A Michigan December

 I must admit, I was looking forward to a White Christmas this year, now that we're back home. But I didn't get my wish. However, it was a white December for the most part, and I sure enjoyed it! It all melted by the holidays though. 

The first thing I attend to for the holiday season is to decorate outdoors. Our entrance way is an alcove, and it took me awhile to figure out how to make it all work. My window boxes and planter are usually stuffed full of greenery, pine cones and such, which I leave up until March. I'll remove the red berries and shiny balls after the holiday though, so it has an everyday look. 

Decorating for holidays indoors is always fun for me, but in a new place, it's even better. Back in Ohio, I would usually put the same decorations in the same place each year. But here, I had to really think about each item. Not to mention, it's a unique space, and it did require different decorations, and even a new color scheme. 

As much as I enjoy my Christmas decorations, I'm always ready to take them down just as soon as we celebrate for the last time. After a few weeks, I start to get clutter vibes from it all. Then I need to set it all to rights again, cleaning and straightening, to meet the new year fresh. 

As I said, I enjoyed the snow early in the month, and took several trips around town to take pix. It's nice to take hubs along these days, with him retired now. This isn't to say that he likes snow or winter, but he's willing to go along and wait for me. Honestly, once January comes, I'm hoping that we see some more snow and winter weather. Right now, it's snowing sideways, so maybe I'll get my wish. 

The other enjoyable part of winter is to hunker down and do cozy things at home, like cooking, baking, reading, and crafts.  Of course it starts with Christmas baking! I also invented this enchilada soup one night, which was warm and filling. We are dairy free eaters, so of course you could sprinkle cheese on yours. There were many other festive holiday meals prepared, but I always forget to photograph the goodies. We are still eating leftovers here, and will be for a few more days. 

I also finished up a new blanket to match my craft room. I started this one back in June, in the old house, so the move delayed it quite a bit. Also, years ago when we had a bitter cold Christmas in Michigan, I made ice lanterns, so I tried again this year. It took some effort to get it right, but I finally did. They looked so festive on my front porch for about a week until the warm weather moved in and destroyed my efforts. Finally, you see my collage art project. My granddaughters always expect to do crafts when they visit, so this year I gathered up pretty paper, glue and canvas so we could make collages. The creativity was half the fun!

One night this month, we went to see a concert downtown Detroit, and afterwards we drove around to the see the holiday lights. It was late, and bitter cold, so this was all I could see from the windows. Next year I hope to make a special trip to enjoy them fully. 

I'll close here with my usual sky watching. I often think there are too many gray skies in the winter, but my photos tell a different story. All I have to do is point my camera out the back door, and get a clear view of the sky. Love it! 

 

Thanks for stopping by my little blog. I keep thinking that I should follow the crowd and move to Substack instead of blogging. But for now, I'll keep it up. See you again next month!