thought they would be fun for cat people, dog people, and funny people (my mother in law)! Hope the recipients think so, too!



The next couple of days are going to be hectic high gear for me. We've got about 45 for dinner at our house on Friday. Methinks we are going to be stacked up like cord wood, but the weather has decided to be nice so we can have some tables on the porch. Yea! I'm hustling around and changing my mind about centerpieces. On the round four-seater tables, the centerpieces will have to be small, so I thought about either using a silver julep cup with red flowers or maybe a Christmas music box. Found this little musical tree as a gift, but I might just have to hijack him for the night. Do you think the recipient would care if she got a slightly "used" Christmas tree??? If so, then maybe I'll just have to keep this one for myself! ;-)



The good news is, I don't have to cook since we're hosting the group. Everyone is bringing a dish, and it should be lots of fun to see what people bring! Which leads me to my next sign...



It's not that I'm a bad cook (I can cook up a storm when the need arises), but it's just that everyone else in the family, with the exception of my middle sister and me, are terrific cooks! The first Christmas after my mother died, we decided to spend Christmas with said middle sister and her family because we always used to congregate at my mother's. So this was her first year to do the whole family thing (plus we invited friends to join us), and she did the cooking. Her husband was actually the cook in the family and had a brand new rotisserie microwave thing that he thought was the bee's knees. So he told us how to set it and that we could be gone for several hours before it would be done. Well, before the allotted time was up, I told my sister that I smelled something burning. She checked on the turkey and reported it looked fine to her and had a number of hours left. That, of course, meant we had time to go shopping and lunching in Downtown Charleston. Well, when we got back, we knew we were in trouble from the look on her husband's face. The turkey, it seems, had gotten a bit overcooked (by HIS directions, mind you), and it looked just like a shrunken head, had the consistency of granite, and tasted like shoe leather! ;-) S&S Cafeteria came to our rescue, and I will always be indebted to them for the delicious sliced turkey they had for us... the LAST pan in town! Now, you tell me God doesn't perform miracles on Christmas Eve! :-)

With that note, I give thanks for the "elves" that are helping tomorrow. If they only knew, I'm sure they would be thankful, too, that I won't be cooking a turkey! ;-)


Happily,


Mrs. Magpie (Sheila)