Life lately

Life lately for me has been BUSY!  Last week we had two craft nights at Branch and Bloom (one with 50 people!), I hosted a Tree lighting party at my house and I coordinated the luncheon for the annual garden club greens sale.  I am exhausted just typing all of that!!

Last Wednesday I hosted a tree lighting party at our house.  We watched the Rockefeller Center Tree lighting together and it was so fun!  It was a great way to kick off the season! Graig was reffing a basketball game and I thought having a party with all my friends would be way more fun that watching alone and it was.  Almost everyone I invited was in NYC with us last year when our tree was lit.  

This year I put up a small two foot free in our dining room and I put all of our Rockefeller center ornaments on it.  We got a lot last year and my plan is to get a new one for us every year.  

Last week I also helped decorate two trees for The Festival of the Trees that was held in our town.  This event was brand new this year and it was great.  Businesses, organizations and community groups were asked to decorate Christmas trees. I helped with the Garden Club tree and we used poinsettias to decorate our tree.  My fraternity and sorority students did a tree with a Disney theme.

I won the Ommegang tree which is a brewery in our town. Here is a picture of the tree I won.  It was amazing!  It was filled with wine cork ornaments and beer bottle cap Christmas trees.  I saved a few ornaments from the tree for our tree and then I donated it to charity because I don’t have the space for another tree in our house.  

The Garden Club Greens sale was last week.  The Greens sale is the biggest fundraiser for the Garden Club all year. The members spend all week making wreaths and arrangements then on Friday we have an event where everyone can come and buy our creations.  Here are a few things our members made at the sale. 

Friday night I had my monthly craft night for Branch and Bloom.  We made personalized wooden signs.  They turned out really cute and it was a great night!

Saturday I marched in the Christmas parade with my students and friends to support the Shoeboxes for Seniors campaign.  My dear friend Lisa is organizing the effort in our town to have people donate shoeboxes full of small gifts for senior citizens.  This is the first year and we marched in the parade to raise awareness for the effort.

After the parade Rachael and I raced over to the Performing  Arts Center to teach a wreath making class for 50 people!  This was our biggest class yet for Branch and Bloom.  We spent ALL week organizing this class and collecting greens for the wreaths and it was exhausting.

 Thankfully everyone had a great time and we have already been asked to do the class again next year!!

We like to take pictures of all of the people in our craft class but this class was so big we took a few pictures of some of our participants when they were done with their wreaths. 

Last weekend Ava was in Vienna Austria for the Christmas markets.   I got these pictures from her host Mom.  I’m so glad she got to visit a Christmas market. Everyone I’ve talked to about them says they are magnificent and a must see at the holidays so I’m thrilled she got to go to one. 

Happy Thursday!!