My plan this year was to go with “Christmas Lite.” After having moved into this house a few months ago I didn’t want to dig out all the decorations, and with plans to travel over the holiday, I didn’t feel a great need to go to great lengths to get it all done.

But then December happened.  And so did this.

I couldn’t stop myself from bringing at least some of it out, much to my husband’s relief.  At one point he casually mentioned that perhaps there were two people in the house (yes, we consider our Lab to be a person) who still wanted it to look like Christmas, and usually relied on someone else (that would be me), to make it happen.

How could I resist?!

Another tradition that couldn’t go by the wayside was my traditional gift to family and neighbors of homemade english toffee (affectionately known as Christmas Crack) and spiced pretzels, tucked into a gift bag with a kitchen towel and presented with lots of tissue paper, curling ribbon, hand-crafted gift tags and an ornament.  This year I tried my hand at sea salt caramels to add to those bags.

So, Oops!….although I should have had plenty of time to get it all done, our Christmas cards will end up being New Year’s cards this year….no surprise to anyone who knows me well. Hmmm….perhaps if I hadn’t taught myself how to make caramel this month, on a whim, things would have turned out differently. But they didn’t, and although I always have the best of intentions I can count on one hand the amount of years I’ve ever mailed them in December.

You’d think I’d just buy New Year’s cards to begin with.