Some Holiday Stitchin'

Now that the holiday hoopla has started to die down, I've been able to pull out an old Christmas project and do a little bit of "fun" stitching.
Last year I purchased the set of Prairie Schooler "12 Days of Christmas" patterns and wanted to work them all as one piece. Here's what I've got done thus far:

Instead of cross stitching them, I'm mainly doing basketweave stitches with 4 ply DMC floss on 18 ct. sandstone mono canvas(for a slightly antiquey look). And wherever I can add some fun/easy alternate stitches - like Smyrnas, or diagonal satin stitch or long stitches - I'll do so, to add a bit of unexpected texture to the overall piece. And I'm also going to add small gold beads to all the Santa's coats when I've stitched everything, just to add a bit more sparkle and dimension... Here's the FIRST design up-close, so you can see the few stitch changes I've made:

I've left the numbers unstitched so far, because I don't know what color I want them to be -- dark brown? gold metallic? dark red? I can't decide, so I'll leave them undone until inspiration strikes...

And I've started on the second row of Santas this week. I hope I'll be able to breeze thru a few more of them before "work" stitching beckons and I have to put these Santas back in the closet...

I hope you're all enjoying the "after-Christmas" glow and have snatched some quiet time to do some stitching on a favorite project. It's time to clear the decks and get ready for the New Year, isn't it? Time to start thinking about starting some new and exciting projects, don't you think?