It's the day after Christmas...

Christmas has come and gone in a flash.  It seems to do that more and more as we get older, doesn't it?

We had a wonderful Christmas.  We spent Christmas Eve afternoon with Mama and Daddy and enjoyed some yummy barbecue and teriyaki wings, pasta salad, Christmas cookies, Mama's faithful Martha Washington candy (that she has made every Christmas of my memory) and the oven-roasted pecans that she never fails to make for me.  I made rum balls for the first time ever this year and they were such a hit, I had to make two batches to take to work!  They were really, really good.

I'm finding that the older I get, the more nostalgic I get.  I long for Christmases of years past when life was simple, times were hard but love was abundant.  Things just aren't the same anymore.  We're too busy, life is too fast and our loved ones are slipping away from us due to age, distance or hardheadedness.  It's sad, really.

I took an extra day off today but Larry went back to work.  I had plans to start to pack away Christmas but it's afternoon now and I still haven't started.  I'm probably not going to.  It'll keep.  And in the meantime, I can enjoy our beautiful tree and eat a couple more Christmas cookies.

As far as gifts went, we pretty much racked up.  Mama and Daddy had our stockings stuffed and we each got gift cards that will be very happily used!  Larry and I had cheated so bad this month and had already opened up so much of our gifts to each other but we did save a few for Christmas.  Eve.  We so bad.

One of the big gifts we gave each other was hiring somebody to repair our hot tub!  It's been down a long time and when we went to Helen in September and stayed in that cabin with a hot tub, we realized how much we missed ours.  Larry found a guy who sold and serviced Leisure Bay spas exactly like ours for over ten years and we had him come from Alabama to fix ours.  All that was wrong was the motor had died.  That's it.  No lightning strike, no power issue.  Just a worn out motor.  $447 later and it was right as rain.  And we have really, really loved having it back!  

Here are some pics from our Christmas at home.

Larry found a 1950's Pyrex warming plate for me.  I didn't even know they existed!  And he finally got me the 1950's yellow Pyrex Hostess bowl he's been eying for a year or so.  I kept telling him it was too much, that they wanted waaaaay too much for that bowl.  He got it anyway.

We're still playing Pokémon (when they make it interesting!) and he got me a Pikachu shirt and bank.  

And a Robins AFB shirt in red that I can wear on Support The Troops Fridays! 

We're replacing all of our cookware so we added these two pieces of All-Clad!  I love to cook and I get really excited about new cookware!  Ha!

This crazy amazing bird.  We saw him at an antique store just before Christmas and I just loved him.  But they wanted $125 for him and that was just insane.  Larry went back later and made a deal and got him for me.  His name is Elton.  Look at that hat!  You can't see them but he's got some kickin' boots on, too. 

Larry got some Duluth Trading Company clothes and some Fox River Army boot socks, along with a new Bluetooth speaker, a cell phone mounting kit for his truck, some military patches to add to his office wall, some cologne and some beard balm.

I got him this, too.  A FrostGuard to cover the windshield of his truck on cold nights.  I keep my car in the garage but he has to scrape his windshield.  Not no more!

Santa came to see our boys, too!  Banjo's tree stump full of squeaky squirrels and Tabbie Hoffman's hamster that records what you say (or purr) and then repeats it back.  And stockings full of toys and treats (and toothpaste!).

Tabbie with his hamster.  I love how it's looking up at him!

 Larry feeding Banjo some treats.  The squirrels forgotten.  

Santa brought a fruit, nut and berry bell for the backyard birdies, too.

This was me Christmas afternoon, with my new fuzzy socks and Christmas blanket Mama gave me.  Calm, quiet, peaceful afternoon.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...Inside Edition!

The Super Fabulous Schneider Christmas Tree of 2017 went up yesterday and we are really proud of how it turned out!  We got a fresh 7-foot Fraser fir and filled it with lights and decorations from our childhoods and vintage things we've picked up here and there at estate sales and antique and thrift stores.  

Here is the rest of the house!  Larry and I went through 14 huge bins of Christmas decorations and downsized to seven, keeping those things that we were sentimental about, of course, but we were really so extra, it was crazy.  We just had so much stuff, we couldn't use it all every year and some things haven't been put out in several years.  So we donated it all to the church's thrift store so somebody else can love on it this year and maybe many years to come. And our attic will be much lighter for it!

