Wrapping Gifts and Making Snow Flakes

I had help with the gift wrapping this week. Two of our Great Grand Children arrived at 7:30 am. Their mom dropped them off on her way to work. Our goal that day was to wrap all of Great Grandma's gifts. We had a blast. We wrapped gifts, took breaks, had hot chocolate. We even stopped working in the afternoon to make snowflakes for their windows at home. I ironed the paper snowflakes between sheets of waxed paper. I added some shavings from a scented candle. The wax melted when I put the hot iron on the paper. It scented all the snowflakes and made them translucent, too. My grand daughter says they smell so good. What a nice day!!!

How do you like my 1960s silver tree. I have four of them and I am just crazy about them. This one is in our dining room and you can see some of our newly wrapped gifts there beneath the tree.

Chrstimas MEME

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?

Egg Nog

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?

Wraps, Wraps, Wraps, and Wraps some more

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?

WHITE LIGHTS in windows, no lights on the vintage Aluminum tree

4. Do you hang mistletoe?

NO, I don’t hang anything really. I quit doing extensive decorating a few years ago.

It is much nicer this way. No stress, just enjoyment of the season.

5. When do you put up your decorations?

Around the 15th of December or later

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

ROASTED VEGTABLES

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?

SNOW- and the sound of Santa’s reindeer on the rooftop as I lay awake in bed

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

NO. Christmas Eve is quiet here. Our celebration is on Christmas Day with family coming here from all over…our house is lively and fun.

10. What kind of decorations are on your Christmas tree?

Vintage glass balls on the 60s silver Aluminum tree. I have four of these trees.

I guess I must “collect” them.

11. Snow!

Love it or dread it?

LOVE to look out the window and see Snow all over the neighborhood

12. Can you ice skate?

Not really, at my age???? You can’t be serious!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

The doll who got a cracked face shortly after I received her

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?

SPENDING TIME WITH LOVED ONES and having the family come home for Christmas to be with us. And, being at home where I can knit and make jewelry all I want since I have a little break between semesters

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?

In my memories it is my Grandmother Kirker’s German cookies, and my Aunt Jeanne’s Orange Cookies with orange frosting, and my Mother’s crispy sugar cookies.

16 What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Making hand knitted gifts for people whom I love

17. What tops your tree?

Nothing. I keep it minimal

18. What is your favorite holiday book?

I like a short story, “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote –
I have the film and a copy of the story

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?

“SILENT NIGHT” because I have visited the village in Austria
where it was first perfomed in a very tiny church in the center of the village.

I like most any Christmas music and especially love Handel's Messiah.

20. Candy canes?

I like the candy cane cookies best – used to make them when I had children at home

and before I was aware of the health hazards of sweets.

Green and Red for SP9 Pal

My SP9 Pal, in Connecticut will soooooon be getting this package, all done up in Green and Red for Christmas. She will cele brate her birthday this week, so I have worked on a whole collection of fun gifts for her. She'll be getting some wonderful Skacel Addi Turbo needles;

Koigu and Wilde Yarns http://www.wildeyarns.com;

a Vogue Knitting Magazine http://www.vogueknitting.com of Holiday items to knit;

lotions and creams and handmade soaps;

a special pair of stitch markers and hand knitted and felted bowl http://www.oneskein.com that I made from the new One Skein book just for her.

There are lots and lots of other items in her box. So, it is all wrapped up now, and my husband has taken over the task of putting it all in a mailing box to be shipped out later this afternoon.

If you are in Connecticut and you are a Secret Pal 9 member, maybe this box is for YOU. Ah, you will have to wait a couple days more, to see if it arrives at YOUR house. I am keeping it a SECRET.

Check out this blog at http://www.secretpal9.blogspot.com

Secret Pal 9

To my DEAR Secret Pal 9

I am about ready to get your goodies packed up and shipped off to you. Too bad you don't know that though! Your birthday is coming right up and I would like to have this box out in time for you to have a nice Birthday Surprise. I am posting a picture of your box of delightful things just before I ship it off to you. Keep watching, this box just may be for YOU!!!I do hope you will have a really, really nice surprise! My surprise package is traveling NORTH-EAST, up to New England. And, that is all the clues I am giving. Check out this fabulous knitting exchange, Secret Pal 9 at: http://www.secretpal9.blogspot.com

Green Santas Bring a White Christmas

I spent this afternoon getting my collection of

GREEN SANTAS

out of their attic storgage container. I put most of them on display on the top of the baby grand piano in the living room. I am begginning to think of Christmas, now that my

GREEN SANTAS

are in place cheering me on.


I started collecting them quite a few years ago. I don't really go out on a search to find them. But, one by one, sometimes one comes across my path. Well, I just can't pass them up. I did add one new one this year. I went out shopping on Black Friday. And, there he was, standing there just waiting for my very early morning arrival at his store. He is the tall one dressed in the pea green standing to the left of the tall orange glass vase. Somehow, whenever I come across a

Green Santa

I have this obsessive impulse that I HAVE to have him. I always have the feeling that I gotta get him very fast before someone else comes along and takes him away. Kinda like the same feeling I have when I am in a yarn shop and I am holding a wonderful skein of yarn in my hands...I have to have it!!! I just HAVE to. You understand, don't you?

Early Sunday Morning Reading

It is early Sunday Morning, 3 December 2006

I had to get up early this morning to get some reading done before I go to church.

The book I am reading is Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. It has 4 1/2 stars (out of 5 possible) on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Arcadia-Play-Tom-Stoppard/dp/0571169341/sr=1-1/qid=1165152692/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2624831-0896717?ie=UTF8&s=books

It is a play and it's assigned reading for one of the courses I am teaching this semester. This play fluctuates back and forth between centuries and from the Classical to the Romantic temperament. I highly recommend it for some winter morning reading!

The course I teach is Humanities 303, a course that spans the time periods from Romanticism through Post Modernism. I have to say, PoMo is my favorite so this PoMo play is enjoyable for me to read and to teach.

Meanwhile, I am grateful for all my "knitting breaks" and knitting friends throughout every day that keep me grounded with my feet on this planet.