Tis the Season....

And so it begins!  Holiday Parade. Tree lighting ceremony tonight in town center. A holiday hike this weekend.

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November: The Holiday Season Begins

Wherein the forest is enrobed in color, I find Witch hazel during my Dendrology class.  I finally locate a Hawthorne tree and gather the berries.  I try shibori on some thrifted cloth napkins.  We are visited by a ginormous Pileated Woodpecker.  We take a moonrise hike over the tree bridge.  We enjoyed a Thanksgiving / Friendsgiving feast that I forgot to photograph.  We find a curbside seat with friends at the holiday parade!  And we start planning our annual winter solstice party.

 

Novembering

"Tonight the moon kissed the stars."- Rumi 

Wherein there was Pneumonia, latte with freshly baked chocolate croissants Thanksgiving Morn, a Super Full Moon, and the FES Fund Run and a holiday parade to kick of the winter season...

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving Dinner with our beloved family in NJ. Delicious food, fond memories and much laughter shared. This was a very VERY special time and we felt so blessed to all be together.  We made it home in time to see Santa light up our town tree!

Family

Cousins

Battle Ship

Hotel Bed Jumping

Tree Lighting

Thanksgiving

Wherein our beloved friends joined us for a vegetarian feast...

May you be blessed with good friends,
And learn to be a good friend to yourself,
Journeying to that place in your soul where
There is love, warmth, and feeling.
May this change you.

- John O'Donohue  (For Friendship)

Ordinary Magic

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.” ― Isabel Allende

There was a power outage so we ordered a pizza, ate dinner by candlelight and burned some java logs in the fireplace.


There was a vegetarian Thanksgiving Feast with dear friends.

















There was a magical holiday parade with balloons...


























































and unicycles...






















and hoopers...

















and horns...

















and Santa!

















"Mama", he said, "my favorite part of the parade was when you yelled, WALKIE TALKIES FOR SATCH, to Santa...and I think he was the real Santa too!"

Giving Thanks & Making Merry

I am grateful for the many gifts motherhood has given me. In particular, the one where I get to revisit the playful parts of myself nearly forgotten. In those moments I realize that within me resides every age I've ever been.

The handmade gifties are finished! Hand balms for the teachers & assorted big people...

Recipe here.
Tins here.
Labels here.



































Table top bowling sets aka skittles for the littles...

Wood here.
Beeswax here.
Fabric here.
Beads here.














Wish lists are ordered (I don't do stores this time of year). The holiday postcards are designed & printed...

Calendar gifts for the Grands finished! Click on the arrow to see all the images. (Grandparents, no peeking!)

Now we can kick back until our annual Winter Solstice Party. I'll be posting my annual gift picks & ginormous giveaway next Monday because right now we should all be focusing on Thanksgiving. We have an unbeasty-feasty to prepare...S has requested stuffed Acorn Squash and Spinach Tartlets. The Great Robinsky will be making pie (I'm not keen on baking, except for cookies and boule). S will be serving up some of his homemade apple sauce.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

(Thankfully)

You can imagine our surprise when, out of the blue, during our son's yearly check-up, the doctor said, "I hear a heart murmur".

Huh?

We were handed a referral and told to make an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist for further evaluation. Even though I knew that this is common and most often benign, there remained an undercurrent of fear until the cardiology appointment.

The day of the appointment, Satch donned his cape and equipped himself with a metal sifter and tea diffuser. We were a sight to behold. On the bus a woman asked, "What's he gonna do with those?", and Satch answered, "I need these to rescue a deer". She looked back at me puzzled. "To rescue deer", I repeated.

Satch was worried about the cardiogram, but I told him that he could take home the electrodes for his doctor kit and I would take his photo for Dada which produced an instant smile. The doctor listened to his heart for a long time and determined that the ekg was normal and the murmur was (thankfully) benign. Then he asked, "What's he gonna do with those?". "Rescue deer", Satch replied. The doctor glanced over at me. "Rescue deer", I explained.

We're leaving early tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with family. Have a happy holiday and see you Monday!

Holiday Crafting & Giveaway

"I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song in morning and star-shine at night"
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Once again we're making as many gifts as we are able this holiday season. We started crafting sometime after SAW in September. That way we could take our time and still be done WAY before Xmas.

I always want to give Satch at least one handmade gift each Xmas, so when Satch was napping, I made him this Chalk Cloth Mat with instructions I found here.












It is the size of a place mat with a little pocket for stowing a box of chalk. It rolls up and ties shut for travel. I didn't photograph the back because it's nothing more than black oil cloth and not very exciting. I bought the Bubble Fabric and Sock Monkey fabric here. And I bought the oil cloth here. I only purchased a yard of each and have enough left over to make several more to give to family and friends. So, a few of you might be finding these in your mailbox.

While I was at it I made some marker/pencil rolls out of dishtowels for a few budding artists. I cut the towel in half and made two rolls per towel, and I only had to sew one seam. I'm guessing if you made these out of cloth napkins it would be even faster because you would only need to sew the lines that hold the markers/pencils.


























It's a variation from this book and inspired by this mama who made one for Satch in September.

Last year the snowballs that I made him were such a big hit that we decided to make more this year for some of the tots in our family.

For the wee babes, we made these Peppermint Swirl Jingle Bonbons! They are just the right size for dimpled fists to jiggle.

*Some terrific instructions can be found here!

*I buy my wool here!

And since we still have a half bucket o' broken crayons...I decided to find a soap mold in the shape of river stones and we made some "coloring stones" for the lilliputians. Another terrific way to recycle your broken bits of wax!

*I bought the "River Rocks" mold here! Scroll down because it's near the bottom of the page on the right. This is NOT a food mold, it's rubber and stinky when it arrives. I let it air out on the deck a few days and now it's fine.


*They were inspired by the gorgeous soy wax Crayon Rocks, that I would very much like to try out, but am unable to find anywhere in our area.

For two adorable, elfin wees, I made a little felted fairy orb necklace...




and some felted barrettes to go with it. (*Instructions from Amy)


And for Satchel's cousins, Hanna & Kiran, we made two Glove-Puppies. I sewed and Satch stuffed. The eyes are buttons that came from my late grandmother's stash and the dresses are made from vintage table cloth scraps.

*Free Instructions and video here

and Miyako's book here

The grandparents will be receiving a calendar that I created over at Lulu.

Our holiday postcards that I designed are printed and arrived by post yesterday. We decided on post cards because the text box interface would not open for their greeting card line. But, postcards are inexpensive to print and the postage is less too - so it all works out. *A word of caution regarding Snapfish. My postcards arrived with the white border cut off at the bottom. I'm not sure if they printed them off center or cut them wrong. I've asked if they can reprint them correctly before I return these and am left with nothing and after three email exchanges, they still have not been able to tell me if they will be able to do it right.

My goal was to finish our holiday to-dos before Thanksgiving so I started chipping away at our list in September, doing a little bit each day. Now we're finished, no stressing...Satch had fun helping and we didn't have to set foot in a single store.

*In the spirit of the season of giving, and in honor of crafty mamas everywhere, the very generous folks at Chronicle are allowing me to give away a copy of Amy Butler's, "Little Stitches for Little Ones". Simply leave a comment here by 12pm on Sunday November 16th and my sweet little elf will pick a name from his hat. I'll post the winner on Monday November 17th! (Please include a way to contact you)I will be taking a short blogging break this week to wrap and package these nifty gifties with Satch, but I'll be back on Monday to announce the winner.

Have a great week!