Holiday Updates

Finishing up a home remodel and putting our house back in order while also preparing for Christmas and dealing with a serious medical problem affecting my beloved cat has added considerable chaos to this holiday season.  As things get sorted out, I thought it was time for some updates.

Our contractor finally finished up his crew's work on our house last Friday so I took some updated pictures of the remodeled spaces.

This is the view from one corner of the living room looking past the dining room toward the front entry on the left and the back garden on the right.  My husband will be building a mantle for the fireplace but he won't get to that until the start of the new year.

This is the view of the living room looking toward the garden on the south side from the dining area

This is the dining area with what my husband calls my "Alice in Wonderland rug"

The old kitchen was gutted so this is an entirely new space.  We only gained 70 square feet by pushing out the kitchen's exterior wall but it feels like a much bigger space.  The quartz countertops are also a nice upgrade from the tiled surfaces we had before.

I pulled out some of my favorite Christmas decor, spreading it through the front entry and into the living room.  In deference to my husband who's something of a Scrooge when it comes to Christmas, tolerating rather than celebrating it, I restrict most of my decorations to those areas of the house.

A faux tree decorated with wood birds occupies the table in the front entry.  A bicycling Santa sits atop our grandfather clock.  A woodworking Santa and elf occupy an end table in the living room.  I've a small collection of Christmas snow globes, which are also scattered about.

My Christmas decorations are more subdued this year than in prior years but it looks as though I won't have time to do much more this year.  I had to put up a live tree of course.  I've only missed doing so once in the years my husband and I've been together, and that was because we'd only just moved into this house.  In fact, today marks the 9th anniversary of that move.

The Christmas tree's in a new spot this year.  It previously wouldn't have been possible to have it here as the indoor barbecue attached to the fireplace occupied a significant portion of this space.

Our tree is an eclectic collection of ornaments accumulated over decades.

The glass ornament in the upper left is a sentimental favorite.  It was on the tree in my childhood home on the Christmas preceding my father's death in a car accident.  I collected the other ornaments shown in the first 2 rows as an adult.  The last 3 ornaments are part of a collection given to me by a close friend over the years.

"Scrooge" and I made a few dozen ornaments like those shown in the top row here using sequins, beads and pins one Christmas during the early years of our relationship.  My stepfather made half a dozen snowflake ornaments like the one you see on lower right for us during the same period.  All but 2 of those have disintegrated over time so I handle the remaining ones with great care.  The needlepoint gardening Santa on the lower left was made for me by another close friend.

My cat Pipig is the only member of our household besides myself who really enjoys the Christmas tree.  She loves the curl up under it but, following surgery for breast cancer a week ago, she's been locked up in the guest bathroom except for a brief visit to the vet for a progress check on her recovery.

Overall, she's been very good during her convalescence.  It took us all awhile to figure out how to get her properly fed when she was wearing that collar.  The bed worked out nicely, though, as she can stretch out just enough and rest the collar on the bed's side.  I got her a heating pad, which sits underneath the bed.

The good news is that the veterinary oncologist my vet consulted feels a second surgery (to remove the mammary glands on the other side) isn't necessary.  However, they're recommending chemotherapy to give her a better chance of a longer life.  I'll be talking to the oncologist after the new year.  Pipig's stitches are scheduled to come out Monday afternoon and she'll be freed of the sausage suit and the plastic collar she hates so much to spend as much time as she wants under the tree.

I wish you luck in realizing your own holiday wishes.


All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party