It’s getting all Christmassy around here finally. I’ve been working so hard on my craft room that I really haven’t given much thought to decorating. Plus, I feel like my mojo hasn’t been around since I’m missing a third of my children. It’s just not the same.

But I did do the minimum of decorating, which is the front door (last year I put wreaths in every window and did lights everywhere but this year I don’t care that much. I really only pull all the stops out every other year.)

Do y’all like my new front door? The old one had been battered by the sun and scratched to death by the dumb dog, Margaret Thatcher. I started to refinish it but the glass window shouted “1993!”, so I thought it might be time to be replaced.

The doors in my house are all 8′ tall which is such a pain. Everything is so much more expensive. And front doors cost and arm and a leg to begin with. The cheapest 8′ front door I could find from Home Depot was over $1000! Gag!

But Craig’s List saved me yet again. I found a guy that scours the garbage in new neighborhoods being built and sells the stuff they throw away which is everything that is not the right size or fits the specs.  This door had the handle holes on the wrong side. But instead of putting it in a different house, it was just tossed out. Criminal! So this guy sold me a brand new solid wood door for $300. I had to drive to Houston but three hours in nothing in Texas. Also, the guy wasn’t a killer trying to lure me into his lair. That’s always a worry when you’re a woman buying something from a total stranger.

It did take a bit of finessing to fit into the old spot. The place for the old hardware did not match up to the new hardware. But there’s nothing I can’t solve with a drill and a chisel*. Just don’t look too closely if you come and visit, OK?

Let’s pause a minute to talk about hardware. My house, although only ten years old, was chosen and decorated by someone thoroughly stuck in the mid-90’s.  So all this time I’ve been cursing the brass hardware and thought how nice it would be to replace everything with a nice satin nickel. Only now everything is all shiny and gold again and does that mean all our doorknobs are back in style? Somehow I doubt it but it did give me kind of a mini breakdown when choosing our new hardware for the front door. Ultimately I settled on a finish called “Antique Pewter”. We all know pewter is a dull silver, but this color is just dark brown. That’s it. Plain old shiny brown. Which at first I was disappointed with because, boring! But now I like it because it all blends together and it’s not going to go out of style ever because it’s not in style. You know what I mean? It kind of transcends everything.

I also added our address to the front door because our house number isn’t really visible and I don’t want the pizza guy to get confused. The numbers are just vinyl that I cut out with my sweet Silhouette Cameo. I love that thing.

And I got a  bunch of wreaths because I want to win the wreath wars and no matter how awesome your Christmas wreath is, I have three so–boom–I just won. They’re fake because I’m cheap like that and I don’t want to pony up for new wreaths every single year. I also got them after Christmas last year and they were 80% off. I don’t know if that makes you respect me more or less, but that’s the truth and I love a great deal. A great deal pretty much makes me glow all over with happiness. Shallow, yes, but don’t you feel the same?

If I were truly on the ball I would make some Christmas-themed pillows to put on the rocking chairs on our front porch. But I am not on the ball. So if you feel sorry for me, please bring me some Christmas-themed pillow covers. Ok, that’s all.

*I used to get my husband to do this stuff for me but it was never high on his list of priorities so I ended up nagging incessantly which made both of us peevish, so I just learned how to do everything myself. Yay for YouTube teaching me all the things, without which this house would still be living in 1997.