Oodles and oodles

'Tis the season to be ...

 

These poor snowmen. I used a picture of them in a different arrangement last year in a post about how really, really annoyed I was by everything. I'm in a much better mood this year. Also, the snowmen have moved to the Hoosier for the season. I did notice, however, that this seems to be the week where lots of people get really stressed out about Christmas.

Here's my theory: A few weeks ago, Christmas seemed like a long way off, so there was no use worrying about how much needed to get done. A few weeks from now, it will be too late to worry. Right now we're at that crossroads where we're still thinking of everything we'd like to do while realizing there isn't a lot of time to do it, and it creates stress. The solution is clear: Get busy, or give up. One or the other. No matter how much you may wish otherwise, additional hours and days will not be added between now and Christmas.
 
 

Lest you think I've achieved some sort of Zen-like balance in my life, I looked for a couple of things to be annoyed about. It didn't take a lot of effort. One is my birthday. My birthday is in December. Clearly, I did not plan this. I'd like a birthday in early April, when there's nothing much going on, but that's not the case, and since my birthday occurs EVERY YEAR on the SAME DAY the people around me should be able to take note of the date and plan ahead. So when my husband, whose season consists of shopping for maybe three Christmas presents, complained about the "double whammy" presented by my birthday and Christmas, I was irritated, but only a little. Later, however, when my mother also complained about the VERY SAME THING, I was annoyed, not just at her, but retroactively at my husband. They're both on my naughty list now, and I don't see any way for them to get off of it. Unless they're really, really good to me for my birthday.

 

This is the top of the Hoosier. I'm not the kind of person who would name a snowman, but this one came with a name on the tag: Stuart Sparkle. I really like that name a lot. (He's related to this snowman, but larger.)

Anyway, in addition to being aggravated by two of the people I love best, I've also decided to be annoyed by some of the commenters on my blog. Originally I was going to go on quite a bit about this, but I think a lot of you probably have the same issue with comments that exist only to sell books or promote some  self-serving agenda. I wish they would get their own blogs and leave ours alone.

 

Really, those are my only two annoyances right now, so that's not bad. Also, the sun unexpectedly popped out in the midst of this morning's snow and sleet extravaganza, so I'm grabbing my camera and taking more pictures before the clouds roll in again. I have more ideas for blog posts than there are hours of available light for photos, but I am just not going to stress out about it.

A cookie exchange, before cookies and guests

 

I'm usually pretty nervous about entertaining, but the annual cookie exchange Saturday was so much fun that afterward I thought, "I should have parties all of the time!" Actually, what I should do is see this particular group of friends more often, because they all are smart and funny and, as a bonus, excellent cookie bakers. Here's how the dining room looked for the event.

 

The tablecloth is vintage, and the dishes are from a Hazel Atlas luncheon set. I put an interactive decoration at each place setting so my guests wouldn't get restless and misbehave. In addition to the snow globes, which you saw yesterday, there were

 

 reindeer nodders and 

 
 
a Santa that rolls and jingles, like a baby toy.
 
 

Amy wanted a better look at this tablecloth. Here you go! It has a red snowflake center and big Christmas motifs around the edges, bells and candles and Santa and such.
 
 

And here's a corner table for packaging up cookies. There were many excellent cookies, and my pal Margaret is posting recipes for them this week. I can vouch for all of them.  
 
 

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

 

Hello, and Happy St. Nicholas Day! I'll be observing the occasion with some gift-wrapping (both kids are out of the house!) and craft-making, all done to the tune of Nine Hours of Fabulous NFL Football! (Perennial favorite New England plays at 1 p.m., rapidly sinking Giants play at 4 p.m., and one of the few football players who can make me forget the "Mad Men" season is over, Brett Favre, leads the Vikings in the night game.) I haven't even touched the television and already I'm feeling guilty.

 

Enough of football, and on to Santa. The Santa collection is on the same set of shelves as it was last year, but there are more of them. Some were in different spots last year, but there were a few, ahem, additions. It can't be helped. A good Santa is hard to find, so when they are spotted, they need to be acquired. There are a lot of creepy vintage Santas, and if you've seen them, you know what I mean. If you haven't seen them, think about creepy clowns. (And on the subject of Santa and creepiness, does the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" get more disturbing for you with each passing year as it does for me?

 

Many of my Santas are candy containers, like the two plump fellows on either side of the big Santa.

 
 
A Santa snow globe. There aren't too many Christmas collections I'm interested in starting at this point, but I could easily get interested in snow globes.

 

Both of these are new acquistions this year. If I made a Santa with feet as big as the ones on the left, I'd wonder what I'd been thinking. But on this fellow, they're perfect.
 
I have a question: Do you look at your old blog posts? I almost never do, but I did skim through last year's Christmas stuff to try to avoid repeating. I came across this picture of the Santa shelves last year:

 
  
That's how I realized there had been some additions. But I'm also thinking I kind of like how the big "Merry Christmas" Santa sort of frames the top. Perhaps this is why I don't go back and look at the old photos, because now I feel the need to rearrange.
  