This gingerbread tea pot and mugs definitely made the cut!  I've had these for seventeen years!  I used to go to and host House of Lloyd Christmas Around The World parties and these were a host bonus I earned one year.  I don't do that kind of thing anymore but I sure collected some pretty stuff when I did.

I got these super cute Temp-tations Christmas mixing bowls from QVC a month or so ago.  They are soooo sweet!

My favorite vintage Christmas dish towels.  Squeeee!

A tiny little Santa in the kitchen window.

Larry and I made this paper wreath the other night.  We hung it on the kitchen door and he added a couple of birds.

Here's another old sentimental lovey.  I got this Santa more than 20 years ago from ABC Distributing and for years and years and years, Mama and Daddy hung it by their front door and filled his pockets with candy canes for their "Christmas travelers" as Daddy calls them, a nod to our most beloved Christmas movie, The Homecoming.  Now he hangs at our back door, for the same reason.  If Hawthorne and John-Boy show up at our door, they'll be sure to get a candy cane.

We picked up this talking musical Christmas donkey recently (he's really not as sad as he looks!) and I covered the back of the only remaining chair from Larry's parents' first dining room set with a Santa cover.  

My vintage Santa mug collection.

At an estate sale recently, I found this Southern Living Christmas cookbook, dated 1988, the year Larry and I met.  I had to bring it home.

We've got 28 blow molds to check and test and a huge 6-foot Santa lion to go outside with Snoopy and the Santa train and all the rest.  We'll tackle them next weekend!

Christmas

It sure didn't feel much like Christmas outside (78 degrees!) but it felt like it in our hearts.  Larry and I exchanged our gifts yesterday and had Santa for Tabbie Hoffman and Banjo this morning before we went and had Christmas with my family in Oglethorpe.  Lots of love and laughter and babies and presents.  Oh my goodness, the presents!  

This is what Santa brought our boys.  Banjo got a Dremel nail trimmer and Tabbie got a feeding maze toy.  They each got a toy (Tabbie's is a catnip-filled banana!) and treats and new vanilla-flavored toothpaste in their stockings.  And Larry loved his Notre Dame plush blanket and lounge pants that Santa brought him!

Larry got me the Farm Vet Barbie set (with the itty bitty chicken squeeeee!), a rare 1960 promotional Golden Grapes Pyrex chip and dip set, a vintage Petunia Pig drinking glass, a new cereal bowl, some Optical Illusion cards and a sweet, sweet coffee mug that he wrote on with permanent marker.  He wrote, "When I was young and dreamed of love, I saw a shadow of you.  When I grew up and experienced love, I realized the shadow was you."  Yep, he's a keeper!  He also got me a Pyrex Old Orchard casserole dish (with the lid!), a pair of Pikachu bedroom slippers, a Pokemon Monopoly game, a selfie stick, a beautiful Christmas bracelet and I know I'm forgetting something...anyway, I racked up!  I got a new FryDaddy from Mama and Daddy (along with a cute top, socks and my old stocking slap FULL of stuff) and a gorgeous tapestry from Ami and Brian that I think I'm going to use as a tablecloth.  I also got some soft slippers, a new coffee mug and some bath stuff.


 
Santa came to see our backyard birds, too.  They got a bird seed bell that I smeared peanut butter on and hung from our magnolia tree on Christmas Eve.

We went to Christmas Eve service at Southside Baptist yesterday afternoon (and even though it was 70 degrees when we got out, it was snowing in the lobby!  They had a snow machine going and it was so fun!) and then we went to see the new animated musical, Sing, and we enjoyed it so much.  Such a cute story and some really amazing talent.  We loved it!

Another Christmas has come and gone.  It's always so sad to me to see it go.  After weeks (months!) of planning and shopping and picking up this and that for this person and that person and then it's all over in a flash.  A big, wonderful, chaotic, wrapping paper flying, flash.

And we'll do it all again next year. 

Blessings -- one shoebox at a time

Larry and I had so much fun putting together our Operation Christmas Child shoebox this weekend.  We look forward to doing this every year.  We'll turn it in this week and then wait and see where it ends up!

