My elves---some of them anyway, making their own cheery Xmas Greetings. The ones on the mantal are the Annalee Collection--11 in all--that my daughter Sue began with the snowflake elf [upper, center, white--seems to be dancing!- figure] and my other dtr, Jane, found several on E-Bay, and I have found, even more in various locations, to add to these numbers---all enjoyed by me every year I'm home and able to get them all out of hiding---to dance their cheery faces around my home for the holidays. Happy, Happy Greetings of the Season to All!! 

...here, above the Pisgah Inn, several hundred feet in elevation, spectacular early color!! Including the native rhododrendron with its RED leaves---never seen this before but cousin Mimi says--"oh yes, quite usual at this elevation for the rhodos to have such brilliant fall color!" News to me and such a treat!! 

Mountain Ash---Oct. 1,2006--taken at the Pisgah Inn on the Parkway above Brevard. Most color seen by many of us--this early in the fall-color season here. My cousin Mimi and I got lucky!! And.... 

My winter landscape---and my friends [on the wall--squirrels and Koala Bears--] that greet every visitor to my condo @ Deerlake. Welcome All--come visit--- just make sure I'm really home and not off on a trip!! 

End of season color--still pretty intense. The central tree is a Bradford Pear, planted for its shape and spring flowering beauty, as well as its fall splendor. It's a late-turning variety, so its color lingers after most of the others have finished. 

Greetings of the Season, 2006, from my 'natural' arrangement of greens and berries found here in my 'yard' at Deerlake. Colorful yes?? The base is a swan, if you can't quite tell---altho, now that we no longer have any swans, maybe it should be a goose--because we definitely have lots of the Canadian Geese that now have decided to make our lake their year-round home---whether we like it or not!! 

Xmas 2006--presents go to family but the lit tree remains on top of the 'chess table' that Charles Arthur Forster, my maternal grandfather, made out of scraps of various woods in the 1940's---neat huh??