Christmas tree ornaments
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge: #Metallic Taste

This is our last color challenge for 2021 and we’re going out with a bang—metallic! Just in time for holiday decorating. Nothing says festive like silver bells, gold stars, and coppery tree ornaments. If you decorate a Christmas tree, I imagine you’ll find a few metallic objects readily available to photograph.

Christmas tree ornaments

As for “metallic taste” in my title, I hope you get the reference to decorating, although this challenge does not have to include décor in any way! I always leave the theme to your clever imaginations. There is something metallic in each image shared today.

My Festive Bon-Bons

Marsha’s Writer’s Quotes Wednesday challenge is “festive,” and I’m keeping it so with all this metallic “color!”

Festive Bon-Bon Banner

Today, I am also participating in a seasonal link-up challenge “Festive Bon-Bons,” co-hosted by Deb’s World, Retirement Reflections, and Women Living Well After 50.

Following are a series of questions and answers describing my bon-bon preferences.

“I love Christmas, because I can point and scream, ‘HO! HO! HO!’ and claim I was just being festive.”

Unknown

Christmas Favorites

Christmas Tree – do you have one, when does it go up, who decorates it, is there a theme or is it miss-matched? This year, our tree was finally put up after 12 years of languishing in its box. I started putting each branch together on this 9-foot tree before Thanksgiving at the end of November. It was up and decorated by Dec 1st! With a larger home, I have a second, smaller tree in our family room.

2021 Christmas Tree

“Colored lights blink on and off, racing across the green boughs. Their reflections dance across exquisite glass globes and splinter into shards against tinsel thread and garlands of metallic filaments that disappear underneath the other ornaments and finery.”

Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

I also love to decorate for any holiday. Here are some metallic Christmas decorations in the house…

metal Christmas decor
faux holly

Swirls of antique stained glass, blazes of brass, forests of carved wood and waterfalls of crystal combine to make up the city’s most fabulously festive interior.

Mimi Sheraton

Christmas traditions? If I’ve learned anything about holiday traditions is that they are not always “traditional” in the sense of the word. When my girls were young and went to their Dad’s home on Christmas Day, we celebrated on Christmas Eve with my family who would travel from San Diego to Sacramento each year. On Christmas Day we went to the movies! When I met Hans in 2009, we traveled each year to San Diego where both sets of families resided, until 2020, when we moved to Washington.

patiently waiting for Christmas in San Diego
Christmas in San Diego, CA means a trip to the beach

This year, new traditions are being made.

Last Sunday a local bar sponsored a Christmas Tree Lighting event in our town square area. Vendors sold holiday goodies including hot cider. We needed it while we strolled in the 24F temps before the tree was lighted.

Tree lighting selfie
Christmas Tree Lighting Selfie

We hope this is an annual event and the beginning of new holiday traditions. Now that we are connected to the school district with our part-time substitute jobs (me teaching and Hans maintaining facilities ), we learned of a special concert performed by the high school band/orchestra this week. A free concert featuring Christmas music on a public school campus? Yes, please! Other local events are coming up as well as family events. A definite festive start to December, with snow on the ground for seasoning!

Christmas memories? Keeping things in the present, December 14th marks the day we landed in Spokane, WA in 2020 and started a whole new life. How has it been a year already? We spent a quiet Christmas with my brother-in-law while we stayed in his home for a few weeks. We enjoyed a nice meal and listened to German Polka music and other Christmas songs. With just the four of us (covid restrictions were still in full swing, preventing families from gathering comfortably) it was mostly quiet. On Christmas night it snowed, and I was amazed how much light reflected off the snow.

Bright Snowy Night
Late Christmas Night 2020

Christmas Entertainment

Christmas carols – yes or no, faves? Traditional or modern. YES! My love for music is in my DNA. I enjoy just about every Christmas carol and hymns. My Spotify playlists featuring Christmas songs are quite extensive and include traditional pop, quiet instrumental, and music associated with movie themes. As many of you may have read, I hosted the Holiday song lyric photo challenge last week and learned a few new songs from other Sunday Stills participants! Of course, I love “Silver Bells” and Lindsey Stirling’s violin version of “Celtic Carol,” but I also love Josh Groban’s theme song to Polar Express.

Christmas books – any faves you want to tell us about? My reading preferences are extensive but for Christmas, I enjoy a good Debbie Macomber novel, and Mrs. Miracle novels come to mind.

Charlie Brown Christmas

Christmas movies – any you watch year after year? We are Hallmark Channel Christmas movie watchers and are thankful we can enjoy these through our satellite TV, since our internet is too inconsistent to stream video for now. I enjoy the Jim Carrey version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but the original TV show version of The Grinch never fails to make me weep as the townspeople of Whoville gather and sing, even without their presents and feast. And it’s not Christmas if I miss A Charlie Brown Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (TV shows).