The alpine village

 

If you walked through my front door, which I wish you could, and turned right around, you could visit an alpine village made of cardboard and glitter.

 

This was a terrible year for finding little putz houses, but then again, I've never known it to be a good year. If I find them, it's usually here and there. Although I didn't add to my collection, I put them all in one spot this year instead of scattering them around the house, so it feels as if there are more.

 

The snowman is the scale of the Abominable Snowman in Rudolph, but he's holding a house, so it's kind of like he's making a delivery. Plus, he looks friendly.

 

The pink house is one of two that aren't vintage. I made it last year, but it seemed a little unfinished, so this year I added awnings and a Santa coming out the front door. (He's an old gift tag.) I changed the windows, too. I used yellow cellophane, but it was so transparent you could see right through to the lightbulb. It sounds weird, but what really ended up working well was masking tape right over the cellophane, sticky side out. Not only is it helping to hold the cellophane in place, but it gives it just the right amount of transparency. It doesn't look masking-tapey at all.

  

Santa making deliveries. I used bottle brush trees and candles for the evergreens in the village. It was a pretty good season for finding bottle brush trees.

 

The tippy-top of the village. The houses in back needed some elevation to be seen, so they're sitting on old Shiny Brite boxes. The house in the middle has a tree that lights up and blinks and brings me no end of happiness. (You can see an action shot if you scroll down to the end of this post.)

As of about 9 o'clock last night, when I was putting empty plastic bins back in the storage area upstairs, the decorating was officially done. While I'm looking at these pictures, though, I'm thinking of other things I could do.

 

I might put some little snowmen on the shelf that's above Santa. And I have a bell that would be perfect in the steeple of the biggest church. And I think I might swap out a couple of the white buildings for a couple of red brick ones that I had left. Oh, but the thing I really want to do is make a row of icicles to put on the middle shelf. (I bought the Martha icicle paper punch - wicked fun.) If any of that doesn't happen, though, it's no big deal.
 
I never told you which of the other buildings was new - can you tell? I'll put the answer at the end so you can guess. (Because it's three weeks 'til Christmas, and what else could you possibly have to do?)
 
 

I'm hosting our annual cookie exchange tomorrow, and I have got to get busy. I need to pick out some table linens and iron them, and since I haven't done any baking, that's the least of my worries.

(The other reproduction building is the tiny church on the shelf just above the drawers, farthest to the left. I think it was a Martha at K-Mart from a few years back.)  



 

 

 
  
  

How do you spell Christmas?

 

The Santa mugs wish to thank you for your love and support, and, in return, promise to put in a good word for you with their namesake. They'd also like to introduce you to some of their friends.

 

Meet a small collection of items that spell out the word NOEL.

 
 
The angels, chippy but lovable, came in the original box, which is just as sweet as they are.



Little pajama-clad people - check out the slippers! - that represent an actual Christmas miracle. I used to be much better about selling rather than collecting, and so I displayed a set of NOEL candle holders one season and sold them the next. It couldn't have been more than a day after I shipped them out when my son, who might have been 10 or 12 at the time, asked where I was going to put the NOEL people. I swear it was the first Christmas decoration he'd ever mentioned. Consumed by maternal guilt, I made up my mind to buy the next set I saw, regardless of cost. The next day I found these at the thrift store. Christmas was saved.

 

I'm not ready to declare the thrift store Christmas drought over, but things were a little better Wednesday. This game (from 1962, by Whitman) is just fun.

 

It's a variation on "Hi, Ho, Cheerio," if you've ever had the joy of playing that game over and over and over again with a 4-year-old. I also bought the pitiful tin at the right for 99 cents...

 
 
because it was chockablock full of glass bead garland - nine full strands in all sorts of colors and sizes!

 

I think I must be procrastinating today because I had an inexplicable urge to take a group picture of the NOEL gang.
  

 
 

 

An important question

 

I did not want to pack up my Jadeite because I like how it looks at Christmas, and a lot of it is new this season, and at some point (apparently around Dec. 1) I lose a little bit of my decorating energy. So I shuffled it around and squeezed in a few salt and pepper shakers like these Christmas geese, and one of my collections.

This brings me to the important question: Are you pro- or anti- Santa mug?

As with most issues of the day, I can see both sides of it.

 

You might think from the look of things, I'm strongly pro-Santa mug. In some respects, I am. I have very fond memories of the mugs on the lower shelf. They were my family's when I was a kid, and my brother and I always left one out filled with milk for Santa on Christmas Eve.

The set on the top with the pitcher was a thrilling, cheap yard-sale find. I have no idea where the other mugs came from, but I like how their handles spell out NOEL. (They could also go with my collection of  four-piece sets that spell out NOEL, but we can leave that for another day.)

It wasn't until I started reading blogs that I realized there are some very vehement, anti-Santa mug people out there. They think it's creepy that Santa is missing the top of his head, and they are violently opposed to drinking out of such objects.

Well, OK. I see your point. Perhaps it's best to consider Santa mugs as decorative objects rather than actual drinking vessels.
 
 

Anyway, if you have thoughts on Santa mugs, feel free to express them here, but please, no name-calling. It is the holiday season, after all.