Well, I don't want to speak badly of my family, friends, coworkers, or Santa Claus, but I didn't get a new compost bin, any new magazine subscriptions (except for the Organic Gardening subscription that I can't get them to cancel in spite of my numerous requests as a result of their increase in price), gift certificates to any catalogs or gardening stores, set of hand trucks, rolls of green velcro, packages of rooting hormone, expensive seed catalogs, home-raked pine straw, compost or manure, and I certainly didn't get a truck. However, one night I arrived home from work to find a very large bag of freshly collected pecans hanging on the gate. I live in a neighborhood where you wouldn't really expect a gift bag to still be there if someone left it outside your house, so this little surprise was doubly exciting. It came from a fellow gardener in our new community garden. And then a couple of days after Christmas I got a late present in the mail from my sons. It was a book, The FeederWatcher's Guide to Bird Feeding, which has turned out to be a very lovely book that has given me all sorts of new ideas about attracting birds to my yard. I guess I vaguely, on some level, knew that someone was counting birds, but apparently every year on certain days the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and several other major groups of bird lovers like the Audubon Society and others coordinate their efforts with birdwatchers and birdfeeders all over the continent to identify and count birds. This book draws from the personal experience of all those people to provide firsthand advice about the best practices of birdfeeding. I have learned so much in such a short time by reading this book, and even just by looking at the pictures I've gotten so many ideas. (To tell the truth, looking at some of the pictures makes me feel sort of stupid that I didn't think of some of those ideas myself. Some of the birdfeeder plans seem so darned obvious!) Anyway, immediately after reading this book, I went out into my neighborhood and started collecting discarded Christmas trees (I'm up to 7 now - of course IF I HAD A TRUCK I could have many more) and leaned them against the trunks of my oak and sweetgum and dogwood trees because I didn't have any conifers in my yard and the book said most birds really love conifers. Would you believe that within a couple of hours my yard was filled with birds, including the first woodpeckers I've seen this season - three of them at once? It was amazing. That convinced me I needed to plant some conifers, so I went shopping at Habersham Gardens, where much to my surprise they were having their annual Boxing Day sale which I never knew about before now - everything in the store was on sale, some things up to 75 percent off, and I got some incredible deals including two beautiful shrubs, a juniper salicicola 'Brodie' and a cypress "laredo cadelabra' both of which are supposed to be columnar in habit which is necessary for my small yard. The birds seem to like them already. I also went up to Hastings where they were having a good sale and found a very pretty little eucalyptus whose tag was half broken off but which I think I have finally been able to identify as eucalyptus gunnii. The birds have been landing on it, too, although it's still in its pot as I haven't decided yet whether it's ok to dig up my entire front yard to make an herb garden with this little tree as its centerpiece (I realize it won't remain "little" for long unless I keep cutting it back). And I splurged on a Black Beauty elderberry - also for the birds, I keep telling myself. And I found lots of cabbage and cauliflower and broccoli and rutabaga plants, all of which seemed still to be viable, for pennies, for our community garden, as well as a really healthy-looking thornless blackberry bush for the same place. In any event, I feel like the sale prices I found at Habersham and Hastings were wonderful Christmas presents, and the book my sons sent was a great gardening gift. So although Santa didn't leave me exactly what I wanted, it was still a very good Christmas.

Wow, those are just stunning. I especially like the color on Alexandra, Marie Curie...well, actually all of them! Makes me want to run out and buy some. Do you have a separate rose garden or are they mixed in with other perennials? If you have a group shot I would love to see it. I have stayed away from roses until last year when I broke down and bought Paul's Himalayan Musk because it was on sale and I wanted a good-smelling climber for the deck post. This year I just bought a yellow carpet rose (can't remember the name at the moment), still in the pot waiting for me to decide where to put it. The reason I have been reluctant to buy roses is the JBs. At my old house I had some roses and those little monsters came in droves to feast. Do you have trouble with them or some great way to control the population? One more question...What kind of camera do you use? Those pictures are so clear. I want to replace/upgrade my digital camera for garden shots. Thanks for sharing, Gillian

When DS#1 was about 3 he was curious but afraid of Santa. I had not really introduced him to "the real man," just waited for him to be ready. He never was, he would only wave from a distance. So my father came to our house dressed as Santa, thinking DS would be excited in his own home. Nope. He wasn't afraid, but he didn't care, he just kept asking "Grandma, why didn't you bring Grandpa?" LOL! DS was only really excited when he came back to the door as Grandpa! After that, I just did not encourage or discourage the Santa game to any of my kids. If they talked about him, I asked if they wanted to see him, they would say no. When they made wishes to Santa, I played along, never just killed it for them. But it was never a big deal, we have no pictures and don't wait in line at the mall to see him. I still write from Santa on all their gifts under the tree. I don't put gifts under the tree or in the stocking until the wee hours of Christmas Eve. Why? I guess b/c that's what my parents did, so that's why I do. ;o) Santa is just not a big part of our holiday. I don't know if my youngest ever believed, he is 6 now. When he was 4 I heard a friend's grandma ask him if he went to see Santa and DS told her "You know he's not a real person, don't you?" as if she was very confused. After that, I just focused on telling him not to say that to other kids. I had to remind him again this year that it's a fun game parents play and that it is not nice to ruin the game for other people. I am not sad that my kids don't believe, it just does not matter to me. Creating the illusion never came naturally to me as a parent. If they picked it up from other people and joined it, I went along. If they asked me for the truth, I told them it's a game we play. I could tell them the bit about Santa being in all of us when we give to others. Generosity and compassion are values I try to instill. It sounds good when other people say it. But it's not words that sound sincere when I say it. I respect whatever others chose to do. But I cannot make sense of standing in line to put my kid on a stranger's lap or paying to have his picture taken with a stranger in a costume. I guess I don't suspend the disbelief well enough myself to play it up for my kids. It sounds fun when people leave cookies and make reindeer food and leave footprints... all the games to play it up. But I would feel silly doing it myself. I don't know if I'm coming across the right way, I'm afraid I sound like a Scrooge. I do not judge or scoff at families who get into the whole thing. It works for them, that's great. I just also think we're fine without it. High heels are very popular, too, but I feel silly as heck wearing those, too. ;o) I just can't dress up in something- clothes or ideas- that aren't me without feeling like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not.

I'm glad things are going so well for you! Can't wait to see what you (and your GC) have been up to..