O.V. Brantley

One of the highlights of my Christmas season is decorating my Christmas tree. I have collected ornaments for years that commemorate special people and events so it has, in effect, become a memory tree. Decorating my tree brings back fond memories of travel to exotic places, life events like graduations, and, of course, India’s first Christmas.  

This year I decided I should add an extra dose of happiness to my life, so I bought a new tree that is so tall I had to borrow a ladder to put my special angel on top! It took me days and visits to many different stores to find this special tree. The impatient young people I live with were saying, “Can you just buy a tree and be done with it??!!”  Little did they know that the hunt was part of the joy. It is an amazing tree, and every time I look at it, it makes me smile and remember. 

Are you working to find your happiness or do you just expect it to show up? There are a few things in life that happen by accident or luck, but it has been my experience that hard work makes everything happen faster and better.

So this week I share with you another one of my many Christmas quilts called Santa’s Secret Weapon. Besides my amazing Christmas tree, another thing that brings me great joy is my shih tzu Justin. Unfortunately, I cannot report that Justin helps me decorate the tree. Instead he waits for me to hang a special ornament just within his reach which he promptly pulls off the tree!

The beautiful quilting on Santa’s Secret Weapon was done by Janna Bigelow. And in keeping with the theme of this newsletter, I must point out that the dogs are wearing collars embellished with red crystals!