Christmas Tear-Down

At the church of my youth, the contemporary (and the largest) service was at 9am in a giant multipurpose room called the Center for New Life.  We had church setup and church tear down.  I don't remember when setup happened, but tear down happened at the end of the Sunday service.  Everybody stacked their chairs up in the back, put the hymnals away, moved the communion table (which we mistakenly called the altar) back to its weekday place, etc.  Every week there was a list of families in charge of making it happen.  It was regular - a set thing.  You knew when tear down was supposed to happen.

Not so with Christmas.  Our tree is dried up, our stockings are empty, there are no more presents to open, and I am debating whether I should let it linger, or if I should put everything away and get back to the business of unpacking.  Most years I am all about the lingering and letting Christmas extend way into the new year, but I began feeling the tear down itch first thing Saturday morning and I haven't been able to shake it yet.

How long do you leave your Christmas decorations up?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my friends who celebrate!

Please enjoy this view of our supremely crooked tree.

TOMORROW IS CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

Have you finished all YOUR preparations?

daily drop cap

o you know about the Daily Drop Cap blog?  If not, you're in for a treat. The blog itself has a pretty useful intro, so I'm pulling this description from there rather than reinvent this particular wheel:  The Daily Drop Cap is an ongoing project by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Each day (or at least each WORK day), a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap will be posted for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere. 


essica's letters are so much fun to look at. They lend themselves to all kinds of ideas for home decorating, gifts, and even blog redesigns! There's a pretty good chance that a letter or two of hers might end up in my home, framed as artwork.  She's gone through the alphabet more than once, so there is fun to be had over and over again.

f you're into typography, design, or letters in general, go have a look here.  You won't regret it.

some errands, some bread, and a little bit of word association

I don't know about you, but I've got a huge list of errands to run today.  My list holds 8 stops.  There's your standard issue trip to the grocery store and the post office, some returns to make, some ballet tickets to pick up, AND...a trip to the library to pick up my rental copy of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes.  I'm pretty stoked about that last one.  Honestly though, I don't know if I'm going to make it through the whole list.  Do you ever have errand days wherein you have given up before you even head out? 

I tried my hand at baking some high altitude challah yesterday, and while it turned out much better than my last attempt at making challah (no pictures survived either incident) it's still not quite right.  I think maybe I'm not letting the dough rise long enough.  I'm going to play around with a few other yeasty breads (helloooooo dinner rolls) before I try another serious loaf, and maybe I'll get the hang of it before long.  And with the artisan bread book heading my way, I'm pretty hopeful that homemade bread will become a regular thing in this here household.

And now for a quick meme....I say/you think (or should it be you say/I think?)

1. Taxman :: Obama
2. Material :: quilts
3. Format :: Word doc
4. File cabinet :: Bills
5. Ignore :: dont!
6. Super! :: crappy
7. Fireproof :: Kirk (Cameron)
8. Blockbuster :: online
9. Snooper :: Snoopy
10. Good will ::shopping




What are YOU up to today, my friends?

Advent Wreath on the Mantle

Growing up, I kind of missed the whole Advent boat. I didn't learn much about it at church and I didn't learn much about it at home.  Advent was, in my eyes, church lingo for 'the Christmas season.'  In recent conversations, I've learned that a lot of churches fail when it comes to teaching about Advent.  If you missed that one Sunday school lesson or that Bible study night, you're in the dark.  We light these random candles up by the communion table (not the altar, as so many people call it) or on the chancel (maybe it's a pulpit to you) and read some stuff and then get on with the service.

In the past couple of years, my attention has been turned to Advent and learning what it's all about.  I get the hope/peace/joy/love thing now, the quietly preparing our hearts for the arrival of the Savior thing.  Advent has added a whole new dimension to my experience of Christmas.

For a couple of years now, I've wanted to make an Advent wreath. As an Advent 'novice,' I thought there was a specific way to make a wreath...in other words, a right way or a wrong way.  I thought it needed to be round. I thought there had to be greenery. I thought you had to have the right colored candles or else your Advent wreath wasn't really an Advent wreath. I just didn't know any better.  So I bought a foam ring, but the process stopped there.  Because I don't know how to build an advent wreath from a foam circle.  As Advent arrived this year, I sighed and thought about how maybe by next year I will have figured it out.

And then I read this post by Rachel from Small Notebook.  And I realized that an Advent wreath is really just 5 candles, with one taller or bigger or otherwise distinguished from the rest.  There aren't really rules to follow.  There isn't a wrong way to celebrate Advent.

It's amazing how bound up we can be without even realizing it. There is so much freedom to be had when we lose the fear of doing something incorrectly. Flylady has so much to say on this very topic (and for those of you who are struggling with feeling overwhelmed, I encourage you to check out Flylady. She has changed my life, for the better).

I went to my candle/vase shelf in my linen closet (I have a linen closet now!!) and pulled out five candle holders - four little red ones I'd just picked up from Pier 1 on the clearance shelf as a whim, and a red-and-gold cut glass one my mom gave me a few years ago.  Up they went on the mantle.

And now we have an Advent wreath.

christmas doesn't look as good this year

I spent most of yesterday wrapping up and boxing all our Christmas gifts for family back east.  I am looking forward to what might become my new Christmas tradition:  setting up a wrapping station in front of the TV, munching on a giant Hershey bar and watching soap operas.

I have always liked wrapping gifts and coming up with a new way to do it.  This year, my plan was to make fabric gift bags for everything.  And then, I got sick.

SICK.  ugh.  During one of the more inconvenient weeks of the year.  I'd had big plans for this week that's wrapping up right about now: finish unpacking the living room, finish decorating the apartment for Christmas, finish Christmas shopping (that was supposed to be this past weekend) and then pack everything up, including making all the gift bags and stamping our 80 Christmas cards, with PLENTY of time to get everything to all the right places before the big day without having to pay an arm and a leg in shipping.

Well, most of that didn't happen.  And saddest of all: I couldn't find my supplies for a backup wrapping job, since there was no way I would make it to the fabric store, unearth the sewing machine, and get all the sewing and wrapping and packing and shipping done in the brief window of feeling like a human that I had yesterday.  My backup plan?  Wrap everything in brown paper, tie with twine, and hand-stamp the receiver's name on the package.  Cute and old-timey and coherent.

Except I couldn't find my twine.  Or my stamps.  (They are probably not unpacked yet.)  Not even my emergency jingle bell stash!!  And I had like 2 hours to get it all done.  No time for trips to the store or anything.

So this year, everybody's presents from Brian and Ashley are wrapped in brown package paper and written on with silver Sharpie.

I make Christmas ugly.

I do take solace in the fact that they will be arriving on time, however.  That counts for something, right?  Even though the wrapped gifts are a bit of an eyesore?