Mini-sneak-peek at part of the July design

Working on the July design for my 12 month calendar 2 days before Thanksgiving and 5 days after posting the "Merry Making Christmas Gift Guide" is really messing with my internal holiday clock!! To top it off, my family is heading for a beach house on the Texas coast for 4 days to celebrate Thanksgiving and relax together - talk about confusing!! Oh, but it gets better - a nice cold front is heading our way and will reach us by Thursday so at least it will be cold at the beach... huh??

Actually, my family went to this same beach house last year for Christmas and it was cold but WONDERFUL! Here's a few photos from that trip...

OK, back to Christmas for just a bit - these days it seems you have to start gathering Christmas stuff well before Halloween if you're going to have a shot and having a decorated house for the season. I'm not quite sure what happened to the days of trudging around in the chilly Texas air looking at Christmas tree lots for a REAL tree on about December the 17th or 18th - but that's how we used to do it. The tree went up about a week before Christmas and we all gathered around and decorated it with one or two colors of glass ornaments, handmade felt ornaments, silver "icicles", and a star on top - that was about it...and we loved it! But hey, I have to admit I love decorating the "new" way too - designer colors, gorgeous trimmings, swags and sparkles and candlelight and on and on...the main thing that will make today's designer Christmas like the spirit of Christmas' past is to have family close by to share the season and to keep God at the center of everything....then no matter how humble or how ornate, the real reason for Christmas is what will shine through in everything you do...

SO, here's a little peek at some of my Christmas decorating goodies I've gathered (not the greatest photo, but you get the gist) - we'll start the decorating process after we return from the beach this weekend - should be fun!