Happy Winter !

Today is Winter Solstice day.

Happy Winter !

Christmassying all day

Saturday and a big opportunity to do all things Christmas.

Time to put some extra decorations, to tidy the house and to go shopping all the way singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

But if you  prefer just to listen and not to see the cartoon, here it is:

Such happy day ! Thanks God !
Now hurry up and begin the party: Christmassying all day !

Past Christmases

So here we go, in the middle of December, with the house decorated for Christmas, lists done and being checked, plans made and shopping done and being done.

Presents not all wrapped but being done.
That's a nice time of the  year.

I look back in time and see how Christmas is always a blessed time and how it's such fun to get things ready for the big day.

All pictures in this post are from Christmases past and I hope that soon I will post some of the preparations of this one.

This picture above is from a year when all the girls were younger and we even had a baby (who now is a teen), that's why we have this amount of presents - and not all of them were in this picture !

The food work is always an important part but, of course, it is in every home and also are the tables.

We can never forget the Christmas Pudding, a MUST in my home.

Just in case some of you don't know it and are wondering why it is in flames, I must tell you that you pour some brandy and light a match on it. It's always a big moment and we hope that it produce some nice and big flames. In this picture my husband very proud of the accomplishment.

As for today I leave you with the Nativity - which this year is already set, as always since the First of December - but this years pictures deserve another post.

Bye for now.

12 December - Our Lady of Guadalupe

December is rich on Marian celebrations and rightly so because in this month of the birth of our Saviour it's fair to honour His Holy Mother too - and we will never honour more than He does, so all we do will never be too much.

After the 8 December, the day of the Immaculate, the day when I was Baptized, we have today the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

You can read about Her here  and it's well worth reading !

Let it snow

Such a pity it doesn't snow here. But never mind, I keep hoping.

Christmas from other times

As Christmas day approaches I catch myself looking for nice images and that feels so good.
Either those of Victorian Christmas time or just some funny clip art, I am always so pleased to watch them.

Then it came to my mind to make a post of some I found and that I like.
Let's begin by the Victorian ones.

But I have to say that I even prefer the ones from later times like these:

I think I was born in the wrong time.

Dreaming of a white Christmas

It has been quite cold here which makes me dream of some snow even if last time it happened was years ago.
Anyway, we can dream.

I leave you here with this wish.

24 days to Christmas

Christmas time is in full swing. Yay ! Now we really are.

I know I've been thinking about Christmas since October, (cough, cough...I mean September...) but there were other things to think about too. 

First it was the beginning of the School year which here begins half September. Then I wanted to feel I was really in Autumn and the weather in his antics sometimes gave us good, true Autumn days, either with a little rain ( it didn't rain much) or with nice, fresh days with pure air and not a hint of heat or some hot days as if it was Summer!

After having Autumn well installed, I had in my mind some birthdays. Then it was Thanksgiving all over the internet.
And this year we had a special day: yesterday one of my girls, nº3, Carolina, had her Confirmation- called also Chrismation.
It was a happy and so special day, full of blessings.

But now...rolling drums...It's Christmas Time !!!

In my house we have a date set to begin decorating: 1 December. We must put the tree up that day and also the Nativity.  In the next days we do the other things, one bit at a time.

So as we are ending November, we can't wait to put the wreath at the door and begin the party !

I will, obviously, post some pictures when things are done but for now I will leave you with some of Christmas though the years in my house.

The First Thanksgiving

Blaring trumpets and thundering artillery serenaded Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés as he waded ashore on September 8, 1565. The Spanish admiral kissed a cross held aloft by the fleet’s captain, Father Francisco Lopez, then claimed Florida for both his God and his country. As curious members of the indigenous Timucua tribe looked on, the 800 newly arrived colonists gathered around a makeshift altar as Father Lopez performed a Catholic mass of thanksgiving for their safe arrival in the newly christened settlement of St. Augustine. At the invitation of Menéndez, the Timucuans then joined the newcomers in a communal meal.

Some Florida historians have argued that this feast—and not the one held 56 years later by the Pilgrims and Wampanoags in Plymouth, Massachusetts—was actually North America’s first Thanksgiving. “It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land,” wrote University of Florida professor emeritus of history Michael Gannon in his book “The Cross in the Sand.”

https://myfloridahistory.org/frontiers/article/140 

One more month

One more month and it's Christmas. However I have to say that I am in Christmas mode since October - secretly since September.

As we haven't Thanksgiving, we don't need to wait for after it to gear into the Beautiful Season.

I have been shopping for presents since October but in spite of all my good intentions, I'm afraid I didn't wrap any of them.

The stash keeps growing and if I will not be careful I will end up with marathons of wrapping sessions.

Anyway. we still have time.

We only decorate for Christmas from 1 of December. I can't wait to put the Nativity and the tree up and candles and garlands and bells...

I began singing Christmas songs in October when everybody laughed at me because of that, imagine now that I can sing all I want.

I began putting together a Christmas planner with list of presents, to whom they are, the amount I spent and also what I need to buy as presents and for the meals of the Day and Eve.

I will keep reporting and reminding everybody that is the time to do it.