Welcome to Day No. 2 in Cathy’s 12 Days Before Christmas Countdown. It’s Christmas Eve — time to get those stockings up. And if you still can’t find them (when you unpack the Easter decorations in a couple months, they’ll be there as wrappings for your china eggs) but don’t want to brave the crowds to buy replacements, try this incredibly stylish alternative my friend Marlene does at her house. Can you see what she’s used in place of stockings? Look closer. She’s got Santa hats up around her fireplace — turned upside down, they’re the perfect Christmas “stocking.”  Fabulous idea! But then, she’s that sort of stylishly fabulous person. I think she just lets me be her friend for comic relief. Check back tomorrow for Day No. 1 in Cathy’s Christmas Countdown.

And check out my rant about ugly mother-of-the-bride and -groom dresses at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20081224/SW/812110271/1085. I hate it when women feel as if they have to wear these dowdy, shapeless and outdated dresses when their children get married. Yuck! We deserve better! Anyway, that was my subject in my Fashionably Speaking column in the latest issue of Shoals Woman, one of the magazines published by the TimesDaily newspaper in Florence, Alabama. Read it and see if you agree.  And have a wonderfully Merry Christmas Eve today. Hope all you’re shopping’s done, your baking’s finished and family and friends are not stuck in airports somewhere or negotiating icy roads and arrive safely.