A place for everything, and everything in its place

Here's a fun little twist on the "open the window" Advent calendar...a three dimensional house with...that's right...windows.

Here's what's good about these houses: They can sit out on any horizontal surface (no wall space needed).

Here's what's bad about these houses: They can sit out on any horizontal surface (and the cats are likely to knock them down 6 times between now and December 25).

This all sort of assumes that you actually HAVE some open horizontal surfaces available, and as Christmas draws nearer and nearer, the open space dwindles.

The open space dwindles because all of the "required" Christmas decorations are coming out and being placed in their normal, required, every - year - that's - where - we - put - it places. The tree goes where the tree always goes, the tall gold angel goes on the book case, the snow globes go on the fireplace...even the stockings get hung in the same order. Santa probably would get the presents mixed up if we hung the stockings in the wrong order!

For years, Dave had a pair of large "floor speakers" (remember those?) for his stereo system. Roughly a 12 x 18 inch footprint that by necessity were within about 12 feet (wired) of the stereo cabinet. Those speakers were sort of a pain in the neck 11 months out of the year, but in December they became very useful...two more horizontal surfaces for placement of Christmas decorations.

One was for the little white wooden Christmas train. The other was for a white ceramic angel.

Several years ago, Dave ran all the music through the computer system, miniaturized the speakers, and I still haven't figured out where to put the train or the angel...