Holiday Food

Expanding on new traditions, I got a stand mixer for my birthday. I have witnesses now that I made my first pumpkin pie in it!

Stand mixer

Christmas cake – yes or no? Nope, just in case you mean fruitcake.
Chocolate, nuts or fruit? Chocolate. Any. Time. Of. Year
What’s on the table? We are heading to a huge family Christmas Eve feast!

Metallic Holiday Decor
My sister-in-law’s festive table with metallic candlesticks

At the End of the day…All I want for Christmas is… normalcy. We are getting there.

Photo Challenges this Week

Each week I am inspired by my fellow bloggers’ photo challenges. I find it fun to incorporate these into my Sunday Stills weekly themes. In addition to Festive Bon-Bon Challenge and Marsha’s WQW challenges, I want to share my sincere thank-you to Dawn at The Day After for her many weeks of hosting 2021 Festival of Leaves. She shares a great wrap-up.

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

The Sunday Stills weekly challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post.

  • Please create a new post for the theme or link a recent one.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Title your blog post a little differently than mine.
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post. I also recommend adding your post’s URL into the comments.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.

Musical Earworms Left By Last Week’s Bloggers

Sunday Stills is a wonderful community of bloggers and photographers who desire to connect with one another. Below are the last week’s links from bloggers who shared their favorite holiday song lyrics with photos.

Always Write

Beach Walk Reflections

Bushboys World

Calling All Rush Babes

Cats and Trails and Garden Tales

The Day After

Deb’s World

Easin’ Along Image shared in comments

Equipoise Life

Graham’s Island

Hugh’s Views and News Image in Comments

Light Write Life

Loving Life

Musin’ With Susan

Natalie the Explorer

Priorhouse Blog

Retirement Reflections Image shared in comments

Stevie Turner

The Southwest Rambler

Travel With Me

Travels and Trifles

Wind Kisses

Woolly Muses

Working on Exploring

Next Sunday, Dec 19th will be the last post of 2021 as I take a short break for the holidays. Please join me as we “light the night!” Sunday Stills will be back on January 9th with a look back on your photography highlights and your 2021 year in review.

treesignatureholidays

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104 comments

  3. What a joyful and colourful post Terri. We have a new tradition since moving here – a beach walk on Boxing Day – didn’t happen last year because of lockdown and being asked to ‘stay at home’. Let’s hope it’s not raining!

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  6. You’ve managed through your huge life changes with grace and humor Terri. What a year you’ve had! I love your snow pics but that’s as close as I want to be to the great-to-look-at, no-fun-to-drive-in stuff!!! Happiest of Christmases in your new home- your tree is glorious!

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    • Aww, thank you Tina! What is life if it is not a head-scratcher sometimes? We’ve enjoyed nearly every moment and we are “old’ enough to take things one day at a time and not freak out (like I did as a younger woman). I turn the tree lights on all day, I missed having them so much!

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  8. A lovely festive collection of photos. We don’t do much here and I might be working on Christmas Day! Won’t know until we get closer. When I was a kid we did the whole Christmas thing and so, years later, when I was looking for a recipe for Christmas pudding. I asked my mother, thinking she must have a family recipe. Here response was, ‘Oh, I just get one from a magazine.’
    Here’s my non-Christmassy offering this week: https://grahamsisland.com/2021/12/12/abstracts-wheel/

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    • Thank you, Graham! Too bad you may have to work on Christmas but I’m sure you will make the most of it and the tourists will love it. Too funny about the pudding recipe! Traditions are what they are, in the long run 🙂

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  9. A beach outing tradition still happens down here but not quite as consistent as I’m further away from the sand these days; I’ll get down there between Christmas and New Years. Sometimes I have company and other times it’s a solo trip. Love the colorful photos and visit with your reflections of the big year of changes. Looking forward to more challenge prompts in 2022.

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  10. It’s such a festive time of year, Terri. Last year I gave all my colorful Christmas decorations to my daughter for her tree, so I now have a theme – silver and gold (and clear). 🙂 It was fun doing something different this year. Beautiful photos and I shivered at those temps! But the tree-lighting looks like it was loads of fun. Happy Holidays.

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  12. Terri, I love your collection of photos and all the love and good times they represent. Glad I am not the only crazy person who puts up more than one tree. Tonight we will walk Memorial Park downtown to enjoy their light display. Of course, the temperature will be in the 70’s, but that’s okay. It still feels like Christmas is in the air.

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    • Thank you, Suzanne! I was quite excited to even think of putting up two trees, although the second one is much smaller and pre-lit! Your walk downtown tonight sounds amazing especially with the 70 degree weather and Christmas doesn’t care what the weather is like! Enjoy!

