Holidays And Such

Holidays in the new house were great!  Exhausting, but it was so nice to have them in our new home. I think it's funny that in our new house, which is so much larger then our old one, we still needed to have a little tree.  Which worked out really well actually because the tree farm that we found, had only little trees available.

Here the boys are measuring their height on our little tree.  It was little, but very cute and fit right into the spot we chose for it.

Because our fireplace hearth does not have a mantel, we had a challenging time coming up with where to hang the stockings.  As the wood in this house is 258  years old without many holes, we didn't want to add any, so....

I used the hat and mitten drying rack!  It worked perfectly and looked great next to the tree.  Santa had no problem finding them!  There are two little stockings on the top of this collection.  They belong to Little Red's fire bellied toads Ribbit & Rebecca.  Santa didn't leave anything in their stockings because meal worms don't like the warm wood stove!

One of the highlights was being able to host my whole side of the family for the holiday this year.  It was a bit stressful trying to get all the boxes and bins that haven't been unpacked yet put away (or hidden away!), as we've not been here very long. But we had a great time gathering together, and it was the first time we've all been able to eat in one room in a long time. Our dining room comfortably hosted every one, and thanks to tables and chairs lent to us by our friend, we were able to enjoy it together.

At one point during the meal, I stopped and just took a moment to look around and see all of us enjoying each other's company and sharing a good meal together and was deeply thankful that we were all there in our new home.  Having lost my mother-in-law this year, I don't take those moments for granted any more.

The meal was very good, everyone contributing an item or two.  As always, my favorite part of the meal was the clam casserole.  I could eat a whole pan of it, I fear!  There were lots of great things to partake of.  We also decided to use the cauldron in the kitchen for a unique purpose, it worked great filled with snow!

My parents have a very large dog that was a wonderful addition to our holiday.  She's an older dog, but still has plenty of spunk left in her.  The previous owners of our home had a dog and so had a zip line in the back yard for their dog which we left up in the event that Ellie would come for a visit.  Thing about Ellie is, she'll bolt right out the door past you if she gets the chance and she's a BIG dog, so it's easy for her to do.  We found that the dutch doors in most of our doorways worked great to let her have run of the house except for the back entry room where everyone was coming in and out of.

Presents followed and a delicious assortment of desserts prepared by my sister. We very much enjoyed our time spent with loved ones.

Another highlight of our new home is having our very own little skating pond.  We're very fortunate enough to have a variety of hockey skates in great shape handed down from "The Cousins", which is what the boys call my in law's children, our nieces and nephews on Music Man's side of the family.  So, we shoveled the pond off from the snow that fell before some rain and a streak of warm temps for a couple of days to get a nice solid surface on the pond for skating when it refroze.  The boys have been having a great time on it. It's great to see the electronics left behind to have a fun time outdoors!

 

 

I'm going to try to find more time to update a bit more often now that we're settling in.  We've started the long list of things that we'd like to either renovate or fix in this old home (part of which needs to be the lack of insulation! It's freezing in here!), so I'll have more updates on that as things progress.  Happy New Year to you all and stay well!

 

Hoping for happy in your new year, ~Peacemom