Wish Book

 I was always so excited to get the "Wish Book"!

It was fun poring over the colorful pages and checking things I hoped to find under the tree on Christmas morning.

A friend gave me this fun 1945 copy of the Wish Book a couple of years ago, and I get it out each Christmas season, its fun to look at!

The soldiers were coming home from the War, and I enjoy looking at all the fashion and the children's toys in the catalogue.

Doll house for only about $3.00

Dolls and beds and  for the sweet dolls

Fun farm/Barn sets with animals

Stationery and magazines! A stash of stationery was important back then, people actually wrote letters and sent them.

Suits and ties for the dapper gentlemen

Well, you don't see little girls dressed like this anymore....

Pretty dresser sets, a thing of the past......

dolls in beautiful fancy dresses, I would've loved to have found one of these under the tree!

I hope your Christmas holidays are going well. We have been so busy with trying to get all the presents wrapped up and put into boxes to get them into the mail, we got that accomplished last week.

we have decked the halls! LOL

a towel in the kitchen:

Scenes from our kitchen fireplace mantle

I got these colorful little tin houses in the clearance bins after a long ago Christmas, 3 decades ago. Each side has fun scenes on them! I have some of ours turned sideways and even the skinny sideways scenes are fun.

a tiny pond with skaters swooshing about

A little white tree, and below, a green one, that one belonged to Mr. Front Porches Grandma

And other fun things:

We've been busy with church activities and enjoying Christmas movies:

And we enjoyed seeing the big bright clear beautiful full moon this week!

Its very chilly here! In the 40s is VERY COLD for us here. LOL. Coats and hats are being worn, LOL. I think it was called the Cold Moon, or the Long Nights Moon.

Cozy Hotel lobby

Looking  at some pretty scenes from the  Christmas holiday season:

I love this charming little hotel lobby and love making pictures when places are all decorated for the holidays:

Grab a cozy seat by the Christmas tree or by the fire!

that's the sky up there in this open courtyard! LOL

The hotel lobbies are always decorated so beautifully for the holidays, in Charleston!

Welcome December!

 Goodbye November.

Welcome December!!

John Sloane calendar

Our annual church Thanksgiving banquet was really good!

festive napkins

my arm candy for the banquet, LOL. And my cornucopia pin I only wear a few days each Fall, around Thanksgiving

back home....Thanksgiving day:

Got out our Thanksgiving platter. This belonged to Mr. Front Porch's Grandma, so we treasure it

Mashed taters, gravy, dressing, and the good Sister Shubert rolls.......

Apple pie for dessert:

A long walk through our fields on a crisp November day......

If you've read my blog for long, you know about the tradition my Mom and I had. She brought me this golden leaf from a trip out West many many years ago. She had one identical. Our tradition was we would go get them out and start wearing them every September 1st each year. Every September 1st, one of us would call the other and say " it's September!, did you get your leaf out?"

 I wear mine til the last day of November every year. The longer leaves necklace on the outside of the leaf , my Mom bought for me while out on our very last shopping trip, a memory and a necklace I treasure. We sure had fun that day!

We ended our thanksgiving evening with this movie.

I read this book over the holiday. It was a quick read, maybe two days.

And I had lots of magazines waiting for me in my magazine stack:

Isn't that a pretty tree? very old fashioned with the paper chains. Gosh, I haven't seen paper chains in YEARS....

As you can tell, I sure love magazines! I don't like reading them "online". I like good old fashioned magazines you can hold, flip through, go back to when you want to see something again, and clip out pictures you might want to use. I donate them when I'm done.

So....now it's time, and I've been busy, putting all the Fall decor away, back into the boxes to store til next year.

And the time has come to get out the Christmas things and " Deck the Halls", which we've been busy with the past few days.

How about you, have you started putting up a Christmas tree and/or decorating yet?