Oodles and oodles

Anticipation

We've always had an Advent wreath. Each Sunday, starting today, we light a candle. On the Sunday before Christmas, all of the candles are lit. On Christmas Eve we add another candle in the center and light it.

We have only one rule for lighting the wreath, and that's that all four of us have to be home when the candle is lit. It's nicest to light it at dinner, when it's dark outside and the candlelight is welcome. Some weeks we light the candle at lunch, and a couple of times we've lit it at breakfast, because that was the only time that worked with everybody's schedule.  Tonight we're all home for dinner, and that's a good start. No matter how much decorating or shopping or baking I do, it's lighting the Advent candle - especially the first one - that makes me feel like Christmas really is coming.

If you need a tree skirt in a hurry...

If you need a new tree skirt and you don't want to spend a lot of time or money, here's what to do. Get a circular tablecloth. This one came from an estate sale.

Fold it in quarters.

Press along one of the folded edges to get a nice, sharp crease.

 

With a protractor or something circular like a plate as a guide, mark a quarter circle in the center of the tablecloth and cut through all of the thicknesses. I'm not wild about cutting up perfectly good tablecloths - I'd rather see them preserved. This one had a few pinholes and some fading, though, so I felt OK about using it.

Open it up ...

and cut along one of the crease lines. Finish the edge of the inner circle with bias tape. (I used some dark green vintage bias tape, but the picture didn't come out so well. That's my husband's hand in the  picture. He was nice enough to pretend to be cutting so I could take a photo.)

Turn under the long, unfinished edges and stitch in place. (Here's something you didn't know: I have been using the same sewing machine since I was 14 and my parents got me a sturdy Kenmore for Christmas. I need to upgrade, but this one is built like a truck, and looking around for a new one would make me anxious.)

That's it!

Thanksgiving leftovers

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving. This is kind of a weird picture, but I didn't photograph my Napco turkeys, and at least you can sort of see them here. The pie came out great, even though the cinnamon on the maple leaves makes them look a little toasty. I'm planning to have some of what's left of this for breakfast. Pie for breakfast is a tradition that dates back at least to frontier times, and I'm going to do my best to uphold these cherished American customs.

We had a little bit of a leaf theme - on the base of some more Gurley candles, the napkin rings, the linens.

We're having our traditional day-after-Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Here's how to make it. You'll need leftover stuffing, leftover turkey and leftover gravy. I never have enough stuffing, so I make another batch just for this. Cut or shred the turkey into smallish bite-size pieces. Mix it in with the stuffing. Add just enough gravy to make it casserole-ish, and bake it for 25-30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. I am starting to feel weak with hunger.

Obligatory post-dinner picture of the guys watching football. I know somebody who wouldn't be happy if he knew his picture was on my blog, and I don't mean the dog.

It's the big decorating day around here. I don't have figures on everything (Santa figures, bottle-brush trees, ornaments, snowmen, etc.) but I do know that I have at least 20 cardboard village houses and 14 Santa mugs to find homes for today. Depending on how it goes, I might have pictures all weekend, or none at all. But I did do a really cute and easy project Thursday, and I'll post pictures of that on Monday, so come on back then for sure.

Thanksgiving countdown

If you want to see my Thanksgiving decorations, look quick, because by Friday, they'll be packed away for another year. Whether it's the early snow (it's snowing lightly right now!) or the lateness of Thanksgiving (or the pressures of blogging?), I don't think I've ever been quite this wound up to start decorating for Christmas. I cannot wait. Thanksgiving night and the Friday after Thanksgiving are probably my favorite 36-hour period of the year. All that good food, and no cooking. All that pent-up demand for Christmas decorations and music and movies, unleashed at last.

It's been a rule in my family for years that there is No Christmas until Thanksgiving Is Over, and even if I wanted to violate it, my son, of all people, would not allow it. He is Mr. Tradition. He is exactly like my dad, who instituted the No Christmas until Thanksgiving Is Over Rule. I wish I lived a little closer to my family, but it might be just as well that my son and my dad are 300 miles apart. They have exactly the same quirks, and if they lived any closer, they might create some powerful swirling vortex of obsessive rule-making and frugality and sports-statistic-keeping from which none of us could ever escape.

