A Christmasy Day!

Today was a busy, but fun day. I had to work in the morning which surprisingly went by really fast, after work our boss took us for lunch at a local restaurant, called the Windmill.

 Well actually it is a  family owned Country Market, with a gift store, and extraordinary bakery and a little restaurant, that serves breakfast and a hot lunch. The gift store as beautiful things in it, that's for sure. The goods from the bake shop are to die for and you probably just gain five pounds by looking at them, the market place overs fresh local produce and some more European style goods. The restaurant is more like a deli, but very quaint and cosy and the food is always good, homemade soups, great sandwiches and other little goodies. So I enjoyed a quiet nice lunch with the boss and three other co-workers, one of them is our current janitor, Joe. He is usually pretty quiet and silent, but we are slowly bringing him out of his shell and he actually is a fun guy, and best thing about him...he is trainable....so on the mornings we are working we have trained him to have coffee ready for us when we get in, well at least on most days unless he is extremely busy. So that is very much appreciated. I had to laugh at him yesterday, as long standing tradition we always exchange gifts at the lunch, everybody buys for everybody. So Joe being new, didn't know anything about it and at the gift-exchange he was a little taken back that we all had something little for him, and he just looked me and shook his head and said..."that must be a girl thing to do...exchanging gifts"...damn right Joe, and you better be prepared next year if you want to be part of the girls. lol. He really is a good sports and we are lucky to have him, he makes our life with some things so much easier.
After lunch I went grocery shopping to pick up a few items for our Stitching Sister Christmas Evening down at the Centre. We very providing some healthy snacks mostly, of course you can't have a Christmas get together without any cookies or dark chocolate bark, and we had warm apple cider . I got to the centre early to set up all the tables and chairs for that evening, got the lights on, music playing and set the table for the snacks, then I attended the last Zumba class of the session, and it was fun as always. After Zumba I made it upstairs to the Stitching Sisters, who slowly arrived one by one. We were stitching, talking, laughing, exchanging information, munching and just having a great time.

Laura, Kerry and Doris

Tammy, Trina, Patti and Tara

Doris, Pennie's coat, not sure where Pennie went, Trish and Janet

Patti, Tara and Freda

Tammy and Trina...not sure what those two had to drink lol

Sadly we missed a few sisters this year, some of them couldn't come, because they were covered under a deep blanket of snow, others had other unplanned events happening that kept them from attending, and someone didn't get their snowmobile yet.
But those who were there sure looked liked they had a great time. Of course there was the Christmas card exchange, and well let's just say some of them couldn't refrain from making donkey comments in mine....I loved them all....I probably will the cards as Picture of the Day and the remarks inside lol.

And then there was the ornament exchange. This was the gift table before Tammy was playing Santa. Every gift gets a number and every stitcher gets a number and receives the corresponding gift to their number, it works most of the time, sometimes you end up with your own gift, and we will swap a number. Not that getting your own gift would be bad, because I know how many times I like what I made and would like to have one too lol, but that is the rule and the only rule really!

If  you want to see what everybody got, I am sure my friend Jane has the pictures on her blog later on, so go take a look. ( Ooopsy, Jane is having some PC issues lol so no pictures for a while lol....I let you know when they are up lol).Every single one of them was absolutely  beautiful and we were all very happy. Mine didn't turn out to shabby either, but there were a few choice words spoken, while working on it. lol. And I actually got my first cross stitched ornament from the group, lol, the last two years I received both times a beautiful gift from "our" knitter in the group. 

Here is my gift from Janet.

and it came in a little basket filled with all kinds of stitching goodies and some homemade jams. (not including the cat)

 Thank you, Janet

After everybody left shortly after ten, Jane and I stayed back and cleaned up and  we put everything back to the way it was and it looked like nothing had taken place here at all. Thanks for all your help Jane, not just yesterday but all the weeks and months before hand too. Hugs to you!

We also had a special guest, I had picked him up from the post office prior to going down to the centre, and I couldn't wait to get into the box. Topher has arrived safely from Toronto and will be joining all his new donkey friends at my house. Isn't he adorable? Thanks Robin!  I love him!