Another Ten Two Tuesdays Giveaway
You all know how bad I am about letting my project samples pile up. Every time I make something for the gallery, create a new project to post here on the site, or make something for The Monthly Muse—that’s another finished piece on the pile. There are days when I just don’t have a single empty spot in my workroom to put them.
So, here are two lovely fairly ornaments I made for the July issue of The Monthly Muse, Fairy Magic. They really need a new home! I’ll send them to someone next Tuesday. Maybe you?
To enter the drawing, just leave me a comment, telling me your favorite Christmas memory. It doesn’t have to be long and detailed—just something that warms your heart or makes you smile each time you think of it. Next Tuesday, I’ll pick a winner at random.
Good luck!
I don’t know if it’s a ‘Favorite’ memory - but - 2 years ago my creative self decided to make a ’special’ card for my 2 brothers. I enlarged an old (atleast 60 years OLD) snapshot of the 3 of us standing in the snow to make a cute/nifty card. When I enalrged the picture, I realized that it was even cuter than I thought, 3 little kids waist deep in snow, holding hands - crying out eyes out! They laughed long and loud when they got their cards and that became their favorite card of all time - every year now, it comes out and sits in a place of honor
Hello Lisa. A very good friend of mine has so generously shared your newsletters with me when I visit her home, monthly, and that’s when I catch up to all of your good’Ness! . I’ve not subscribed as yet because I’m still not free of a person who watches ever move I make. I will be soon, tho’! I only share this because you may wonder about an email address that’s not on your listings.
Favorite Christmas Memory: My parents, and theirs before them were farmers and I grew up with ’stragglers’. People seem to think that the Depression years were several hundred years ago, I tend to think it’s something society lives with throughout time. Stragglers were people who walked everywhere, especially during, and after WWII. The Christmas year that I was 10, my Mother had left us kids home — 4 older brothers and myself … to tend to my Great Grandmother. A Straggler came to the back door of the summer kitchen. By the tree line, where the snow was piled high as the fence line, we could see her husband and three children, all of them cold and hungry. My oldest brother gave them two fresh baked loves of bread wrapped in a used flour sack, and some jam. He told them they could stay in the barn’s hay loft until our parents returned home. Once they were in the barn, I asked my brother what he put the jam in as I knew that Mother would be using that flour sack for our clothes she made. He said to me, “I put the jam in the woman’s hands, two scoops full.”
I never eat jam without thinking of that family, and my brother’s ingenuity.
Bless you for your artistic ways, Lisa. Gracie.
My most vivid Christmas memories are those of color.
Christmas green is the color of the advent chains my sisters and mother glittered each year to help us count down the days ’till Santa would arrive.
Icy blue is the color I see when I shop for the perfect Christmas tree. My mother’s tree is adorned in hundreds of winter blue lights that add the most amazing sparkle to the hundreds of glass and glittering ornaments that bring her tree to life. This family tree is the most amazing light show of the season.
Red is the color of warmth brought to me by two amazing memories. One of which was the red lights, bulbs, and velvet bows that lit the presents below a tree I gazed upon at my father’s house with my 5 year old stare. A second memory of the orangy red flames inside the wood stove that has continued to heat our hearts and our toes throughout every winter.
These colors bring Christmas to me all year round.
Every christmas brings the memory of my grandmothers house and how anxious I was to be there on Christmas day with grandma and all the holiday “smells”…Yummy fun!!!
When I was little my mom used to order matching pajamas for the whole famiy from the sear’s catalog. On Christmas eve we would all dress in our pj’s so the pics in the morning were… hmmm… perhaps a bit “staged”, but quaint. Our family always talks about that every holiday season. My sister and I both agree that, although it is a funny memory for us, we would never do that to our kids! lol
My best Christmas memories are the elaborate gingerbread houses my brother and I used to make when we were just out of college. we would spend an entire weekend working on them- designing the castles, houses, churches, or cottages, baking the pieces, and then decorating them. we always found a way to incorporate a gummy shark- it might go in the moat in the castle, in a hot tub in the ski lodge, or even in the baptismal font in the church. Then we would have a big party with all of our friends, and eat the gingerbread houses at the end of the party.
