Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night

From my family to yours (l to r: daughter with buttons, plaid dad, santa mom, wrestling singlet son, center: red Tubby):




a very Merry Christmas and wonderful 2009!

Chilly Morning

You know it's a chilly morning when you see this in the egg box:

This must have been one of yesterday's uncollected eggs, caught by Old Man Winter, frozen solid and busting out of the shell. Tubby will enjoy it for dinner once it thaws out.

I'm sure people with tons of snow will find this post funny, but a hard freeze really isn't a common occurrence around here in central Virginia. The frost made for beautiful pictures, though.

Here are the chickens' stockings, hung with some care, dusted with frost, in hopes of that Santa will bring popcorn:

Dandelion didn't appreciate the beauty of the frost:

In fact, the ladies were alternating which leg to stand on to keep warm. They looked very pretty with their feathers all fluffed up for warmth. Luckily, the sun was just clearing the trees and streaming into their field as I was taking stock of the morning, so warmth is on the way.

Another pretty shot of frost, on a landscape timber beam, with Tubby's little toes in the background:

When I was little, I thought that frozen grass looked just like frozen pizza cheese:

only much prettier.

Hope you have a hand-knit wrapped kind of day!

Crafting Central

Having a large island in the kitchen makes it a perfect place for crafts, school, and even meals; you're right in the middle (literally) of all that is going on around so projects take on a festive, communal flair (unless you're working on math!). This week, I wanted to have time and space for the kids to delve into some Christmas crafting, so I set out this tray this morning:



And here is my inspiration:



My mother's mother was a crafter and seamstress and she used whatever was at hand. Here she cannibalized a box of Cheerios to make a pattern for a folded 8-sided ornament. You've seen a million of them. I'm sure some 20-something Oregonian just discovered a stack of these at a thrift store and has already started a Flickr pool somewhere using "vintage" 1980's Christmas card. Well this one is definitely an original. Check out the free stickers - for the Bionic Man. Very groovy. I think in my nana's time they made them from old greeting cards (another pattern has a card from the 60's with "Keep Christ in Christmas", a movement I had no idea was so old), but we're using cardstock and decorating it with glue, tape, glitter, beads, and sequins. Fun!


Of course, now my island looks like this:



but what would Christmas be without glitter stuck to the soles of your feet!

Looking A Lot Like Christmas

Eureka! The Internet issues have been resolved and I now have home access again (after 6 l-o-n-g months). So I hope to be able to get back to blogging again and let you see what we're up to around here.

Right now, we are in full Christmas production mode. Actually, we are starting the wind down as gifts are going out and the whirlwind of activity is wrapping up to give us time to enjoy the season. So here's what we're making (and enjoying ourselves!):

The kids made Peppermint Stripe soap ala Martha:



I cranked out 11 gift bags for my husband's office folks (each with Spiced Peanut Brittle, Reindeer Chow, and Cheese Things). Good snacking!



Here are two little gifts waiting for delivery to Pamela and Amy:



I forgot to take pictures, so can you help?

And here are the favors for my annual cookie swap on Saturday day, Spiced Chai Tea Latte spoons:



Loved the tags that my daughter helped to make:



She also helped with these for Dad's work:



And all of these are left to give (or eat!):



Filled with Reindeer Chow:



Cheese Things:



Spritz Cookies:



Spiced Peanut Brittle:



and Pecan Snowballs (my absolute favorite!):



Hope you all find something sweet in your stockings soon!