Happy Wishes For The New Year

Once again a new year is upon us and another holiday season comes to a close. It truly feels like just yesterday that Miss. Ginger was helping me decorate the tree (she's in the chair, directing), as I was nursing a dislocated wrist and needed all the help I could get what with Mr.24 being out of town and us hosting Christmas Eve dinner...it was quite the adventure, but we managed beautifully.

Miss. Ginger was in charge of guarding the hooks and making sure I picked the proper ornament placement.

I wish she had helped me with the lights, as that took several days and six tries at getting it right. The old lights kept shorting out the new, very frustrating...and there were several midnight runs to the local drug store for new lights (love that they stayed open so late,!). The clerk started teasing me a bit with each visit...but finally, by 3am, they were done, we were supposed to get snow the next morning and I just didn't want to have deal with it then (we got snow)...and now we could decorate since the lights were up and behaving.

 Ginger hung in there like the good little elf that she is, but after a while...

she needed her nap.

She did wake up every now and then to make sure I was staying on task...and thank heavens she did, who knows what I might have put on the tree if she hadn't.

 Once the tree was complete...it was on to other fancying up chores.

 The table needed setting...

 Limpy needed a little antler décor...

 And a few other touches were made (I might just keep the tree in the fish bowl...kind of like it).

(We're babysitting my father-in-laws furniture for the time being...without it, sitting would have been a bit tricky.)

 And then we were ready for the crowd. I wish I had more pictures to share, it got pretty busy. We made Barefoot Contessa's Beef Bourguignon, it was heaven...seriously, lusciously heaven. We tweaked the recipe a bit and it was perfect (longer cooking time, less burgundy-just 2 cups, and less salt)...so good served over German dry potatoes (dry so they can soak up all the yummy goodness.)

And joy of joys, with all that busyness going on, my dislocated wrist actually popped right back into place, and I was thankfully able to enjoy the festivities without any pain.

Now I can receive the New Year with two open, welcoming arms instead of one...and no cast (thought it was broken initially).

Happy New Year wishes to all...may your 2014 be blessed, and filled with the 'Happy' part every step of the way.

Thank you for always checking in on my sporadic blog...I appreciate your visits so much and hope to be spending more time visiting you and blogging in the new year...one of those resolutiony things.

♥