I’m well behind in my Christmas preparations, shopping, cooking, decorating. The only thing I believe I managed to get done on time was my cards written and mailed to the folks on this side of the pond as well as the other. And since the opposite side has an earlier mailing deadline, fingers crossed everyone received theirs in time for tomorrow.

During the ice storm this past weekend, I finally got around to putting my tree up and decorating it. I started Saturday and finished on Sunday.

I love the fur-trimmed, red outfit my angel wears. It reminds me of the gowns in the movie White Christmas. And no Christmas would be complete without my nutcrackers putting in an appearance.

This isn’t all of them either. I have two 42″ ones that I didn’t get out this year. And I believe there’s another 12″ one tucked away somewhere, too. You’d almost get the impression I like nutcrackers. I even think I have enough nutcracker ornaments that I could do my tree in nothing but them. As it is there are some of them that didn’t make it to the tree. I have other ones that need to go up – the pairs of hockey skates, figure skates, the photo frame ornaments, Santa ornaments, train, rocking horse, gingerbread men… the only one that doesn’t go on the tree is the one that used to be on my grandmother’s every year that she gave to me when I was a little girl. I used to put it on the tree (usually up high where a wagging tail wouldn’t knock it off) but after getting more old-fashioned looking ornaments, I decided I liked the look better than with the glass baubles.

I can’t believe that today is Christmas Eve. It certainly doesn’t feel like it. We’re going to have a  white Christmas this year, albeit with a crust of ice on top of the snow. Most of our trees have half an inch of ice on them and two of my evergreens are bent way over.

The deciduous trees look beautiful coated in ice when they’re backlit by the sun. And at minus double-digit temperatures, they’ll stay that way for quite some time. At least the winds haven’t picked up – like predicted – so we shouldn’t have to worry about limbs coming down.

The poor evergreens, on the other hand, while they still look beautiful, they’ve lost their fullness – their branches weighted down under a layer of snow and ice. And in some cases, the entire tree is bent over from the weight like my juniper that stands at the back corner of our garage.

Wherever you are this holiday season, I wish you warmth and safety. If you’re without power as many people in parts of Ontario and the US are from this storm, I hope you get it restored quickly.

All the best to you and your families for the remainder of 2013 and for the years to come.

From all of us here at The House of King,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!