Christmas Open House at the Sheriff's House

Every year, Lawrence County Cancer Patient Services has a holiday home tour to raise money for their charitable work. I had been asked a few times to open our home for this, but never felt I had the time or resources to clean and decorate the house to a level I felt appropriate for  this event. I mean, close to 250 people were paying money to walk through our house--there should be something to surprise and delight in every room, right?

Well, this year I said yes, and my sister Dee flew out from New York to help with the preparations. My friend Emily also worked with us every day the week before the tour, and other friends pitched in as well. I borrowed decorations from a lot of people, particularly my mom and sister-in-law Roxie, and bought a very few new things for my permanent collection. Here are a few highlights:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

DD finally made it home from college, and we all had a great time today trimming the tree and putting up decorations all over the house. I love our mantle. I piled all the extra lights that still worked even halfway in a big jumble and then added the stockings and other miscellaneous decorations and voila! there you go.

DD is going to help me fit the back of that jacket and then I can do as you suggested, Angela, and finish the thing and get on with my life. My daughter and I have big plans for this vacation to revisit some other projects. There are any number of them waiting for us, so we'll see what comes out of this midwinter blitz.