Merry Christmas to our family and friends

Good evening all,
Merry Christmas to you. We hope you were able to celebrate Christ's birth with family. The weather certainly cleared up compared to late last week and the weekend. But our hearts go out to all those who's Christmas travels were interupted or post-poned because of the lousy weather late last week. If you were traveling, hope you were able to do so safely.

The last several years, we've gone out to PineApple Acres in Huntley to cut a fresh Christmas tree for the house. However, since we're outta here just two days after Christmas, we decided there was too much other stuff to do what with work and packing to have the time to take a tree down. Also, we'd probably come home to a pile of needles....the watering probably wouldn't be kept up.
But had to have a tree of some sort. Somewhere around St. Nicholas Eve (12/06-ish), we were decorating and had HGTV (Home and Garden TV) on keeping us company. They showed a really simple way of making a Christmas tree. We tried it for ourselves and whaddya know, it really really worked. Here is a photo. We'll give your three guesses as to what the framework is.
Nope..........Nope..........oh, sorry, your third guess is missed the mark too.
We took a tomato cage, turned it upside down and tied the legs closed at what became the top. We then took some artificial garland that already had lights on it and wrapped it around the inverted cage, tying it off in strategic spots. Do you recognize what the 'ornaments' are? MARDIS GRAS beads !! And of course, had to have something at the top, so we put a bow up top. Worked out great, don't you think? It sits nicely on the piano in our livingroom.

Well, we've got a relatively decent start on packing. Wednesday is going to be a full day though. Pam has lots of work to get done at the office. Gene has an interview with a recruiter in the morning, then headed into Pam's office to help out. We did though, carve out time in the late evening to go get manicures and pedicures. Still, it's going to be a late night packing I'm afraid though.

Plane takes off at noon Thursday. Got our noise cancelling headphones and neck and lumbar pads. We're really looking forward to getting this trip underway. Just afraid now that it has arrived, it's going to fly by.

Once again, Merry Christmas everyone. Good night.