 

But between now and then is Thanksgiving itself, and that's a pretty splendid day, too. Today I'm making stuffing, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake and creamed onions, and cutting up the potatoes and turnips to get ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll make the turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes and ... well, you get the picture. And how many people are coming to this feast, you ask? Five. The four of us and my wacky mother-in-law. (Wacky is extremely, extremely generous, but it's the holidays, you know?)

Fifteen people could show up at the last minute, and we would have more than enough food. The first year my husband and I cooked Thanksgiving together, one of our friends asked at the last minute if she could bring her friend who had no place to go. He turned out to be the state budget director, a pretty famous guy in political circles. We had plenty of food, but not enough matching dishes, and the guy who daily handled gazillions of dollars in state funds got the only spare dish we had, a meat platter. It was one of the most fun Thanksgivings ever. I hope he's got a place to go this year, because we don't live in the same state any more.

On a couple of fronts, this has been a bit of a stink-o year. However, even in a year in which I've often felt that things could be going a lot better, I have a wonderful husband, two swell kids, a roof over my head, a job, our families, our friends. A lot of those friends are ones that this time last year I didn't know existed - the friends I've met through blogging. To all of you, I wish you the happiest of Thanksgivings if you're here in the states, and the happiest of days if you're not. And I think I've gotten to know some of you well enough that one of you will ask about that recipe book on the middle shelf and ask what the Three Great Products from Corn are.

They're Argo Corn Starch, Mazola Corn Oil and Karo Corn Syrup. Without 'em, it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving.

The last of the snowmen

I was afraid none of you would read my post today if I started out with ONE MORE snowman picture. So I'm starting out with an elf picture. Needless to say, I spent a pretty fair amount of time making little snowman people this weekend. I also reconstructed the pink elf in the middle. All that remained of him was his head, so I made him some skis and gave him a new body and a little ornament to hold, and now he's back with his old gang. OK, here come more snowman pictures.

 

Snowmen exchanging gifts.

Snowmen in a festive Christmas mood.

A bell-ringing snowman and pixie duo.

A slight variation on the snowman theme.

A tiny Santa with a deer and tree.

My favorite (next to the skiing snowman and the snowman in the jar) is the tree-trimming snowman. One, because I like pink. Two, because I really like this tiny pink bottle brush tree. Three, because this is the first time I've ever managed to use a Dresden trim on something. Oh, and four, because the base is the leftover lid of a paper mache box that I only needed the bottom of, and I told myself I should throw the lid away, but I couldn't, and now I'm glad. The good news for you, assuming you're not as obsessed with these snowmen as I am (and why should you be?), is that I am now officially out of snowman picks, so I can make no more. However, I've got a line on a possible stand-in, and I ordered them. Just warnin' you.

 

In the meantime, it occurred to me that I could make things 24 hours a day from now until Christmas and not make much of a dint in my stash of vintage craft items. So I made some little packages of bells and angels and Dresdens and such and put them on etsy.

Making up the little bags of angels was kind of a craft project in itself, so I made some bags with buttons and little Santas and things, too.

If you want to see some cute things, including a snowman on a cupcake, go visit Every Little Thing and, while you're there, enter a giveaway. There are some very, very tempting items in that shop!

Weekend fun

Hope you're having a good weekend. I've been staying inside, working on some projects, but some of us couldn't wait to get out in that foot of fresh powder.

I don't mind, as long as he's careful. He is breakable, after all.

The bunny hill seems to be going well.

Wait a second. Where's he going?

I don't like the looks of this.

He's not ready for this big hill.

I wish he'd slow down. Slow down!

I hear screaming. I can't look. Is he OK? What's that?

Nothing's broken? Oh, thank goodness. That's enough excitement for us this weekend. We're going back inside.

 

A little project for the weekend

I found this little felt angel in a box of old gift wrap and ribbons.

