A Saturday Shopping Excursion; Decking the Halls?

Are you almost ready to Deck the Halls?  I confess that I am actually feeling anxious to start getting my Christmas things out, even though I usually don't start until December 1st.

This year I told myself that I could start earlier, but I'd still have to wait until after Thanksgiving.

That, however, didn't stop me from picking up a few things today in anticipation of my holiday decorating. Erik and I went to do some rare weekend grocery shopping (I almost never go grocery shopping on a weekend; I value my sanity too much!). We also stopped in at one of my favorite stores, Stein's.

I had noticed that they were already having sales on holiday decor items. Christmas ribbon was already 50% off, so I picked up these three rolls for a couple of projects I'm planning on doing. I also bought those two big red ball ornaments on sale. I have a plan for those; they are going to be part of my outdoor display. My outdoor display is a work in progress and I'm gradually adding elements to it. The reason my outdoor holiday display has been so shamefully neglected for the last 4 years is that up until last year, we had no outdoor electrical outlets. Yes, that's right. None.

When our house was built in 1886, they didn't have electricity yet in our town, so our house was gas-lit. Electricity came to Waukesha in 1890, but our house did not get converted to electricity until probably about 1920. The garage, which was built sometime between 1929-1934, was wired for electricity, but it was never updated and never replaced with modern wiring, so currently our garage has no electricity. Nobody ever bothered to have any outdoor electrical outlets put in either, so we finally had an electrician friend install one for us in the summer of 2009. Which is why we never bought any outdoor Christmas lights until last year and hence, why I haven't done much with outdoor decorating.

I also found this silver cup thingy for $1.99 and thought it would make a perfect little stand for a black and white carpet ball. It looks very cute on the coffee table next to my black candle stands.

They also had these paperwhite bulb kits on sale and I've always wanted to try these out for myself, so I bought one. It comes with the green pot which I did end up using. I was looking for something else a little fancier that would be suitable, but didn't find anything that I already owned that would work. Maybe I'll tie some white ribbon around the pot and make it look more stylish!

We also bought some corn cobs for the squirrels (and that's a squirrel feeder upside down on the bottom of the box). We have lots of squirrels in our neighborhood and I see them often in my yard and on top of our garage roof. We have several albino squirrels around too. I don't have a problem with squirrels; sure, they dig around in my flower pots and flower beds on occasion, but they've never wrecked anything and I figure they have just as much right to be here as I do. After all, we're all God's creatures, great and small. Besides, Olive and E.B. (the cats) love to watch the squirrels out the window and I know they get such enjoyment from that.

Erik persuaded me to pick up some ornaments for my next year's theme tree; we saw the most beautiful peacock theme tree and of course, we all know that I have to have a peacock tree! I normally wait until after the holidays to get my ornaments for the next year's tree because I can get ornaments usually at 70-80% off, but as I said, they were already having a sale right now, so I picked up a few. Admittedly, when I wait until the January sale, everything can be fairly picked over. Erik said that it would be smart to get some of the prettiest ones right now because they probably wouldn't have any of these left in January.

And this is going to be the tree topper:

Now, of course, looking at these pictures makes me want to get my Christmas trees up!
I'll be linking this up with The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays!