Christmas in the great outdoors...............

Sigh..........................
Next year - without a doubt...............next year - outside my kitchen window

For those of you down South - you can keep your balmy temps for Christmas - I wouldn't trade
snow for anything in December ( but it can leave immediately after - I'm fed up of it by January )
Maybe you have to be from a cold climate to " get it " - but in my corner of the world nothing
screams Christmas like tons of snow :)

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It's wrapped up in every single memory I have of Christmas

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                         of crooked snowmen with carrot noses and raisin eyes and cast off scarves

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                                   and contests to see who could make the biggest snow angels

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                                             and red toboggans that we dragged up hills

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                                                 in ice castles and forts and snow ball fights

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                                           and tongues sticking out to catch snow flakes -

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                                             It reminds me of hot coco and snow days -

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                                     of mittens and hats lovingly knitted by grandparents

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                                             and woollen socks that felt itchy but warm..................

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of dark mornings and a bowl of porridge before heading off to school

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                  Of white lace up skates that always left our toes numb - but our cheeks perfectly rosy

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     and the magic of that first dusting that always looked like diamonds had been scattered across the land

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And as much as I complain about snow ( and I do - oh believe me I do ) the first snow fall always does a                 little something to my heart - it usually means Christmas is right around the corner and.......................
                                 and I just can't think of Santa Claus without thinking of snow

                                               It's the reason he wears boots after all :)

                                                Let it snow - let it snow - let it snow !!!
                                                                   ♪  ♪   ♪   ♪
                                                    ( as long as we've nowhere to go )

I'll take door number 1 please................

Mornin' all :)

Remember when I made my discovery of  " The mystery of the panelled Door " ?
( Hey I wasn't a Nancy Drew fan for nothing you know )

Ready to see what was behind the panel?

and remember this one? ( of which there are 2 side by side in the landing - the master bedroom and the office )

Here we go

admittedly there's some work to do on them lol - but still - I just love them
those plastic " tiffany " panels are gone-zo - like outta here - as in make like an egg ..........and beat it

here's the bathroom door

so here's the killer -
this entire house ( almost ) is covered in that cheap panelling that was HUGE in the 70's - I seem to remember it being in every basement in Montreal at that time...................

so why I was surprised to see these doors were covered in THAT panelling I have no idea - but I was!!!
it was like - no - really?  even the doors? lol

they simply turned it around and used the "flat" side!!!

ok - so that's the end of the door story ( until I sand and paint them of course ) but here's a little huge story that I keep forgetting to share with you.

Most of you know that John and I had decided we were going to take a vacation at some point in the New Year - I did a post on it a while back ( and I'm too tired to go find the link to it lol )
What you don't know is that the money is flying out of our bank account faster than we can keep track of it - and so we kind of thought we would forfeit the vacation for luxuries like - oh I don't know - a kitchen floor?

A couple of weeks ago we purchased a car - and while at the dealer, the salesman, before finalizing the paper work, pointed to a CHRISTMAS tree where there were envelopes hanging all over it.
( and you can read about my thoughts on CHRISTMAS trees - one of my " rants " from last year - HERE

Salesman says - I'd like you to go pick an envelope
Suzan says - What's in them?
Salesman says - Well you can get from 50.00 up to 500.00 off the price of your car.
Suzan says - Let's do it!

I stood on my tippy toes - and reached as high as I possibly could - and grabbed an envelope by it's corner

Salesman says - Ok - open it up
Suzan opens it up -
Suzan screams -
Suzan screams - and laughs - and screams again
Suzan slaps the Salesman on the arm.  Hard
Salesman winces slightly.

Other customers are looking at us - other salesman are coming by -
Who is this crazy lady screaming her fool head off -
Did she win 50 dollars?
She must have won the whole 500.00 to be acting like this?

BUT THE SCREAMING LADY WAS SCREAMING BECAUSE SHE HAD JUST WON A 5 DAY CARIBBEAN CRUISE............................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Suzan says - You never mentioned that I could win a vacation!!!
Salesman says - No one's ever picked that envelope before - to be honest with you I don't bother mentioning it at all because it's disappointing.

Holy Crapoli - I won the trip!!!!!!!!!!
Looks like we'll be getting a kitchen floor AND a vacation lol
And solid wood farmhouse doors -
Oh it's just all too much, isn't it?

God help us all if I ever win the big lottery - the person next to me would be black and blue to say the least :)

We set sail from Florida sometime in end Feb or early March - we have several dates to choose from and haven't decided yet.

Have a wonderful day y'all ( practising my southern speech )
xxx
Suzan and John
( AKA - The Professor and Mary Ann )

P.S. we've never been on a cruise before - so this is really a spectacular win :)