Merry Fishmas! (Our Beautiful World, Anything But a Card, July Photo Challenge too)

I had this idea about 4 years ago when I purchased a skinny, apple-green metallic Christmas tree in the after holiday sales that fit perfectly on the landing of the stairs of our condo.  Since we don't celebrate Christmas there, I thought it might be fun to celebrate Christmas in July when we are there or as we are calling it now Merry Fishmas!  I have been collecting "pins" in my Christmas in July Pinterest folder for that long, and just needed the opportunity to finally go through with scheduling it. Social obligations and then last year, my back injury kind of stood in the way then, but this year, since we didn't have a big celebration for my 60th birthday, we decided to finally do this.

First, e-mail invites were issued back in the beginning of spring and then a few weeks ago I mailed out these reminders.  I had this fish die that I used to make into a little card and then took a stamp set that had several different sized fish and made them into a tree shape.

The message was hand-written. (Oh, and that's a little starfish on top of the fish tree.)

The tree was brought down and decorated and so were we in our Merry Fishmas shirts (via Cafe Press).

Company arrived and after some chit-chat, we got out the fishing poles and headed across the street to do some fishing at the dock.

First fish was caught by HWNSNBP (thrown back in - too small and yes, he insisted he had to change out of his shirt because he didn't want to get it fishy, but he put it back on later).

Then I caught a little non-keeper.  We took up quite a span of the dock as you can see Rachel and another friend at the rail.  (Sheesh, I really need a haircut!) And one more fish was caught after that.

I just had to take a picture of my daughter's hair.  It looked so pretty in the sunlight and you can barely see the pink highlights she had at the ends.

We had people as well as the gulls watching us.

After a bit we went back to have a bite.

Lasagna and a meatball sub accompanied by this cucumber, strawberry and feta salad with poppyseed dressing in Christmas colors.

For dessert I made a strawberry and grape Christmas tree that sat atop the fruit salad. There were Santa hat brownies, and of course, Christmas cookies.

Nutella Sugar Cookies

Sea Salted Cinnamon Graham Cracker Pralines

Then we played some Go Fish.

Some friends brought little gifts including this Hallmark cupcake crab - so cute - that I immediately added it to the tree.

And while the sun set behind us, we ventured out onto the front balcony to listen to the concert at the dock across the street - the band playing hits from the 50's and 60's had us singing quietly along.

I sent our guests home with a little goody bag that included Swedish Fish, Goldfish crackers, and a Go Fish game all their own, and a little lunch box full of some of those leftover Christmas cookies.

Inside the bag was also an ornament that I made using these little denim canvas squares, rope, shells, and polished stones.  

It was a small group yesterday as some of the other's invited had obligations they couldn't get out of, but it was fun and we might just have to do this again next year. 

I'm using some of these photos for:

Our Beautiful World - our Gold Fish Game for the Game theme this week

Anything But a Card - my shell ornaments for the Anything Goes theme

My photo challenges for July 25 - Colorful (the salad) and July 26 - Black and White (the gull)

MERRY FISHMAS!