Frigid Thursday.........

The colors of Christmas are so great but with the trees it is all about the shine.  That sparkle you get with the reflections, double and triple the amount of light coming off of the tree. A simple set of white lights thumbtacked to the facing board of my front door outside makse the decoration look professional.  It really isn't, but the rows of light around the door makes it look like a magical entry.

The shine on the older glass balls make them just as good as if they were brand new.  A select few of these are Shiny Brite ornaments, collector items for some. The others in the jar, which are just as old, are  not Shiny Brites. I display them all in the antique canning jars. With the jars having lids, they stay in storage in the jars year round. It makes it an easy declaration to put out each year.

Ornaments that remind us of our now gone pets are hung with mixed feelings. Button's ornament will always be on our tree at Christmas time.

Other ornaments remind us of present and past people in our lives.  The boys have ornaments with their names printed on them made by their aunts. Baseball bats with Andy and Aaron printed on them still hang on the tree. I have a fisherman and fish that was given to me that always reminds me of my Dad.

Our Yellow Kitty has been gone 5 or more years but her ornament will always be hung. We have a lot of ornaments that have history of our trips to Kansas Cith and it is fun to put them up each year.

No ornament is ever purchased at full price by me.  It is a rule that I use.  Ornaments on sale can get to be almost free at certain times of the season. I guess that is sort of the game that I like to play. The true glass blown ornaments like this are hard to find now.  They are bit made of plastic and painted to look like the glass blown ones..  I will make a trip in to a couple of stores that we normally do not shop but have hight end products. They may still be selling them after Christmas.

This feeder took a hit yesterday by one of my squirrels. His excitement and energy broke up the one side of this feeder.  It was already damaged on the other side but now this won't be used as a feeder ever again.  My wife bought this as a gift many years ago so maybe I can ask for a new one for Christmas.  I thought maybe that I got a shot of a junco bird in the foreground, but I think it is a sparrow.

It was -2 F. this morning.  It is a challenge for our old heating system on days like this.  We are comfortable but we do add extra heating devices to help out certain rooms.  The windchill last night while walking Barney tried to take off my face.  I have an old stocking hat of the boys where the hat is pulled down over you head and the eyes and nose have openings.  I will look stupid but maybe  at night I can try using it.
I hope everyone is safe out there.  Be careful.   Thanks for stopping by today.