Getting ready for Christmas!

We were trying to get the ceiling done and the walls painted before we put up our Christmas tree, but the big wind storm on Thursday night had other ideas! We lost power at 11 pm and had branches and pine cone torpedoes crashing around us all night. The next morning, we had a warm, lovely place to go at my mom and sister's house in Edmonds - they had not lost power. So we cozied up and hung out there for a day and a half. We came back to our house for more supplies when the power came back on - yeah!! So we went back to our base camp, packed it all up, and then moved back home. It then took us over 3 hours to figure out that the gas furnace was blowing COLD air!! It was still 45 degrees! We hung in there for a while trying to figure out how to light the pilot light, but that did not work and after a long time on the phone trying to track down a heating repair specialist, we packed it all back into the van and headed back over to Edmonds again, where we stayed until Monday morning - it was like one long party, especially Sunday night. We actually had a grand time, but it was time to go back home when the heating guy finally fixed the furnace.

So, project Christmas began. The popcorn project is now abandoned; the plastic has come down and furniture is going to put in the living room temporarily. We all trouped out and picked out a tree. This is our first Noble fir - it is very different from our usual Douglas fir - very elegant, but quite spare. Later we will get lights on it and then decorate it when we can all gather together this evening. We have never been this late putting up a tree.