Santa & His Elves Cocoa Party

I love having parties! 

We invited our neighbors kids over this morning for a little cocoa party to bring them

 Christmas cheer before Christmas Day. These kids are adorable!

 Freckles has been babysitting them for this last year. 

We wanted to make it a special time for them.

 We decorated the table all fancy with Santa mugs and elves

 (who were on there best behavior today)

 and wintery things.

 We added English Christmas Poppers and paper crowns..

.Snow donuts, cocoa, chocolate chips, sprinkles and marshmallows to top it off.

It was fun...Even though they only lasted an hour...

But it was a fun, festive hour.

Red And White Christmas

This is years in the making. My collection is ever growing. I guess I have a thing about red and white Christmas decorations. Here is our dining room. I mainly focused on this area this Christmas since we will be planning one more move soon..

Finally...

What a blessing to finally get a bunch of rain. If you didn't know...California was hit with a very bad dry drought spell. Everything was dying, it had been hot and the reservoirs were dried up. Any little bit of rain we got many months ago only lasted a day and was not enough to water or fill up anything. It was getting to where we couldn't use as much water to wet the grass and stuff. The Lord is good...It has been pouring cats and dogs for a couple days now...Just what we have desperately needed around here. It has also cooled down, yet we have had to endure high humidity which makes you feel warm and as if you were in a sauna. It has been nice...Listening to the rain on the rooftop, coming down, snuggled up in some cozy slippers and an afghan, sipping a nice cup of chai tea with marshmallows on top in a Santa mug. Yeah...Now that's what I'm talkin' about!!!

I know some people dread the rain...Not me....It has been so nice. Reminds me so much of back home, in Washington. Sure it rains and snows there, but boy is it beautiful and green there. I miss it quite a bit at times. I miss having snow every year. I loved watching my kids play out in the snow and have a snow ball fight or build snowmen....Or to open our mouth and let the snowflakes fall tight in. Well anyway. The rain is a good thing around these parts. Now it's time to deck the halls and start the baking and making.