A Time For Everything

Happy 2016 Friends! I hope your New Years Eve was everything you wanted it to be. Mine was as expected. :) I was at the fireworks store selling fireworks to the masses of central Texas!! It was special because Sonshine timed his visit home so he could go and work with his Dad and me.

Turns out we had a bang up sales day--exceeded expectations by a wide margin considering the sales on the 30th were pretty abysmal.

But today, for the first time in probably over twenty years, I watched the Rose Parade. It was a New Years Day tradition when I was growing up although Mom and I never actually went to one in person.








I remember loving the marching bands most of all as a kid and now I have even more reason to enjoy them. In fact the first band I saw upong turning on the TV was from Allen, Texas!

Anyone else out there, besides Mom, who's a Rose Parade watcher??

No, Christmas hasn't been decorated for. I'm terribly lazy about it. Well, it's not the putting up, it's the taking down that kills it. But that's not what we're here to talk about...

I've been crafting!

My sister-in-law and my niece made some snow globes which I saw while visiting for Thanksgiving and which I thought were cute. So I hunted them down during my trip to Michael's and found the little globe. I also a found a cute little figurine to go in it.

But did I open the globe and read the instructions while at the store? No, of course not.

So fast forward an hour-ish and I'm sorting through my purchases. I open the globe and read the instructions. I also needed glycerin and a box of some sort of water-proofing solution. Okay. No problem. I'll go back another time. In the meantime, I open the figurine package only to find one of the birdies' little wings has broken off. It was disappointing, but then I remembered I have some Sculpey clay and I created a new little wing for the thing.

Now, the bird was originally while, but it's fixin' to go in a snow globe, so I'm thinking white's a bit redundant. I know, how about blue? A little bluebird of happiness! I made the water blue as it was also white. I get that if it's frozen over then, yeah, it's gonna be white. But again--white glitter/snow--redundant.  And it's my snow globe, so I'll fix it up the way that makes me happy.

So here's the repaired figurine. I'm sure you can tell which wing is the replacement!


Next step will be re-add the eyes and re-color the beak. Then I'll waterproof the whole thing. So more pics later.

One of our long-time Christmas traditions is buy or make ornaments for the kids. All three of them have an ornament for every Christmas they've celebrated, even if I was broke and could only afford to make them with whatever I had at hand. There were a few Christmases like that. Last year, they got these, remember?


This year, I bought ceramic ornaments at Michael's and will decorate them. I've found a couple of ideas on the Internet to play off of, so wish me luck. Luckily my Sharpies clean off with rubbing alcohol. The acrylic paint should wash off with water before it dries. We'll see how it goes. Pics later.

And of course, I realized I forgot a couple of people, so there will be yet another trip to Michael's. (It's a hardship.)

And after a month of not working on DD's birth sampler, I have picked up needle and floss once again.

Doing any Christmas or other holiday crafts?

For the last--oh, I don't know...twenty-six Christmases--I've given my children ornaments. Actually--I don't think it started off that way. In fact, I'm sure it didn't because we had to fill in a few early years for the girls. Okay, so not twenty-six years, although they do both have 1st Christmas ornaments, hand made by Mommy dearest.


My girls, especially my Brown-Eyed Girl for some reason, love this tradition. In the lean (and missing) years we've gone with hand made ornaments. In the more prosperous years, they've been store bought. Hallmark can always be counted for something cute. (Sonshine has an inordinate number of Scooby Doo ornaments...)

I love the tradition as well, although, I'm down to only Sonshine's ornaments and after this year, they'll be packed up separately for him to take. I'm really going to miss the mish mash and memories.

This year, I'm making ornaments again. It's a pretty lean year and I have what I need to craft and create.

So this year, more cross stitched ornaments...



They're not done yet. I'll trim them down and then affix some felt or something to the back to hide the stitching. The girls will both get one and I may just make an extra for myself.


What about you?? Do you have a favorite thing to collect at Christmas??

Yes, I have completed my annual watching of this classic Christmas cartoon. Although I have done none of my other traditional activities such as the Redneck Gingerbread House (this from '05):

(That's GI Snow on the left there--our minuscule attempt at honoring the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.)

Shopping is 99% complete--with 1.5 days to spare. Wrapping is in progress. Plans are set.

Whew!

All that's really left is to drive down Friday afternoon with presents, stuffed stockings and stinky dogs smushed into our Scion xB. Hmmm...

We'll be spending Christmas eve at my mother-in-law's house (about 12 m. east of the fireworks store) and then spending Christmas day at the store (a new tradition in the making).

Merry Christmas to all...

I leave for Nebraska in 6.5 days and I'm not done shopping. Argh...

Then I find out my family doesn't do stockings... What!!! No stockings?

Well, we do, so I had to buy seven stockings--three for my littlest sister and two brothers and four stockings for my nieces. *And* all the goodies to go in them. My siblings will get mostly candy and an ornament to remember our Christmas by; the nieces will get lots of fun stuff from stickers to hair doodles, and any other little goodies I can find for them. I hope they enjoy them.

Each year, I buy my kids a special ornament--one that has special meaning as to who they are or what they are into this year at whatever age they happen to be. When they move out they will have a batch of ornaments for their first tree and they can reminisce about Christmases past.

Normally, we have two trees in our house--a large one that is formally decorated, and then the small one with all the kids' ornaments on it. This year we just did the small one since we'll be out of town on the big day. The tree also includes those ornaments that the kids made over the years, from clothespin reindeer to paper doily angels with a child's face glued on. In fact, the paper doily angel with my son's face on it is the tree topper this year.

My oldest, who is almost 21, tells me every year how much she likes this tradition and looks forward to seeing what kind of ornament she'll be receiving.

Do you have a special Christmas tradition in your family?