Our little shopping spree

A friend of mine from high school owns a home furnishings store here in Des Moines called The Mansion. It is filled with beautiful home accessories, custom furniture, and talented designers. Recently, The Mansion has been running a series of "comment contests" on Facebook. The one that caught my eye was for a $20 gift certificate, or 20% off a purchase, and the question was, "Tell us what you love about holiday decorating." Here was my answer: 

My daughter, now 19 years old, told me recently that one of the things she remembered most fondly about our old house - which was destroyed in the 2008 flood - was the way it was always decorated for Christmas. This touched me, because it was a very small & modest house - not "grand" in any sense of the word. But apparently the holiday decorations, many of which were handmade by her and I, were a big part of her favorite childhood memories. Of course we haven't been able to really duplicate all the things we lost that we had made together, but even with mostly store-bought things I still love making the effort to decorate because I know now that it not only makes it feel like Christmas for *me,* but for her as well.

A couple of days later, I was absolutely thrilled to discover that they had not only named me the winner of that contest, but they had also very generously increased the gift certificate to $100! My daughter, whose sentiments were the core of my comment, also commented on their page and thanked them.   All of this is to be able to share with you that today, we went to their store and were able to choose two very lovely items.  First, Stephanie chose this ceramic trinket box with the sweetest elephant finial: 

   And, my selection was this beautiful blown-glass pumpkin:

What a lovely way to spend some time with my daughter, and a great opportunity to experience my friend's store!