Here come the holidays

Finally, the urge to start crafting Christmas gifts and decorations and food strikes...just before the holiday season starts.

One year I made an Advent calendar by listing people and objects from the Christmas story in the book of Luke, along with some of the titles of Jesus, on index cards. I then did a sort of scavenger hunt around the house and at a salvage/surplus store, looking for a small object to represent each one.  Some of these things are heavily improvised--Fourth of July sparklers to represent frankincense--but we do have a tiny bottle with a tiny bit of real myrrh. The objects are kept in a bag made from a scrap of red and green fabric. So we have a family tradition of going through the cards and pulling out the objects, even though we frequently fall several days behind.

I am planning on sewing doll clothes from some vintage pink satin (part of a ball gown) that was given to me.

We have a fireplace that is set into a wall of brick, with no mantel. I've been thinking about what I could hang up there. Once upon a time we had an outdoor vine wreath that a bird had built a nest into, but it disappeared during the last move. Probably I should just put up something that we can put our Advent calendar objects on.

I usually make a large batch of kettle corn (caramel popcorn) to give to family. With babies around, I rarely bake cookies. Sometimes my husband does cookie baking with the kids.

My Christmas card list is very short. Once or twice, I made cards by carving a potato stamp, and stamping the design onto paper.

I've been trying to make a Christmas ornament each year for each child, that they can take with them when they grow up and move out. One year I used salt dough, which didn't hold up well in either use or storage.