Family Christmas Past

Through the Years...

Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given–when Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes.~ Joan Winmill Brown

What is Christmas?  It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.  It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.  ~Agnes M. Pahro

When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things - not the great occasions - give off the greatest glow of happiness.  ~Bob Hope

Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance - each beautiful, unique and too soon gone.  ~Deborah Whipp

Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. ~ Augusta E. Rundel

Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most. ~ Ruth Carter Stapleton

Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don’t quite know how to put our love into words. ~ Harlan Miller

Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts. ~ Janice Maeditere

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.  ~Alexander Smith

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.  Don't clean it up too quickly.  ~Andy Rooney

At Christmas, all roads lead home.  ~Marjorie Holmes

*Linking to Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday's Letter F!

In My Own Backyard...

The weather has been so beautiful here this week with high temps around 70, bright blue skies and glorious colors all around.  Monday afternoon I stepped out into the backyard with Dracen, the Darlings, and the Canon and tried my best to digitally capture some of that beauty.

Close up of the leaves from a small Maple tree in the backyard...

View from the sunroom...

One of the many big, beautiful oaks that surround us on all sides...

The Darlings in action...

Weathervane atop the well house...

We threw some old squash out over the fence several weeks back and ended up with several gourds that made their way into my dining room to join the others I had already bought since I had no idea I was growing my own...

My knockout rose bush out front is still in full bloom.  If you look through the dining room window you can see it.  I love eating in there and admiring it.  This old dough bowl belonged to my great-great grandmother.  I filled it with a few of my...ahem...many wine corks and some leaves Dracen picked up a couple of weeks ago...

And speaking of Dracen, here he is making his best shot from the trampoline...

Have  you ever seen a bluer sky?  

Another shot of the maple tree...

This picture reminds me of the motto of the preschool both boys attended, "Mighty oaks from little acorns grow!"...

This holly bush grows just outside my bedroom window.  I love the look of the red berries against the orange and yellow leaves...

I'm not sure who's advising whom here but I think this is a frame worthy shot...

I love the speckles on this majestic canopy of leaves...

Kicking up some leaves with sock feet and little paws... 

This shot was taken from the front yard. It's not often I find myself with the camera in hand at the exact same moment heaven is shining its light down like this. I've always found that so magical.  It takes my breath away...

Thanks for joining me for this glimpse of how fall shows out for us here in my little neck of the woods.  I hope it puts on a good show in your neck of the woods too!   


**This post inspired by Mama Kat's writing prompt, "Fall in your neighborhood! Share some Fall pictures that capture the season in your neck of the woods." and Jenny Matlock's  Alphabe-Thursday's Letter B.

The Fairy Princess and the Wiener Shark

"This hat is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not going to look at you!"

"You think you've got it bad?! Hmph!"

"Help!  Somebody!  Anybody?!"  

"Be afraid...Be very afraid!"  

Happy Hallowiener!

A Sunday Drive...

Yesterday we headed up the mountain for a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Our timing was a little late again since many of the leaves have already left the trees up there but I think we still got some pretty good shots...

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.  ~George Washington Carver

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.  ~John Muir

How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!  ~Emily Dickinson

As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.  ~Stephen Graham

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!  ~John Muir

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.  ~Eleonora Duse

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.  ~Henry David Thoreau

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.  ~Stanley Horowitz

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.  ~George Eliot

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love.  For me they are the role model for being alive.  ~Gilda Radner

I talk to him when I'm lonesome like; and I'm sure he understands.  When he looks at me so attentively, and gently licks my hands; then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say naught thereat.  For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that.  ~W. Dayton Wedgefarth

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.  ~Aldous Huxley

*Linking this post up for Anything Autumn with Jenny Matlock!