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  13. Your lovely photos are uplifting, Terri. I love your tree! Sad to say, the Christmas spirit has been lacking in our home the last few years, though we did go to a truck parade and plan on an evening to check out holiday lights- maybe on Christmas night 🙂

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  18. I do love a Christmas concert, Terri. And my tree is a fraction the size of yours but I love the ornaments I put on it. I keep turning to have another look. Wishing you a fabulously festive Christmas this year.

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  21. Terri,
    Your Christmas Tree is so lovely, and the snow scene is so peaceful that you’ve put me solidly in the Christmas spirit for 2021. Thanks! We always went to movies with our kids when they were living with us and I miss that tradition. May have to resurrect that one–I want to see the new Bond flick before it disappears from the big screen. My contribution is a metal Christmas Tree that sits in the RV Park in our Snow Village. Helen and I have had it for so long, we can’t remember where it came from. All the best to you and Hans for a wonderful Christmas in your new home. Joe

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  24. Hi, Terri – Thank you for joining us at #festive_bonbon. I greatly enjoyed learning even more about you through your answers. And has it really been a full year since you moved to Washington?! It seemed like just a few months. Where did all that time go?! For this week’s metallic challenge I went with a ‘night before Christmas’ vibe from our local historic gardens. Their warm inviting decorations made me want to have Christmas there! https://www.instagram.com/p/CXZzPCOPES2/

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  36. So many great memories, Terri and you are creating fabulous new ones too! Metallic is such a perfect color challenge this time of year. Everywhere I look, it seems I see the glint of silver or gold. I love the picture of the girls at Crystal Pier – very SoCal. I’ve always wanted to stay in one of those cabins… have you?

    I really, really meant to get this posted yesterday, but… oh well.

    Metallic Bonbons

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    • Today for your post is fine, Janis! I also missed the Bon-Bon link up–they closed it pretty quickly, oh well. I love that pic of Crystal Pier. My nieces have really grown up since then! I never stayed at one of those cabins, but how fun would that be?

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  38. No beach walks to fit this theme … well, at least that I can remember. Love the modern version of Christmas carols … but the classics also have a place. It’s a Wonderful Life is my fav Christmas movie …. and who doesn’t like Holiday Inn or White Christmas (the movies). Christmas treats? That’s easy – YES!

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    • Great answers, Frank! I would say that for many years, we would walk on the beach in San Diego on Christmas Day. We loved going over to Ocean Beach dog beach and running the dogs around in the 69-70 degree weather. As snow is about to fall here again, I will really miss it again this year.

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  39. I loved reading about your Festive Bonbons Terri, such lovely snow shots and not one but two trees in your new house!! Go you. I can’t believe it’s been a year of moving for you too and time is certainly flying by! Thanks for joining in with us and because of my birthday celebrations I had to miss posting for Sunday Stills this week – sorry!

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  44. You are such an amazing blogger, Terri. I love how you share some personal stories and photos that relate to your theme and also to so many other challenges. You are so supportive of so many challenges. Your posts are fun to read and so bright and beautiful. I love that snow picture. That could be a Christmas card! I was going to say something about horns for Christmas, but decided it did not sound too good. So have a full-life Christmas enjoying every second. 🙂

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  46. It sounds like you have a great Christmas lined up, Terri. Unfortunately, this new variant of Covid is putting a dampener on our Christmas. We’ve already been advised to limit household mixing to just two other households and limit gatherings before and after Christmas. But we’re not going to let this new variant spoil Christmas for us.

    Your Christmas tree looks spectacular. And it must have been so cold walking around in temperatures of 24f. I hope there was mulled wine or hot chocolate on offer?

    Here’s my entry for this week — a memory from seven years ago when we were in New York for Thanksgiving.

    Happy Christmas.

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    • Thank you, Hugh! Hard to believe we are celebrating our second Christmas in our new home town. We love our new traditions and the ability to celebrate with family more often. I’ve heard about the new variant rampaging through the UK. It doesn’t seem as deadly but it still puts a huge strain on the medical system. The image of the tree ornament is adorable, thanks for your contribution! Hope you are enjoying the upcoming holidays!

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  53. I like the first metallic bulb alongside the bells – very festive as it your gorgeous tree. I feel bad for not decorating now – I tell myself “it’s just me” but I think I need to decorate a little next year. Merry Christmas to you Terri.

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  58. Terri = you do such a great job of combining challenges – and this festive post was fun. Has it really been a year? It seems like just a short while when you were sharing about your move but I guess it was Dec 14th (also my brother-n-law’s birthday)
    —
    and like that selfie
    🤪

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