Sunday, December 16, 2007

A Christmas Package and a Christmas Outing

Woohoo! Look what I got in the mail on Friday!



This was my Knitty Sno-flake Swap from Holly and I love it! First and foremost is some absolutely lovely Merino-cashmere yarn (240m - someone give me some ideas of what to do with it!), one of my favourite Christmas movies - 'Love Actually,' a snowman ornament, lots of chocolate (Yeah, Willow has laid claim to most of that), some Christmas-y votives, a lovely-smelling sachet (lavender?), and she even sent some stuff especially for Willow (the stickers and the snowman pencil). Holly, thank you very much!

Last night we went to Longwood Gardens with our friends Asami, Gara, and Ray - and met some new friends, Doug, Yuko, and Chura. Longwood Gardens has a magnificent Christmas tour and it is a popular destination this time of year.

Please excuse the outside pictures - my camera was low on batteries and wasn't too keen on focusing for the outside shots. They have huge trees lit up all over the place and it looks like a fairy wonderland:



Another blurry shot:



This room was set up for a party in what I could only assume was a theme inspired by the with in "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe":



This was the Christmas tree opposite the dining table:



This was the prettiest poinsettia I saw all night - it was called a "Cinnamon Star":



This ball is a Christmas cactus and it was easily four feet across:



I could have taken pictures all day in the orchid room, but the 5 year old whining to get picked up and the dying camera batteries were against me. Still, I did manage two nice shots:



Truly, if you love orchids and are traveling through southeast Pennsylvania, you have to stop here.



This one. Hmm. Those people for whom this shot is intended know who they are...



Willow and I in our hand-knitted finery (me in my Calorimetry and Willow in her Nippertails (and as usual, Willow has her eyes closed.)



And our walk back out:



We all had great fun and it was a beautiful night to walk around. We all went back to Asami's place afterward and she made the most delicious curry rice... just the thing to warm us up after a cold night out.

6 comments:

Zonda said...

Nice goodies there! Beautiful pictures of those plants!!

Batty said...

Nice goodies, and what a wonderful garden experience! The decorations are amazing, so festive and colorful. We have one of those poinsettias at our office, but someone forgot to water it. It looked incredible the first time around, but now... well. It looks better since we removed the wilted leaves!

Unknown said...

Beautiful plants! And Love Actually is such a cute movie. Love it!

Shan said...

Mmmm, curry rice! And I LOVE that cinnamon star poinsettia. I always think the red ones are best but then I see the pink and go all drooly.

Holly said...

Longwood Gardens looks lovely! Enjoy your goodies. HOw about Branching Out for that yarn?

LadyLungDoc said...

You should knit something you will wear right up against your skin with the yummy yarn - like a cowl.