"Merry Christmas"

Wishing You All a Very Merry Christmas

and

A Happy New Year 2011 !

Enjoy the holidays, however you celebrate them, and I'll catch up with you all again next year.

What's this White Stuff?

During the very cold spell of weather we had last week, Mia experienced being out in the snow for the first time.  There wasn't a great deal of actual snow, but the flakes that came down were quite large and she enjoyed leaping up and trying to catch some of them.  I don't think she knew what to make of all that "white stuff" though! 

  

Check out the bushy tail - all fluffed up because of the snowflakes !



A few days ago we decided to put up the Christmas decorations - we set up the tree, tested the fairy lights, decorated it with lots of tinsel and baubles.  We put up garlands and tinsel streamers around the room and Graham festooned more fairy lights around the bay window in our front room.  All the while, Mia was investigating what we were doing - checking out the box of baubles, running off with tinsel, exploring under the tree, sniffing the lights - absolutely no problem, nor had she with the decorations in the hall.

Then we put up some tinsel garlands in our living room - well, what a pallaver that turned out to be!  Mia saw what we were doing and went and hid behind the television for ages, too scared to come out, despite all our coaxings.  After a while she made a dash for the stairs and hid in the bedroom, until I picked her up and carried her back down, wriggling like mad and "shrieking" - I cuddled her and tried settling her on my lap, but she kept peering up to look at the tinsel then immediately buried her head in my arms so that she couldn't see it.  I thought she was finally getting used to it, but then she spotted some on another wall and that was it - up she jumped and fled behind the curtains, before once more going behind the TV.  No matter what we did, none of us could coax her out.  It wasn't until we all came to bed and switched off the lights that she ventured out and came upstairs to spend the night in our bedroom (as per usual).

Next morning, all seemed well - Mia was as perky and playful as ever whilst we were showering and dressing, but refused to come downstairs with us for her breakfast.  Once again, we had to carry her down and once again she wriggled and screamed in fear.  Sooooo ..... that was it ..... the tinsel had to go!  I pulled it all down and Mia was happy again.  We just can't figure why she took so against the tinsel in the living room, but is absolutely fine with it everywhere else in the house - Graham believes it's because she thinks of the living room as her safe place (it's where she spent most time the first few weeks we had her) and was scared by the tinsel being in it. 

What a comic Mia is - never a dull moment these days with her around! 

Brrrr!!!

....... how's everyone doing in this freezing cold weather?  We've been lucky here not to have had any real snow (so far), just a few flakes, but it's definitely feeling Arctic with frozen and slippy pavements.  It was like an ice rink in our garden where water had frozen over the paving slabs.  I hope the rest of you are all keeping warm and safe, if you're surrounded by snow and finding it difficult to get out and about.  Wonder if we'll have another White Christmas this year?

I've now swapped out all the ATCs and Xmas Triptychs for the last swaps of the year and hopefully they'll all be posted out tomorrow.  Here are pics of the four Triptychs I received for the swap ..... aren't they lovely and all with a nostalgic Christmassy feel to them ......

Sheila's

Chris's

Sandra's

Hilda's

As I mentioned in a previous post, I won't be running any swaps during December, but hopefully will come up with some new ones again after the New Year.