Winter Joy

2017 has finally arrived! With it comes the promise of wonderful days ahead since with this year we begin a new nine year cycle in the world of numerology. To add to the fun, we are just now out of the mercury retrograde and all planets are moving forward!
The store was quite busy throughout the holidays leaving me with no time to blog in between all of the extra holiday activities like cookie baking, holiday cooking and of course decorating the house and tree and wrapping gifts. This year I came up with the brilliant (and yes, lazy) idea of wrapping the boxes that came in through the mail of the the things I ordered. The heavier boxes served to keep the tree skirt in place from frisky cats looking to explore.
For Yule gifts this year I made my friends some body scrub using salt, coconut oil, peppermint and some dried mint from this summer's garden. I topped each jar off with a festive cotton top that was peppermint material.http://willowandsage.com/. It is my favorite magazine for finding some terrific ideas and recipes. I like the recipes I find because they are quite simple and easy to do, plus the magazine is a visual feast.

I got the recipe from the magazine "Willow and Sage".
I put away the Yule decorations leaving out my snowmen and deer. I redid the mantle over the fireplace and added some deer to the other forest creatures on the mantle. I added some lace snowflakes which I made on my embroidery machine. They look nice scattered along the garland. I love setting the house up in it's winter decor. The decorations add a feeling of coziness and warmth to the house. We do keep our Yule tree up through January because I like the look of the yule tree. It is decorated with owls, birds, foxes, pine cones and snow flakes. Wishing you all the joys of Winter!