So many Christmas memories, but I am always happy when I am at my parents’ house and help put up the Christmas decorations (my Dad is alone now and won’t do it if we don’t insist AND help). There is this little ornament of an elf with a pinecone body, and the tips of the pinecone are covered in white glittery “snow”. It’s not like today’s glitter, more like that new Distress Stickles glitter that Tim Holtz came out with. I remember playing with that ornament every year when I was little, because it had a flat bottom and always sat out on a tabletop instead of being put on the tree. I just may try to make one this year…
My fondest Christmas memory and one that literally changed my life, was during my junior high years. My parents arranged for two children from the local Baptist Children’s Home to stay with us over the holidays. These kids had no family and no where to go for Christmas.
My parents bought them many gifts and we really enjoyed having them in our home to share the holiday. I remember being so sad when they had to go back. I wanted them to stay with us forever.
My father was adopted. My siblings and I were all adopted. My husband and all his siblings were adopted.
When it came time for my husband and I to start our family, we turned to adoption. Our Chinese daughter has brought us so much joy and I can’t help but wonder if those kids who stayed with us ever got their “forever family.”
My funniest Christmas memory was when my Dad, his brother Uncle Bill, and my Uncle Sid all got the same hat for Christmas! It was hilarious! Even though they were from different people, here one came, and he put his on; since it was a gaudy, awful hat we all laughed! Then another was opened…the same hat! He put his on, and we were laughing so hard our sides hurt. When the third one came along nobody could believe it and suddenly all of the bathrooms were full and the rest of us had tears streaking down our faces! That was in the ’60’s, I was so little and innocent…maybe 8 yo. We have a picture of the three on a couch wearing their hats…and one got a matching sweater. Those were the ugliest hats I’ve ever seen. As a little kid, I never did understand why none of them wore the hats? Or sweater? LOL!
Sally B.
hi lisa
christmas for me is many things
i love it when it snows on christmas eve and christmas day it just does not feel like christmas without it
truding around a live tree farm and cutting our own tree and carting it home and having the wonderful smell of pine fill the house-trimming the tree-’its a wonderful life’ has to be on at the time
unwrapping the ornaments one by one and always getting joy in my heart when i see them again
christmas stockings!!!!!!!!!!!! a favorite since i was a kid-
the ease of good friends and family gathering together
i just do not like the commercial aspect of it at all i think there should be a law-no christmas advertising until AFTER thanksgiving and i really really dislike the use of ‘X-MAS’
i could go on and on BUT i won’t-vbg
enjoy your day
many thanks
tabby
My dad was in a lounge band in the late seventies. The whole family went to a Christmas party at his swinging single bandmate’s house. I was probably seven years old, and nobody was cooler or more handsome than the host, Blaise. It was a fancy party so we all got dressed up. They served fancy hors d’oeuvres, champagne, Manhattans and scotch on the rocks for the adults and virgin cocktails to the kids. The band had out their instruments and there was caroling around the piano. We finally left for home, WAAAAY past my bedtime. Walking to the car, snow crunching beneath our feet, careful not to mess up our good shoes, we heard a jingle. Not just any jingle- it had to be Santa’s sleigh! We never got in the car so quickly! We were sure he would miss our house because we were still awake!!! We were all asleep by the time we got home and a very generous Santa DID visit that year. It seems like yesterday.
Favorite Christmas memory- the year our tree was covered with nothing but hand made ornaments– left over from an unsuccessful Christmas bazaar my mother and I participated in. It was THE most beautiful, charming tree, covered with felt animals embellished with sequins and beads (it was the ’70s!) And the tree had a story too– it was only 4 feet tall and we (family) had cut it at a Canadian friend’s cottage in Port Huron (Canada) and illegally transported it across the border home to Michigan, hidden in the car’s trunk! The tree stayed fresh well into January.
my Favorite Christmas memory, may not mean anything to everyone,but when I was young in the 40’s the Christmas trees all had Silver Tinsel put on them as the last an final trim, Like the ribbon on a gift.Mom would always let my brother and I help hang the ornaments, after Dad put on the lights,but when it came to the Bright Silver Tinsel,That was mom’s special touch of Christmas.We would set back and watch her put on one piece at a time Untill each branch was covered like ice-ciles on a tree.My mom is gone now but each Christmas as I decorate my tree I always sometime during the process ,In my minds eye see mom doing her Bright Silver Tinsel.May everyone have a Bright Silvery Christmas.Mary
Well, my favorite Christmas memory is that my husband and I got engaged on Christmas 22 years ago and we are still very happy. Julia
Hi Lisa,
Love those fairies! So festive looking.
