Ah Christmas, don’t we love it? Christmas trees, presents, guests, snow. Sounds great doesn’t it unless you are the one decorating the tree, buying the presents, running around after the guests and shoveling the bloody snow for the umpteenth time.

Jeez, I’ve been in Utah for 8 years and I really used to enjoy the snow, what was I thinking! It is pretty though, I live on the side of a mountain and the view is spectacular. Unless it’s completely blotted out by horizontal snow that is.

As for entertaining, well that has it’s upside. I had a cookie exchange last week but added a wine and cheese tasting to it just to spice it up a bit. I don’t know about you but I always thought a cookie exchange was a girlie thing and I figured ALL guys know this. Well apparently not. One neighbor arrived with hubby in tow, I duly passed out the glasses of wine, after a sip the guys says,

“Where’s your Hubby then?” to which I reply
“He’s afraid of so many cackling women and has gone to the movies”

I have never seen anyone chugalug a glass of wine so fast and make a not so graceful exit. Nor have I heard so many women laugh so hard and so long.

Too funny.

Anyway, as for hiding the presents, I didn’t start out to do that, I don’t need to as my rugrats now have rugrats of their own. What I did do though was make a ‘tree skirt’ which will baffle you guys but you girls will know exactly what I am talking about. This has been one of my UFO’s (UnFinished Objects) for about 4 years and I was determined to get it done this year! As there was only 4 days to Christmas I decided not to quilt it on my longarm quilting machine which is an HQ16 (HandiQuilter 16 inch) so just did a stitch in the ditch crosshatch pattern.

Here’s a picture of it finished.

Now as cute as I think it looks, once it is under that tree the presents disappear because of the bright Christmasy colors. I could hide ANYTHING under there, I just hope come Christmas morning we can actually find all the presents.

Anyway, after putting it under the tree and stepping back to look at my handiwork, Dear Hubby comes down the stairs and says,

“You made a blanket for the tree because……….?”

MEN!