Merry Christmas to all my Gal Pals!
It is hard to believe this will be the last Christmas I will spend with you. Next month will be my last blog so I will wait till then to get sentimental. As for today’s blog I will be my normal critical self. First, let me say I LOVE CHRISTMAS! In past blogs I have described my extensively decorated house and how I love spending the holidays with family and friends. I think I have told you that I love having a Christmas get-together on Christmas Eve and another on Christmas Day. This year I was part of the Lockport Woman’s Club Christmas Crossroads Committee and the 2 day Christmas craft show we put on drew in over 4,000 people on the very first day. It was amazing except it was hard to accommodate parking for that many people. We will have to work on that for next year. The biggest problem was that I was at the craft show all day Saturday and Sunday with a credit card in my pocket. While I hate to complain during this season, I find that I have to get this off my chest. I think my thoughts are best reflected in Crabby Maxine’s quote “I can’t believe it’s September and I haven’t heard a single mention of Christmas”. You know how people complain that they get sick of Christmas carols in certain stores because they start playing them at the beginning of October? Well, I get upset when people put up their outdoor Christmas decorations the first week in November. Yes, some of my neighbors put up their decorations the minute they take down their Halloween decorations. I am not as bad as Crabby Maxine who says “It’s a couple of days after Thanksgiving. If I get started now I can have my lights untangled by Valentines Day” but I don’t put them up until after Thanksgiving. I think I have told you in past blogs about “habituation”. Habituation means you stop noticing repeated stimuli like Christmas lights that initially drew your attention. How sad! My feeling is that each holiday should have its own designated time of the year so let Halloween have October, Thanksgiving should have November and Christmas gets December. I understand putting them up in nice weather just don’t light them up until December. I don’t get as upset about it as Aunty Acid who states “Don’t p*SS me off! I’ll give your number to all the kids and tell them it’s the SANTA HOTLINE!,” but don’t tempt me.
As far as Christmas fashion, ANYTHING GOES! Like many of us in education we bought some Christmas outfits that we could wear to school because it helped evoke the Christmas spirit and we knew the kids loved it. However, there comes a time when you can’t justify spending your money on outfits that you can only wear in December. I began to realize you can create wonderful holiday outfits using accessories and clothing in the colors of Christmas. Now I tend to gravitate to clothes that remind me of winter but also seem very appropriate for Christmas. I can usually wear these outfits for at least 3 months. So in this blog I will do a combination of all of the above.
I am showing 4 outfits so the landscape design section will be short. There is not much to show in the winter but part of my Christmas decorations are Poinsettias that I get to rebloom the following year.
When I bought this plant the year before, it had two large blooms. When you start giving the plant 12 hours of darkness and cut back on the watering, you can get it to rebloom but instead of a couple of large blooms you get multiple smaller blooms which I love even better!
OK let the Christmas fashion show begin!
This is one of those outfits you can wear all winter long. It would be great for going to Navy Pier’s Winter Wonderfest in Chicago or going to the theater to see a movie while on Christmas break. Red and green are the colors of Christmas so wear either one and you are ready for the holidays. I have a long sleeve, cowl neck white top underneath this button up snowman topper. The red pants are the same color as the red in the topper. I have on my slip-on sketchers and I am ready to go.
These accessories are perfect for this outfit. The polka dot watch band matches the background of the snowman patches and I continued the polka dot pattern in the red mitten earrings. I chose the pearl ring because it looks like a polka dot and the black ring and white bracelet are the same colors in the topper.
This is truly a “Christmas only” outfit because of the accessories. The Christmas scarf looks great with these green pants and long sleeve blouse. I paired the outfit with gold shoes because many of the accessories are made with gold metals and gold is a great color for Christmas. What a great outfit to wear when going out to lunch with friends!
These accessories are all very Christmasy. The scarf is full of Christmas packages and the jewelry all match the colors in the scarf. The red watch and bracelet, the red and green earrings along with the red and green button covers and the red and green rings go perfectly with the scarf to reflect the colors of the holiday.
There are so many shades of red. This winter poncho is more of a claret red. The black collar is made of a large ribbed material so I paired it with my large ribbed, wide leg black pants. Underneath the poncho I am wearing a long sleeved black top. My black shoes have 1 inch wedge heels. I got the poncho at Christmas Crossroads craft show.
I dressed up this outfit so I could wear it to a christmas party. The claret colored bracelet looks perfect with the poncho . I also dressed it up with some real diamonds and some faux diamonds along with my ruby ring. Gold is the metal of the season.
Black, red and gold are perfect colors for a holiday get-together. I paired the red sweater with a black turtle neck top, black leggings and my over-the-knee black boots. The hem of the sweater and the sleeve are trimmed in black. The over-the-knee boots have a 1 inch stacked heel and looks great with sweaters.
I love the layered look with these two necklaces that I bought for $2 each at the resale jewelry sale at the library. I love the combination of textures of the gold jewelry with the black and gold watch band and ring .
There is no sense talking about my weight since we are in the middle of the season of the best foods known to man. I am just like Crabby Maxine who says “After Thanksgiving dinner I’m like one of those parade balloon characters…it takes half a dozen people to move me!”. Also, I think maybe it is the knowing that as soon as the holidays are over I won’t have access to Christmas cookies. That type of deprivation makes me want to keep eating them. There is nothing like a cup of hot chocolate and Christmas cookies while wrapped up in a blanket on the couch on a cold, snowy winter day. By now you know I am not one of those people that hit the gym to work off the holiday weight. Hey, I am going to enjoy all that the holiday has to offer and I won’t allow anyone to make me feel guilty. It is like Crabby Maxine says “Dear Santa, yeah I was naughty this year. And it was worth it you fat judgmental jerk!”. On that note, I hope you enjoy your holiday feast and have a drink for me since I can’t drink alcohol.
I hope there weren’t too many mistakes in this blog. Vicki took the pictures then ended up in the hospital. She had a kidney stone that was too big to pass through and her kidneys were swollen so they rushed her into surgery. She is doing great but too loopy right now to edit the blog for me. Oh, and by the way my CT scan showed that so far there is no cancer in my lymph nodes. Hopefully I will get the same results in 6 months. Thank you all for your prayers. Prayer is a powerful thing.
Well, my next blog will be my last. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and I will be posting on January 1st to wish you a Happy New Year. Always remember, God loves you and so do I.
A Peek Into Pam’s Closets 