On The Fifth Day Of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...

FIVE GOLDEN RIIIINGS!!!

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I have determined that for next year, I am going to do my best to make as many gifts as possible. I have scads of yarn, clay, beads, and ideas. It's exhausting wondering what 'so-and-so' is going to want and if there will be enough money to get it.

I am also going to start a gift stash. That way it will be a lot easier to spend $400 over the course of the year instead of in one month. The little kids are going to be easy enough to squirrel stuff away for. Toys are always a sure thing. Various accessories and miscellaneous are great for the adults, things like pocket puzzles, mini flashlights, silly gag gifts, shawls, scarves, jewelry.

As for the hand-made items, I am going to make clay miniatures, learn to make hats and mittens, more jewelry, maybe some lap blankets, learn to felt so I can make little fun things, and lovely smelly things, like pomanders. It's going to be a busy year, and I might even be able to sell some of my lovelies. That would be nice. Any extra cash I can bring is in a good thing.

These 'pomanders' are really not much more than clove decorated oranges. They likely won't preserve properly, but they were a lot of fun to make. I am really looking forward to making proper ones.

On The Fourth Day Of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...

Four calling birds!

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So, every year for Christmas, we try to keep it simple around here regarding extended family, as my mother, my sister and her family, my brother and his fiancee, and my other sister live all within a half an hour drive of me. For the past few years we have been doing a name drawing for the total of eight people. It works fairly well when people try and participate properly.

This year my brother and his fiancee managed to end up without jobs before the holidays, and while it was my brother who had drawn my name, his sweet lady was the one to get to work. She, with the help of her mother, made monster plates of cookies for everyone. While aforementioned little bro did contribute some recipes, and peanut brittle, she worked hard on sugar cookies, gingerbread men, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, chocolate wheat squares, and goodness knows what else. They individually wrapped each thing so it wouldn't dry out, and then piled them high on a large charger. I should have taken a picture before it was dismantled by the husband thing. Oh well.

The sugar cookies were these neat little soft lumps of sweetness. I bet they would go awesome dipped in chocolate and added with sprinkles. Would make for a really cool effect.

On The Third Day Of Christmas

... My true love gave to me...

Three french hens,

Two turtle doves,

And a partridge in a pear tree!

For those of you who don't know, the twelve days of Christmas starts Christmas day, and ends the night before Epiphany. :)

Professional Cupcake Cake Mess

I feel the need to keep the Christmas spirit going, as the past three days, despite being some of the most festive in all of the calendar year, have been rather unpleasant. So for the next few days, I shall be keeping things festive. :D

Happy Boxing Day!!

I think I am going to have to agree with Jen of Cake Wrecks, cupcake cakes are pretty awful. Most designs are not conducive to the lumpy outline of a cupcake cake. Then you add in the awkwardness that some decorators bring to the table for a regularly shaped sheet cake. Toss in some 4 am hangovers (bakers and decorators get in very early in the morning) and you get a Cake Wreck. These cupcake cakes are not as awful as some of the cakes featured at CakeWrecks.com, but these weren't pretty. I found them at the local grocery stores.

A candy cane is not a bad idea for a cupcake cake, unless you do this. The extra cupcakes could have been done separately from the design, decorated with sprinkles, something. Instead this lumpy mess looks like a mutant reject.

I am not sure if this is supposed to be a Christmas themed 'J' or a stocking. I am guessing stocking. Obviously someone was not paying attention.

Here, Then Gone

'Tis Boxing Day, and the celebrations of yesterday has not left yet. Oh no. The carb hangover, dehydration, scatter of boxes, presents waiting to be put into their destined household places, and Christmas clutter still lingers. However, it was a great time, and even though there is still much left to do to clean up, I'll do this again next year!

Santa Claus left behind a couple bites, but he did down the whole glass of milk!

Canyon is unimpressed with all of this Christmas shenanigans.

The child inspects what Santa has left behind. I doubt that game was intended for her.

Christmas? Bah, humbug.

'Tis The Season

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I hope everyone has a great and relaxing time today with their friends and families!

This year we had to purchase a new tree. A couple weeks ago or so I was getting the decorations out, and of course, the tree. Pulled it out of it's box and discovered that during its time in storage, it had managed to break itself. Will wonders never cease!

So to deal with the small tragedy, we got a small tree. It fits ever so nicely on our end table (which we have no room to move anywhere else, making it the only place for a tree) and we have loads of space under it for gifts! As you can see, Saint Nick loaded us up!

You can see here in this close-up that the ends of the needles have been scruffified (why yes that is a word, in my world), making the tree look frosted (not flocked) when lit. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but we have twinkling lights on the tree as well as regular ones. We didn't go all trailer park though, the regular and twinkle lights are evenly interspersed together.

Bubble lights are a must have in this house. I grew up with them on the tree every Christmas. The husband would love to pick up enough of these to decorate a tree entirely in bubble lights one of these years. I think that would be very interesting indeed.

Each year we also insist on having a few breakables on the tree as possible. With seven cats, the likelihood of the tree taking a nose-dive is high. I'd rather pick up whole ornaments than bits of ornaments.

Everybody have a Merry Christmas today and a Happy New Year!

'Twas The Night Before Christmas Eve

I am going to be better about this blog thing. I am having intentions on doing more things internet wise that involve making some moolah off of this, so I had better danged well start doing something.

It is Christmastide once again and we need some nice holiday spirit.

This is a honey apple cake I had made for the Solstice. Turned out nice enough, but the recipe needs some tweaking. It will be really nice once I get it where it should be.

I Am A Lazy Bum

My apologies to the dust bunnies who read this. I've been lazy.

Well, on immediate news, we might be getting a puppy in about four months.

This is what it might look like. A Corkie. A Yorkshire Terrier/Cocker Spaniel mix. The parents owners swore up and down that Oscar was too big to get to Sugar. They had little clue how determined two unfixed dogs can be. There is no confirmation of pregnancy yet, but we have been offered a pup if she comes due.

The husband type monster will be happy.

Maybe it'll end up as silly as this dog.

Ancient Roots

Did you know that St. Nicholas has a counterpart named Krampus? I just learned that today, and this is the evening he runs about, scaring children and catching the naughty ones in his large rusty chains to give them a beating with a collection of birch rods. The especially bad ones he would toss into a large basket on his back and take them to the river to drown, or toss them into the firey maw of Hell (good kiddies get fruit and sweets).

Now there's an incentive to behave. Even better than coal or no gifts at all!

This ides is still alive and well in the Alps where young men dress up as Krampus and run around scaring children or switching young women (though not likely to hurt like the real Krampus would have). This happens on the 5th of December, the eve before St. Nicholas Day.

I love old traditions! Especially the ones that scare little childrens.

Winter Raiments

We haz da snowz!

Again.

But this time more fell and it got a lot colder.

This was the view of the inner courtyard at my apartment building. Too bad you cannot really see the fluffy bits of crystal white floating down from the sky though the muted evening sun. It really was quite pretty. Sadly I am never really able to capture the beauty I see.

I need a better camera. One day.

Clicky for slightly larger picture.