Dear Reader:

Yesterday might have been the Sabbath but it was definitely not a day of rest. I was up early cooking a casserole for our church family Christmas luncheon held at Anne’s this year. Then I was off for the church service I look forward to each year….the service filled with Christmas readings and music….absolutely beautiful music!!! The talent we have in our church is unbelievable starting with our music director Kevin Gossett! *And you should have heard Anne playing the violin…she is so multi-talented…it is unbelievable!

I left the service a little early to go to Anne’s to help set up… plus I had left my Iphone charging at home and definitely wanted to take some pictures…so here they are …Everything was so beautiful using all the plants and blooms indigenous to the lowcountry. The potluck lunch was beyond delicious and richer for the warm fellowship.

Our hostesses with the mostest’s! Mary Lee and Anne!

On the way home from the luncheon Honey called and said she had the “Apple Tree” centerpiece ready and some smilax greenery…could she stop by? “Yes!” I replied…”I am on my way home.” It is amazing what greenery can do to a room and the “angel planter” from yesterday.

*Like Honey said about the ivy…”First year ivy sleeps, then creeps, and the third year it leaps.” (With smilax we are covered while waiting for the ivy to do its thing)*Honey, you just get younger and younger…it must be a magical pineapple or those magical apples! Great picture!

Other examples of smilax changes…

Soon as Honey left Vickie stopped by with Maggie and Fuzz the cat for our daily walk…but not before Vickie showed me her gigantic Christmas cactus. Gorgeous!

When we got back from walking… Fuzz, for some reason, wanted to go home with me so I stayed and petted her on the front porch…then soon as I came back in the house and shut the door she started meowing and I found her peeking through the blinds. Vickie and I aren’t sure what is going on ..She must be warming up to me up for some Christmas treats.

Fuzz had just given up and started trotting back home when the doorbell rang and the best surprise of all…a former student I taught at Alston Middle School (Blair and her family just moved into the neighborhood) arrived with her precious one-year-old twin girls and her husband bearing gifts of gold…fudge...wonderful delicious fudge! Bart, Blair, and the twins…Anna and Delaney. I also got a Christmas card which I will cherish but nothing takes the place of the real things…they are precious!

So until tomorrow…It’s a Wonderful Life!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh