Kennebunport Christmas Prelude

My sweet friend and I met at her beach house in Maine. 

Sat morning bright and early we headed to Cape Porpoise.

We shopped craft fairs and a fabulous church sale.( More on that later)

For those of you who follow Mavis Butterfield we went by her house as we came into town. If you follow her blog she wrote all about how she was decorating her house. 

After all the shopping and sightseeing we went to lunch.

This place was A M A Z I N G!!! Batson River restaurant on Mile road in Wells Me, They also have one in Kennebunkport. 

All the tv's had the yule log on it and lots of Christmas music. If you come out of there with no christmas spirit there is no hope for you.

We had festive drinks I think mine was white Christmas and hers was Naughty and Nice, both tasty.

There were several trees and also the island of misfit toys. Every surface was decorated. 

The two Cathy's who never take selfies lol. 

(I am in the glasses)

And after all that we drove deep deep deep into the woods to walk among the lights.

There were little gnome homes all along the route. 

It was so sweet to hear the kids with their families seeing the lights and being so excited. 

And this morning we woke up to it snowing. 

This picture is the sun trying to come out after the storm.

We walked the beach the waves were soothing, the snow festive. 

I am home unpacked and I have a stack of Christmas cards to open.

I have made a spiced chai and I am counting my blessings. I will be here for awhile. I am blessed beyond anything I could have dreamed up. 

Hoping you are in the Christmas spirit. Remember it is the small things that count. 

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To answer a question I got about a cookie walk.

It is a fundraiser, lots of people make cookies of all kinds to donate.

Then when you go on the walk you pay a certain price and they provide a container and you walk down the table choosing cookies to fill your container. Hope that helps. 

Another Day Another Storm

The sun finally came out this afternoon so I headed out to do my snow chores. Just a couple of inches this time.

My Charlie Brown tree is looking festive.

I had my sweet friends for a couple of overnights. Our project was making centerpieces. Donna brought the container and the wet foam. I cut greens and anything left in my garden.

                       Voila!

This is a very small sample of some off the gifts I got. The chicken feed bag made by Bonnie, the owl gourd was painted by Dayle. Great talent in this group. 

Today I caught up on laundry and made cookies for a cookie walk this weekend.

I pulled my bathrobe out of the dryer and could not resist. I wrapped up in the warm bathrobe and settled in for some chai.

Yes chai! I bought some when I was out with the girls at a local coffee shop. Yumm!

                  *******

Tomorrow I head to Maine for Christmas in Kennebunk with a friend. 

                      ******** 

Have a great weekend!

Thrifty Fun

Thanksgiving we got snow about 5 inches before the rain came.

I love the first storm of the season but to those measuring snow in feet I am so sorry. I could not handle it. 

We were still left with about 4 inches. I got a bit of walk in the snow, so quiet and lovely. We waited and did all the clean up on Friday

We started Friday with gingerbread scones to give us energy for the clean up. 

Saturday I collected my long time friend and my daughter (the teen was just too cool for us lol) and we headed to the thrift stores in Maine. What fun we had!

And at the end of our day we treated ourselves to a lovely late lunch and a drink. 

It was such a lovely day of laughter and just being with the my sweet daughter and friend. 

On the way out of the last thrift store I spied this! Now if you are not a fan of the movie Christmas Vacation this means nothing. But to my daughter and I we started laughing. and for 2.70 I had to bring it home. 

Husband had just come in from outside and I handed him this filled with eggnog. Again he started laughing. Lots of fun for a few $. 

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Today I did a bit of baking, and I am all decorated, the Christmas cards are in the mail. Tomorrow 3 of my sweet friends come for a couple of overnights. I am so looking forward to this. We haven't seen each other since Oct. 

Have a wonderful week.

Thanksgiving Eve

We can now see the sunrises with the leaves off  the trees and the position of the sun. 

 

A friend of mine showed me her solar star lights she put on her outside tree. Well monkey see monkey do! I ordered a couple of strings. Well the first string got so tangled it took forever to untangle them. But I do love them. 

And the 2nd set I put on a small tree we have. I learned a lesson about how to not tangle this string. But still not that easy to work with. 

 

I also made a small batch focaccia bread. And boy did it come out good! Husband wants this tomorrow instead of rolls. 

 We are tucked in watching White Christmas tonight. 

And speaking of white Christmas.....

We are waiting for snow tomorrow 5 to 9 inches.

We are home so no travel issues. 

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Hugs

Cathy

And Just Like That!

All the leaves have blown away and the blustery cold has settled in.

Saturday a friend and I headed to a couple of church sales.

A Swedish angel candle.

An April Cornell dish towel.

              A hand painted sign

And a candy turkey for sweet B.

I left so much behind I would have liked but I am really trying to not add things. And I dropped a bag off at the thrift store on the way by. 

We are tucked in all toasty. We both are putting on pjs earlier and earlier these dark nights.

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The email problem comes and goes. Thank you so much for your visits and comments.

Have a great week!

Still Decorating

 I always keep puff pastry in the freezer. Tonight I had pulled some of the pork pie filling left over from the other week I had in the freezer. I used the puff pastry in a cupcake tin and filled it with the pre cooked filling voila dinner! I was thinking that if you had any leftover meatloaf that would be good also. I added some green beans and some mashed cauliflower to go with it.  

I am on an oatmeal kick lately. I make it the night before and heat it the next morning it is so good. I love being the first one up and just sitting in the quiet it is a beautiful way to start the day.

And the decorating goes on and on. I wish I had a before picture, this is an iron trellis I wired greens on it. I stuck it in the metal flower pot. I have solar star lights on order. We are having high winds tonight lets see if it holds together yikes!

My village is up and as you can see santa is very happy about it kissing Mrs Claus.

Here are the Christmas movies we have, the classic collection has 

Barbara Stanwyck in Christmas in Connecticut one of my favorites.

A few others I like are:

Holiday Affair

Scrooge the 1931 version

Charlie Brown Christmas

A Christmas Story

The Family Man

Meet Me in St. Louis

I hope you find something in there that you can enjoy.

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I spent the a big part of the day weeding out some Christmas stuff I no longer wanted and set some things aside that I plan on selling. 

I need to down size big time I have a Christmas problem.

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The email problem corrected itself for about 5 minutes and back to no reply. Stay with me I am doing the best I can.

Thanks for your visits and comments.

"Humbug I Tell You"

Full moon was so beautiful this past week.

I took a walk to try to see it better. Things are so quiet here especially after dark.

 

Sat I went out and about with my dear long time friend.

We shopped a couple of thrifts and a church sale.

This is perfect for my halloween dress up each year. 

It is a reproduction but it is thick and heavy cotton. I have one kind of like it. I have had it for over 30 years. So for 5.00 perfect. 

When we replaced this kitchen window we took down my vintage shutters I had up, well years later I got them out of the shed vacuumed and washed them. Husband put them up for me. I had forgotten how much I love them. 

Husband is on the mend thankfully. I had some blueberries to use up and husband loves blueberry muffins. 

I had just over a tablespoon of this left over so I put it in the batter.

Yummmmmmmm It was a good move! I use this jam for a lot of things. I warm it up and put it over vanilla ice cream too among other things.

As most of you know I have been decorating for Christmas like a mad woman. Well in my down time I have been watching old christmas movies. This is from 1931 and I think the best one. I love this story. I have a whole stack of movies I must watch over the holiday. I will list them if anyone is interested.

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We have an ongoing chat on messenger with 4 of us. It is close friendships, we talk every day and some days several times a day.

Well today we each were doing something Christmassy lol.

They are a creative bunch. 

Have a wonderful Week

Oh no humbug here!