This guy was in there, too. I love them because they're the kind of thing my mom would have bought when my brother and I were little to decorate our Christmas presents. They'd be very easy to make - they're just one big piece of felt (red for the Santa, pink for the angel), with smaller pieces cut and layered on top. The originals are fairly large - about 8 inches - but you could make them any size, and out of paper instead of felt if you wanted.  I scanned both of them in, if you want to print them out to make a pattern; the scans are at the end of the post.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd show those of you who don't live near one of the Great Lakes what a lake-effect storm looks like. This is how the sky looked to the southeast around noon on Friday - bright blue sky and some puffy white clouds.

But while the sun was shining in the front yard, the horizon over the back yard was filling up with clouds ...

and 20 minutes later, when the band of snow off Lake Ontario moved in, it looked like this. The sky was fabulous all afternoon Friday. One minute it would be clear and the snow was sparkling, and then another bank of dark clouds would start to build and roll in and it would snow so hard I couldn't see my neighbor's house. I love this stuff. I love it now, because I don't have to go anywhere, and it's the week before Thanksgiving, and everything is cozy. By mid-January, if we've had eight straight weeks of snow, I'll be muttering incomprehensibly.

Carson seems to be handling the weather well. That's not his blanket, by the way. He hopped up on the couch and put it in front of the pellet stove himself. He's such a smart puppy.

Have a happy Saturday. Here are the scans; I think you can just right-click on them to save them.

The aluminum tree project

Today we're going to tackle the problem of what to do with those pesky miscellaneous aluminum tree branches that are cluttering up your house.

OK, so maybe you don't have an abundance of spare aluminum tree branches. I did. For several years, I made a point of seeking out vintage aluminum trees to sell on eBay. They sold for quite a bit of money. However, they're not all that easy to come by. I usually had to tangle with my nemesis to get one at an auction. I'd often pay more than I wanted to just for the sheer joy of aggravating her. And once I calculated how long it took me to assemble the tree, photograph it, disassemble the tree and ship it, I realized I was making about 37 cents an hour.

 

And so, I don't go out of my way to look for aluminum trees any more. (It's probably just as well that I didn't go to the sale where my friend Linda found one for $3. That's the kind of thing that can lead to hurt feelings. Especially if I'd somehow accidentally tripped her and wrestled it out of her arms.)

Over the course of my short-lived aluminum-tree vendor career, I ended up with a couple of dozen branches that didn't belong to any particular tree. They were too good to throw out, so I made a wreath out of them. I used a metal wreath frame, because the branches are kind of substantial and need a good base. I covered the frame with silver tinsel, then wired on the branches.  I'd have photographed this step by step, except I made the wreath last year, pre-blog.

Then I wired on vintage Christmas balls and a corsage and some silver millinery leaves. And then I didn't hang it anywhere because I couldn't find the right spot for it in my house.

So I'm selling it. I think I'm listing it today on eBay, so it will end the day after Thanksgiving. (I go back and forth - etsy, eBay, what to do? When I don't know or can't decide what something should sell for, I go with eBay.)



 

I'm listing these ornaments, too.

And these. And some more, if I can get motivated to haul them out and photograph them. My plan is to get all this commerce out of the way in the next week or two, so I can do nothing but decorate and sip eggnog all through December. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

More snow, and another snowman

We've got snow outside and inside these days. Here's another snowman, popped in a jar with a vintage cardboard house, bottle brush tree and little ornaments.

I think this is my favorite decoration ever, mostly because my daughter, without prompting, noticed it and said she really liked it. It's a little tragic how much I crave approval from a 14-year-old.

It's snowing again (yay!) and it might snow off and on through the weekend. (double yay!) The snow is really getting me in a holiday mood.

It's making somebody else pretty happy, too.

Wonderland

The novelty of this will wear off soon enough ...

but waking up to nine inches of new snow this morning was a nice surprise.

Pinecones snuggled under a blanket on a golden larch tree.

Wild apples that will become snacks for the deer and rabbits.

The woodpile that doubles as housing for any number of chipmunks.

As for me, I'm off to shovel, and then to work, but I'll be looking forward all day to coming home to our winter wonderland.