NumberNineteen

The Best of 2009

At this time of the year, magazines & newspapers all seem to be doing a year-end wrap up -- the best, the worst, etc.  I'm going to do a "Best Of" list for my year, in approximately chronological order....

June to October: Spending Time in the foothills of the Shenandoahs picking berries & pumpkins at Hollin Farms & enjoying the wine at Barrel Oak Winery. 

July: The birth of my precious nephew, Rainer.  Terri & Ezra, you did good.

July: My iPhone. Love it.  Nuff Said.

 

August: Going to the beach.  I'd forgotten how relaxing it is to sit & watch the waves.

January - December: Experimenting with paper arts, outside of scrapbooking

October: Buying a tripod.  The best thing that I've done for my blog.  The thing that has allowed me to open an Etsy store.  You can't sell on the internet without a great picture.

November: Losing my job.  I say this totally without spite or ill will.  It was a good job & I love my former co-workers.  But, I am so much happier now.  So much calmer, so much more peaceful, less stressed.  A better Mommy.  I know that I've got to find work in the long term, just so that we can retire someday, but right now, I'm grateful for this opportunity to re-think things.

November: Opening an Etsy Store.  I had been doing preliminary work to get one started before I lost my job & the timing turned out beautifully. It has been the best thing so far.  I have a lot of ideas & will be working to increase my stock, improve my look & start making my packaging special.  I'm very excited to work on it in the new year.

 

Every Day: The opportunity to spend each & every day of my life with these two people:

 

I hope that you had a wonderful 2009.  Another "best of" for me was to get to know all of the amazing people that I've had the opportunity to "meet" through blogging. Thank you for your friendship & constant inspiration.

Happy 2010 to all of you!!!!

Christmas

We are back from a fun, busy Christmas celebration at my parent's place.  The highlight?  Seeing family, especially my adorable nephew! Hope posed with him by the tree on Christmas Eve, above. My parent's grandbabies.

Mommy & Hope before church.

Christmas morning was flurry of opening presents, though Hope was funny about it.  She wanted to open few & take a break to play or watch tv & then come back to it.  When I was a kid, my sister & I ATTACKED the presents :)  Here, Hope opens Candyland:

 

And, Rainer helped in the un-wrapping

Other fun moments were Uncle Ezra trying to teach Hope to play checkers:

Seeing a real one-horse open sleigh at an antiques store in State College:

Watching my uncle's vintage electric train & ambulance (on the inner track):

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas with your family!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you are all having a Very Merry Christmas!

(photo of Rockefeller Plaza Christmas Tree, from the LIFE magazine archives)

Christmas Trivia

Picking up on Clover Lane's post, here is my Christmas Trivia:

1.Best Childhood Gift From Santa: This is hard, there were so many.  My Barbie house when I was 5, a bike (possibly that same year), a stereo when I was 11.  I remember one year, after many years of hard economic times for our family, when we got a new TV and an Atari.  That confirmed it. There definitely is a Santa.

2. Best Childhood Memories: Again, there are so, so many of them.  Being in my parent's candy shop, all decorated like a wonderous Christmas candyland. Coming downstairs to find that Santa had come.  One Christmas Eve, we went to a cousin's house for a family party.  She lived in a wonderful old home & it began to snow.  I remember being in her candlelit home, watching a Christmas movie on tv & coming out to find a winter wonderland at the end of the night.

3.Favorite Christmas Cookies: Cut out & decorated sugar cookies.

4. Icky Christmas Memory: If there are any, I've blocked them out. :)

5. It's Not Christmas Without: A big Christmas tree.  

6. Our Church Service: A wonderful family-oriented Christmas Eve service at the church at which I attended nursery school.

7. Favorite CD: I couldn't possibly pick a favorite, but I just love Christmas music from the 1940s & 1950s.  Bing, Nat, Rosemary Clooney, The Andrews Sisters. Also, the Carpenter's Christmas album brings back childhood Christmas memories.

8.Real or Fake: Absolutely, positively, it must be a real tree.

9. I Spend Christmas Eve: With Glenn & Hope, my parents, sister & brother in law & now, Rainer! We have an early dinner of shrimp & wild rice, go to church service, return in time to see Santa driving past on a wildly decorated fire truck (a State College tradition) & then open a few small gifts before going to bed.  The opening of a few gifts on Christmas Eve started once Hope was born & the number of presents grew exponentially.  If we didn't open a few on Christmas Eve, we'd be opening gifts until 3pm Christmas day....only a slight exaggeration.

Choosing just a few favorites or a few special memories is quite hard for me because my parents always made every single Christmas season ABSOLUTELY MAGICAL.  Every bit of it was full of wonder, joy, music, anticipation & beauty.  I have worked so hard to make Christmas just as magical for Hope.  I hope that she will someday feel about Christmas as I do.

Snow!

"Snow! I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow

...Snow! oh, to see a great big man entirely made of snow

Where it's snowing

All winter through

That's where I want to be

Snowball throwing
That's what I'll do....

Snow! Snow! Snow!"

-Lyrics from "Snow" from the movie White Christmas

O Christmas Tree!

The heart of every Christmas home is the tree.  Ours loosely follows a theme -- red & white -- but is more about the ornaments that bring back memories or make us smile every time that we see them.

There are those that portray our interests & loves:

For me, the Anglophile...

And, to show my love of baking...

For Glenn, the beer lover :)

Hope has her own collection of ornaments started.  This is one of my favorites, given to her by my mom (Nana):

You know that you'll find vintage ornaments on my tree:

This one has a real ringer inside the bell.

And, of course, Santa always has a place on our tree:

Christmas Decorations

It seems like this week all of blog land is posting their Christmas decorations, so I'm joining the fun!

Thank you for joining me on my little tour...next post will be all about the tree!

A Christmas Box

I've been gung-ho Christmas, Christmas, Christmas around here, but have only had the chance to craft one "grown up" Christmas project so far.  However, I *love* how it turned out, so it's enough for now.

Lots of pleated crepe paper, a fair dusting of glitter & the *cutest* K & Company accent (I am in love with their line this Christmas).

I'm always so happy when I finish a project like this. I really need to make more time for crafting.

New to My Etsy -- More Vintage Ornaments!

I just wanted to let you know that I've recently added many vintage Christmas ornaments to my Etsy shop. I'm posting photos of just a few of them. You can click on the link in this post or in the box on the upper right side of my blog to be taken to the store. 

 

Christmas Pretzel Bark

Every year, I try to come up with a nice gift that can be made in bulk to give to teachers, hostesses, etc.  Last year, I made gourmet coffee mix.  This year, I decided on white pretzel bark. 

It takes just 2 ingredients:

For each "sheet" (you'll see what I mean in the pictures below) of candy, you'll need one bag of white candy melts & 1/2 bag of pretzel sticks.  I made 4 or 5 sheets of candy & still have red & green melts left, so a bag of each will do.

You melt the white candy in the microwave & break up each stick into 2 or 3 pieces. Then you mix them together:

Spread this out on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper or a Silpat & dot with the melted green & red candy:

Swirl a knife through carefully, marbling the colors:

Break into pieces after it has cooled, maybe an hour later.

For packaging, I printed "Happy Holidays" in green on my printer & stamped a frame in red around each statement:

I cut around each frame & attached them to each bag of candy.  Here they are, all lined, up, ready to be given out as needed!

As an added bonus, the candy is SO yummy, so the leftovers were welcome at our house :)