Today, the girls and I decorated the Christmas tree. It has actually been up for a couple of days, but we had to get rid of an extra couch - a friend of mine was able to make use of it - and rearrange the living room. While Eldest and I delivered the couch, Dh and Youngest moved furniture around so that the tree could fit right in the corner. Since it's covered on two sides by walls, that meant we only need to decorate the front half. There isn't a lot of room there. We pulled it away from the corner and Eldest helped me put on the lights and garlands, with one of us in the corner and the other in front, passing things back and forth. Once that was done, we pushed it back in, then did the front. I asked Youngest if she wanted to help, but she pointed out there really wasn't any room for her to be in there, too, so she went back to using her bead loom. :-D
Looking at the tree as I write this, I find it seems to be tilting to one side quite a bit. That's never been an issue before. Could our floor really be that much uneven?
Now that the tree is up, we can work on decorating the rest of the house. The tree has LED lights, but I still have my old strings of lights that can go around windows or something. The girls can decorate their rooms, too. At some point, I'll have things organized enough that we can position the couch and armchair in places we won't want to move them from until after the tree is down again.
Today was also the day I got to open my first Advent gift exchange gift. I've become a member of a local crafter's group and a bunch of us signed up for an exchange. The person organizing it paired off the people who signed up for it. Once we had our partners, we filled out questionaires for each other, sharing things like what our favourite (and least favourite) colours are, what kinds of crafting we like to do, what music or books we like, etc. Then we each had to buy 24 small gifts (maximum $5 each) and 1 large (maximum #24) gift. My partner actually numbered all the gifts! Much more ambitious than me. *L* Mind you, she also had 2 others she was collecting for, as she was doing exchanges for her kids, too, so labelling was necessary. I just made sure the last gift had something different about it. I did consider numbering them, but aside from the last gift, it really didn't matter too much what order they were opened in.
Today, I got a set of transparent decorative balls that looked like they would go on a tree, except that the "confetti" inside was meant to dissolve in bathwater for a luxurious soak. What a cute idea! She got them at Michaels and, even though I've been there several times recently, I had never seen them. I look forward to trying them. :-D
Meanwhile, I've been trying to place an order for our tourtierre meats. I want to have the meat by friday, so we can make them this weekend, but I haven't been able to get through to the butcher. I did leave a message saying I wanted to place an order, but no one's called back. Looks like I'll have to do it in person. For this year, I think we'll do Elk for the game portion of our pies. We're planning to do two dozen pies this year, so we're looking at 24 pounds of ground meats. I need to figure out what I'll use to cook them. I might have to buy a new pot. At my in-laws, we'd use my MIL's roaster and lid (which could double as a second roaster on its own), each over 2 elements. I have two roasters, but our oven is bigger than hers, so they can't straddle two elements. I've seen some big, deep pots that should work, but at $80 - and that's the cheap price! - it's pretty expensive for a pot I'll only use once a year. We did 12 pounds of meat last year, and it just fit in one roaster (we hadn't bought the second one yet), with barely enough room to stir it, so I know using what we have now will be a pain. I really do need something else. I just hate spending money if I think I can get away without.*L*
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