A Woodland Theme and Big Winds

Yesterday was very, very busy. I am hosting Christmas for my side of the family this year. There are nieces and a nephew, all of whom are grown and living in various places, working various jobs. Since it has been a long time since we have all been together, I was really trying to make it work with as many people as possible. There was much back and forth with emails and texts and finally we finalized a date which works for 90% . 

I am now inspired to make sure my home looks nice and "Christmasy". Husband helped to haul out boxes and get me a chair so I didn't have to bend over too much (yes, I'm still dealing with this back, but I feel progress is being made, I am hopeful, although it is slow progress). I wanted to do the actual picking and choosing and decorating myself, so it's not that he didn't help, but you know how it is... you want it done the way you want it.

Something new I did this year was to create a display on a two-tiered metal, I don't know what to call it, display rack?? Husband bought it for me for the kitchen for fruit a few years ago, but it was too tall and the fruit always bruised too easily in it. I had an autumn display in it earlier this year and I envisioned a "woodland" theme for Christmas. Odd as it may sound, I wanted it on the bathroom counter, because that way pretty much everyone would see it and our bathroom is bead board and wood floor and wood cabinetry so it would work well. 

I've always loved these kinds of things - nature, little forest animals, natural texture (yes, I know the boughs are fake), anthropomorphism with hat-wearing birds. I've already professed my love for Jan Brett whose books feature so much glorious texture in her illustrations.

Oh how I adore this snowman. He is emerging from a wooden stump, but it is hard to see in this picture. 

I love how this little bird looks like it is carved from wood (I don't think it is). Unfortunately, I cut the head off the traditional woodland Santa in the background.

This bird has just a slight dusting of glitter on it. The Christmas ball ornaments I included have rabbits and lovely snowy outdoor scenes on them. If I had a Christmas rabbit  or squirrel I'd have included it in this display as well. For what it's worth, this year's theme in the stores seems to be gnomes. There are gnomes in every store - fabric, resin, big, little... So, good for gnome collectors. (Debra, she who seeks, are you on this?)

If you are an Ontario blogger friend, then you will know that we had some pretty awesome winds yesterday. It wasn't until I came downstairs this morning and puttered around that I looked out one particular window and my mind went, "wait, that doesn't look right." 

Indeed, we did not escape unscathed. In keeping with a woodland theme, here is what happened in our backyard. 

This great big Manitoba maple (actually box elder, but we've always called them Manitoba maples, don't know why) came down with the winds. It just popped out of the ground, rather than breaking off at the trunk. We were very very lucky because it did not damage the pool fence. If it had, what a nightmare that would have been. I don't even know if we could find the same type of fencing to fix it. The tree damaged some of the chicken run, but they don't go out much at this time of year now anyway. We also were lucky in that none of the similar trees fell on the chicken coop itself, or on our shed (which is more the size of a garage). Manitoba maples grow all along the west side of our property. We didn't plant them and they grow like weeds. If you cut them down, they sprout even more vigorously from their stumps. They don't have a lot of redeeming qualities as far as trees go.

Oh well, we have more firewood now. Husband has a chainsaw, but not big enough for this job, so he may have to rent or borrow. 

Moving on to more Christmas topics, I also began my baking yesterday. I always make this particular kind of cookie. I'm sure I've written about it before, but I'll throw in the recipe just in case you're interested. I don't refrigerate the dough by the way, just dive right in and bake them as soon as I've mixed the ingredients up. You can tell how much I've made these by the state of the little recipe "card".

I love how they "crinkle" on the top. They smell incredible, too.

You can tell I was going through a calorie counting phase at one point when I figured out how many calories were in each cookie. No, that's not 103 calories if you eat 33 cookies (I wish!!), but if the recipe makes 33 cookies, that's how many calories per cookie. But who cares. Just eat the cookie. 

I realized I am out of ground cloves and you just can't do gingerbread cookies without ground cloves, so I'll have to brave the crazy stores out there. Have you started your baking? Do you even bother? Have you made cookies similar to these? Do you also write on your recipe cards or in your recipe books? Do you still have recipe cards or are you all computerized, embracing the modern world? Do you also love little woodland animals wearing clothes?