I am a winner. Gingerbread house decorating is easy.

So we started with a blank pallet made of graham crackers, lots of candy and sweet, sweet imagination. Then the final products just happened.







As you can tell I am the winner. Carrigan declared it so. She handed me the money took the camera and I walked away with 500 million fake dollars. Emily got second. Too bad. I think my favorite part is the fruit stripe siding and the star roof I made with mini m&m's.



Emily's second place house. It was a nice effort.

Last night Chad took me to support the local arts.

We went and saw a play performed at the Sugar Factory Playhouse.

The play is called “A Christmas Carol – Part II” and according to the program the play "takes a new twist on the Dickens classic tale and discovers that all is not right in Scrooge’s world. In fact, the Spirits are going to have to come back again to get things straightened out. This includes stopping Bob Cratchit from embezzling everything Scrooge owns."

It was surprisingly really entertaining. Don't get me wrong I am not a strong connoisseur of the arts but when we turned down the dirt road leading to what I knew only as an old sugar beet refinery my expectations dropped. To my delight the show was well written with some interesting and humorous takes on Christmas songs/carols and some fun ad lib from the cast.

Since it is small town theater some of the actors lacked depth but seemed to really enjoy themselves on stage. In spite of some of his supporting cast the star of the show Scrooge, also the writer of the play, really kept your attention and regaled the audience with song and dance. His wife played his former fiance, Belle and when they were on stage together you could almost pretend that you were seeing something bigger then the Sugar Factory.

I would recommend the show and actually wouldn't mind seeing it again myself. It was a great way to get into the Christmas spirit and out of the snow.

My Christmas Tree.

I am so excited to have a real Christmas tree this year.

Chad got back from his Thanksgiving/Louisiana trip on Friday afternoon and by that night I was ready to go pick out my tree.

There were a lot of options. Some were too tall, too fat or too short and too skinny. Lots of options but there was only one tree for me. It is almost 7 feet tall and very round and full. It is perfect.

I was really torn on how to decorate but I loved these red ornaments I had seen and it went really well with the cute snowman bell that Chad's mom gave me. I did white lights, tinsel, candy canes, other ornaments and a few Santa ornaments.

I just love sitting on my couch and watching the twinkle lights. What a great season.