De-Christmasafied

Am I the only one breathing a sigh of relief that it's over? That there's nary a hint of Christmas in our home? Not a sno-globe or candy cane in sight? Yesterday Shaune and I scrubbed it away, swore if we never heard another jingle bell it would be too soon.

Although there's a lot to do like build an addition on our house to accomodate the stockpile of new toys the kids received from their overly generous relatives, I've decided to sit down, watch the snow finally fall. There's been a lot of visiting and I don't know about you, but I take mine with plenty of breaks in between.

And while I don't like to focus on the material gifts received during the season, I can't help but tell you about the ones that touched me most. Like the toy vacuum cleaner Santa left for Naveen. Only during phases of sleep has he been without it. He walks around all day, holding it lovingly, chanting its name va-koooom.

There's also this drawing from Shaune's sister Katie of our little Naveen. Such a beautiful likeness of our Hoover-lover. She used one of the pictures in this set as her model.

Here's my winter mantle. The plate in the frame belonged to Matthew, just one of his everyday dinner plates. There wasn't much to take, very few memento-like things in the pile of his things in my parents' basement.

I've enjoyed looking at it, thinking about him.

And I'm itching to rearrange furniture, change up the curtains, get a new look. It happens every year around this time, when the rooms look suddenly emptier, cleaner. I see the possibilities again. I bought this beautiful vintage oval mirror (below) for $5 at a garage sale last summer.

And here's the drawing of Deaglan on the other side of the window. Sorry about the blurred photo. Katie did this one three years ago. That lady knows the way to my heart.

See the brass lamp below? I found two of them on the side of the road last year. Yup, garbage-picking. Only, Shaune didn't roll his eyes this time. He kind of liked them. Hello??? What's not to like - they were free! I'm just dying to spray paint them. Maybe the same blue as the dinner plate. What do you think?