The love remains...

On Saturday evening, I lugged all of the Christmas decorations up from the basement... My plans were to spend Sunday decorating the house, except for the tree. That would be decorated later this week when both girls are home for Thanksgiving...

(click any photos to enlarge)

Spotty, Christmas 2008

Sometimes life makes other plans for us....

Instead of decorating the house, Sunday was spent saying goodbye to our sweet, sweet Spotty...

The cat who was more like a dog and who so loved Christmas...

Everyone loves to decorate the tree, but he was the only one who stuck it out with me last year for the undecorating of the tree...

He was the one who sat next to me while I crafted ornaments last year....

...and he was the one who would sit in the living room with me and get lost in the beauty of the Christmas tree....


...or give me advice if he thought decorations needed rearranging...


He'd also let me know when it was time for the decorations to come down so that his kitty cushion could go back into the living room window, his favorite place to hang out...

I think it was a blessing that all of the decorations had already been brought upstairs. It's kept me busy, unpacking these once a year treasures... And all the while my heart is warm with the memories of the cat who loved Christmas...

At some point in the future I plan to do a proper tribute to Spotty, sharing some of our sweetest memories and photos...

But for now... You took a piece of our hearts with you, Spotty, but we are so grateful that all the love remains...

Donna