Spreading Holiday Cheer

As I sat down to write this, it occurred to me that I've been playing the clarinet for nearly 2 decades now - that's 2/3 of my life!

I've played in concert bands, marching bands, pit bands, and most recently, a municipal band.

photo via EastonBand.com

One of the things I find most enjoyable is playing Christmas music a nursing homes, which we did this past Monday.

When I was scanning through local news websites yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a nice article on the Easton Patch website about the concert. If you look carefully, you can see me in a couple of the pictures - first row of clarinets, all the way on the right. :-)

Our last concert of the year is at 2:00 this Sunday, Dec. 19 at Lafayette College. Admission is free, so if you're in the Lehigh Valley area and want to listen to some Christmas music, stop on by!

Also, don't forget -‎10 more days left of free shipping on all orders from my Etsy shop! Plus 10% off orders of $20 or more with the coupon code "KITTY10" and 20% off orders of $40 or more with the coupon code "KITTY20"!

Happy Birthday, Frank!

Last night, Glen and I threw a party to celebrate Frank Sinatra's birthday.

Glen came up with the idea back in 2003, our junior year of college, and it quickly became a tradition.

Now every year, on or about December 12, we invite our friends over for drinks, food and music. And since this year the party was the day before the big day, it included a midnight champagne toast in honor of Frank's birthday.

We made sure our bar was fully stocked.


We served some delicious food, including an appetizer wreath...


...and baked brie with walnuts, dried cranberries and cherries, and apricot syrup.


We dressed Elvis in a bow tie and cape...


...and partied the night away. :-)


Now I'm off to finish some laundry, then watch a movie and relax for the rest of the night before another busy work week.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! :-)

Geminids

If you've been reading my blog for awhile now, you probably know that I love staring at the night sky. So far I've had absolutely no luck with the big meteor showers so far this year. It's been cloudy for the Perseids and the Leonids, so my year thus far has been sadly meteor-less.

But I have one last chance: the Geminids.

via Space.com

They're supposed to peak the this year the night of December 13 into the 14th, and I'm hoping the skies will be clear for a change.

I desperately want to stay up late and watch them, but considering it will be mid-December in the Northeast, it's a safe bet temperatures will be well below freezing.

I guess it'd be a good excuse to get out every blanket in the house and bundle up in my back yard with a big mug full of hot chocolate though, right?

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Our house is finally decorated for Christmas!

Yesterday after work I insisted we put up our Christmas lights in between the snow flurries. Glen climbed the ladder for most of it, but I put the lights on the top of the gable. Which is no small feat, since I developed a fear of heights after climbing to the top of the light house in Cape May when I was 14!

Tonight we bought and decorated our tree. This is the first time we've been able to put it right by a window, and I'm pretty excited about that. (Well, we could have done it last year, but I wanted to put the couch in that window nook. I should have followed Glen's advice and put it on the other side of the room. He was right, I was wrong. There, I said it.)

I also put up the stockings on our (currently non-working, but hopefully that will change soon) gas fireplace. Yes, our dog has the biggest stocking. And the little green stocking belong to each of our rodents. What can I say, we like to spoil our pets!

I've been doing a bunch of custom orders for Christmas lately. It's a little crazy trying to balance them with the day job and all the holiday stuff, but it's also a lot of fun! And I'm already coming up with some neat ideas for next year.

This weekend is our annual Sinatra Night - we invite our friends over, get all dressed up and have a big party in honor of Frank Sinatra's birthday. We play Rat Pack music on the record player, and now that my piano is finally in our home I will hopefully be able to play some Cole Porter tunes!

Possibly the best tote bag in the history of tote bags:

I'm not generally one to say I "need" something like a canvas tote bag.

But seriously, I NEED this bag!!!

Also a fan of this one:



I think it's safe to say that just about everything in Book Fiend's Etsy shop is now officially on my Christmas list. :-)