Friendship is a Gift

Is it just me or is December flying by at breakneck speed? I wish I could slow it down a bit. I wanted to post this last week but had been waiting for a sunny picture taking kind of day and we didn't see many of those last week. Not that I mind because I love a dreary day. The picture above is an early birthday present from my friend Melissa. The girl knows how to wrap a present. She also knows how to spoil a friend.

She also knows how to spoil my girls. It's ridiculous. I love how they think my friends are just their extra Mommies. I also love how my friends think the same thing. For instance, Melissa telling Emma to pick up her snot filled kleenex and throw them away. That's when you know your friend feels comfortable in your house. Or when she falls asleep on your sofa in the evening and snores her way through the movie you're watching. Not that she did either of those things. Or maybe she did.

The point is Melissa and I are like peas and carrots. Or like polka dots and pom poms. Take your pick. I am seriously blessed in the friend department these days and just feeling so grateful for a group of women that get me and are so unique and wonderful.

If you've been around awhile then you know Melissa and I do an annual stocking exchange. We make a stocking every year for each other and stuff it with all manner of pretty things.  This is really great in case your husband forgets to stuff your stocking. Not that mine did that. Or maybe he did.

You can see previous years stockings here, here and here.

This is the stocking I made for her this year. I let myself go a little crazy with the pink because she loves it. Also because I was in a really pink mood this year. I find that it doesn't matter what stocking ideas I have in my head when I start, the stocking ends up being what it wants to be. I sound like a crazy hippy, I know.

 I didn't get pictures of what I put in the stocking but it was all purchased on our trip to Paris and London this summer. There is a lot of one for her and one for me that goes on while buying stocking stuffers. I know that she does the same thing when stuffing mine. So really it's like getting a double gift.

This is the  stocking she made for me this year. Yummy isn't it? Now that we have 4 each some might think it was time to move on to a new tradition. Some would be wrong. I figure by the time I move into the old people's home I will be able to cover an entire wall with stockings.

Look at the vintage chenille liner. Yummy right? And the flower she made to decorate it! Lush! It was stuffed with all kinds of thoughtful loot that I wasn't smart enough to photograph before I distributed it around the house but trust me, it was stuffed to the gills with goodness.

I'm off to make this pie. We were supposed to have friends coming by for dessert and new kitchen gawking this evening but one of them is sick. That's more pie for me I think.