We selected things for a little boy, aged 5-9, and this is what we got him!  Toothpaste, Snoopy toothbrushes, a wash cloth, two bars of soap, a comb, a flashlight with batteries, marbles, toy cars, pens, a notebook, candy, a game, a pair of gloves, a little LED light-up bracelet, a stuffed Ty doggie, ChapStick, a little tube of sunscreen, a flip story/coloring book about Jesus' birth and death, crayons and a pack of God Loves You stickers.

 

 

 

I love this time of year!  It's a lot of fun to shop and put these boxes together but what comes out of them is what really counts.  We will pray for the little boy who receives this box and hope that his life is changed forever by accepting Jesus as his savior and sharing the Good News with everyone around him!

Christmas Backpacks for Appalachia

Larry and I played Santa today!  Our church is collecting backpacks for the Christmas Backpacks for Appalachia project and we picked up a couple of backpacks last Sunday after the morning worship service.  We decided on a backpack for a girl and a boy, in the 5-9 year old age group.  

Today we went shopping!  We got socks, wash cloths, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, notebook paper, pencils, crayons, cans of Spaghetti-O's, cookies, lollipops, two of the sweetest little books about Jesus (the illustrations are adorable!), a small Bible and each child got four toys each.  We got the little boy a yo-yo, a Slinky, two Hot Wheel trucks and a Spider-Man doll.  The little girl is getting sidewalk chalk, a jump rope, a Go Fish card game and a Minnie Mouse doll.  

We had SO much fun picking out this stuff!

Here are the backpacks all packed.

We want to include some warm gloves and hats but since it's August and still hot as blue blazes outside, nobody in this town even has 'em out yet.  We're not going to give up, though!  We have a week before we have to turn them in, since we'll be out of town the Sunday morning they'll be officially collected.

This is such a wonderful thing to be a part of.  I watched the video on the Mission Georgia web site and I'm so happy we decided to do this.  I try every year to help make at least one child's Christmas a little brighter.  I had the most magical of Christmases growing up and I just can't stand the thought of a child going without on Christmas morning, although I know millions of children do.  

At least these two won't.

Playing Santa

Andrea and I delivered the gifts we'd collected for those children at the substance abuse facility yesterday.  What a wonderful experience that was!  This is my trunk, about half of what we collected.  We had split the loot Monday night at work and agreed to meet in Macon yesterday at noon and drive over together.

The first thing I noticed about the place was how beautiful and peaceful it was.  I guess I expected some clinical white concrete building.  I don't know.  I really don't know what I expected, never having been in a drug rehab place before.  I just know I definitely didn't expect a beautiful homelike building with river rock trim.  I didn't expect it to look so cozy inside either.  Sure, there was a reception counter where we had to sign in as visitors but there was also a huge Christmas tree in the foyer and delicious smells coming from the kitchen/dining area.  After all, though, we did get there at lunch.  They were having ham and scalloped potatoes.  Some of the girls who live there call it a prison.  Well, it's the prettiest, nicest, cleanest, most peaceful prison I've ever seen.  And, trust me, I've seen 'em.

Most of the children were either in daycare or school so we didn't get to meet them but we met all of the moms and the administrator told them who we were.  They'd already been told what we were doing.  They were all so thankful and appreciative and a few of them came up to me and personally thanked me, hugged me and one of them handed me her baby!  The one-month-old boy that I also sponsored (I ended up sponsoring three children!) and I was so happy to meet him!  :)  Now I know who's going to wear those warm teddy bear pajamas that I bought.  Andrea and I really got attached to these children the last three weeks and we were so excited to see this baby and the little two-month-old baby boy who was also there.  He stayed asleep the whole time, though, no matter how hard I tried to wake him up!  He was not at all interested in hearing about Santa Claus.  

We unloaded our cars and completely filled up their conference table.  The door to that room stays locked so our secret is safe.  Santa will be delivering our gifts on Christmas Eve, just as he should.

We left a disposable camera for Christmas morning pictures.  I sure hope they remember to take them!

Those girls are blessed to have that second, third, fourth, hundredth chance and to be able to keep their children there with them.  I've been praying for them all ever since I heard about them but now I can put faces to their names when I ask for strength and courage for them to defeat the monsters that hold them.  

I left there feeling really, really good.