"Getting Ready For Christmas"

I never got the opportunity to meet Darin's grandmother, Alma, because she passed away several years before I met Darin. From what I hear about her-especially from Darin's mother, Judy, it sounds like she and I (as Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables would put it) would have been "kindred spirits".

Her hands were always busy creating things like cross stitch samplers and various other crafts. She enjoyed making a home, and what she is most famous for in the family is beginning a tradition we call "Getting Ready for Christmas".

I don't actually know what year it started, but at some point in time, she and Darin's grandfather, Howard, began to give all the "kids" in the family one "Original Snow Village" house at Thanksgiving to encourage the excitement and anticipation of Christmas and to help all the kids build their collection of Christmas decorations for their homes. Even though Darin's grandma was no longer with us when I was "grafted" into the family by marriage, his grandpa (who apparently always pretended he didn't like all of his wife's nic-nacs) continued the tradition in her honor.

This year, since we have a wild puppy on the loose, we weren't able to put our entire collection of village houses out, we were able to put most of our display on top of our dining room armoir as part of our "getting ready for Christmas 2007" routine :

We also of course enjoyed putting out our tree, nativity scene and various other Christmas decor a couple weeks ago:

Darin's grandma made the angel you see below. The little Christmas tree was our first and only tree we had up for our first married Christmas... we've come a long way since then! : ) Many of the ornaments you'll find on our Christmas tree are ones I grew up putting on my family's tree. My mom kindly gave them to me when I got married. The stockings and Christmas books you'll see on our mantle also came from her in our first couple years of marriage!

Merry Christmas!