Tis the Season Blog Tour!

I am so excited to be a part of the Tis the Season Blog Tour that will begin Monday December 9th and go through Saturday December 14th!

I hope you will join the bloggers listed below as we celebrate the Christmas season together. Across the Way will be on the tour Saturday the 14th, with my part being "Tis the Season -- To Set the Stage."

Monday December 9th Jemma of At Home With Jemma

Monday December 9th Chris of The Cafe Sucre Farine

Tuesday December 10th Poppy of Poppy View

Wednesday December 11th Sherri, Jess and Nel of Red Rose Alley

Wednesday December 11th Patty of Home and Lifestyle Design

Thursday December 12th Melanie of Comfy House

Thursday December 12th Brenda of Cozy Little House

Friday December 13 Melinda of The Refeathered Roost

Saturday December 14th Dewena of Across the Way

Saturday December 14th Kathryn of The Dedicated House

During the month of December I will be writing here about my Christmas Mentor. Yes, I have one. Do you? For some, 1973 is ancient history, but it was when I met Dee Hardie, my Christmas Mentor.

For me, long before there was Martha Stewart there was Dee Hardie, Mrs. Tom Hardie of Thornhill Farm in Maryland. I met her when I bought the 1973 December issue of House & Garden magazine in an article called "How To Make Christmas A Very Special Day." It was to be the first of many meetings over the years, the first of her mentoring me. I still have the tattered pages of that first article.

Timing is everything, so they say, and Dee Hardie showed up in my world just when I needed her the most. When I read her first two sentences, it became my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow:

"Christmas, if you look at a calendar happens all by itself.

But to celebrate Christmas, truly celebrate,

takes direction."

Dee Hardie

It does take some direction to celebrate Christmas, and I finally recognized in 1973 that in our family that direction had to be done by me because R.H. was busy around the clock as we were in the garden center business. He lived and breathed Christmas trees from the day after Thanksgiving through  Christmas Eve.

Over the next decade, in articles in House & Garden and House Beautiful and in her books, Dee Hardie had a lot to teach me because I had a lot to learn. Dee was, is, and always will be my Christmas Mentor. I hope you'll join R.H. and me here at Across the Way in December as I tell you more about what Dee taught me.

And please join Jemma, Chris, Poppy, Sheri and Jess and Nel, Patty, Melanie, Brenda, Melinda, Kathryn and me in the Tis the Season Blog Tour.

It's off with the pumpkins…

And on with the Christmas Season!