My favorite Christmas memory: I must have been about 5 or 6. I got up early Christmas morning with my 5 brothers. We were always way too early, and all we were allowed to get into was our stockings. I remember looking in my red felt stocking and finding peanuts, an orange, a Chinese finger toy, (the kind that’s woven, and you put your index fingers in each side and pull), and other various small toys. That was something I will never forget, those stockings. I carried on the tradition with my own kids, who are now grown. They never ate the orange or the peanuts, my how times have changed.
My second Christmas in Germany, when I was all of 19 y.o., stands out as a favorite. A dear lady befriended me and taught me how to bake a whole bunch of wonderful Advent and Christmas goodies like lebkuchen and stollen. The holidays were fraught with conflict when I was growing up, and this friend helped me start “healing the season” by sharing her creativity and love with a kid far from home.
25 years later, I’m still baking like a fiend from Thanksgiving to Christmas. My husband and I have spent many Christmases going from house to house and giving people goodie bags. It’s what makes the season magical for us.
I was brought up in a famous village that was a walled children’s home.
Those of us who had nowhere to go at Christmas used to have Christmas in our cottage home.
Each year we could make a wish for one present from Father Christmas. (of course the charity relied on donated gifts so to get what you wished for was quite rare - and it never really mattered that much as we were all in the ’same boat’.
When I got to 10 and older, I wished for a little camera. They were black and white in those days (1950’s early 1960’s).
I can not describe my delight when I was 13 that instead of a jigsaw puzzle or colouring book and pencils - as I had grown used to expect - I at last got a little ‘Brownie’ camera - and I still have the 10 grainy black and white photos I took of the snow we had in the village that year. But I don’t have a single photo of myself as a child! I wish I had thought to get someone to take a photo of me LOL
That was the best present I ever had!
Let’s see….one of my lasting memories is making candy and baking EVERY Christmas with my mother when I was growing up. We made divinity (does anyone make that anymore?), date logs, fudge, cookies, fruitcake (yuk!) ad finitum.. What in the world was she thinking?? She definitely showed her love by her cooking.
My most memorable Christmas happened when I was 10 or 11 and convinced I had figured out Santa was a member of my family, and I was going to prove it. Before leaving for church one Christmas Eve, I insisted on being the last one out the door. I checked all the windows, I turned the key in every lock myself. I was the last person in the car. On the way home, my mother insisted we stop for some milk. I couldn’t wait to get home, see the empty tree and exclaim…
A Ha! I told you there was no Santa Clause. My sister was sent into the store and after an apparantly long line, my patience was growing thin. I couldn’t wait to hear them say “You were right, you figured it out”. This was the year I was going to be trusted to be ‘in’ on the secret and know the truth about Santa.
Once home, I made everyone get behind me…no tricks this time, I was soooo close to the truth I could taste it. I opened the door, ran to the tree and to my shock it was filled with presents and a red envelope addressed to me. Seeing presents should bring joy and glee to a child’s face, but I was filled with shock and horror! As I opened the envelope, all eyes were on me. Those words were burned into my memory that night: Dear Luanne, I am very sad to hear that you don’t believe in me, anymore. I have watched your cleverness grow this year and with it some mischief. Overall you are a very good girl, so I have left you some of the presents you asked for. Have a Merry Christmas, Love Santa.
Silence filled the room, everyone knew this was something we would not be discussing…ever.
Not until I had my own girls did my mother devulge the secret of that night. Apparantly she stopped, not for milk, but so that my sister would run to our house, put all the gifts under the tree, and get back in the car! A-Ha! I knew it! I knew it! Not until I was 36 did I get to enjoy the moment, and I think it was sweeter when she said that all throughout church she kept thinking “How am I going to get into that house?”
When my kids were little we had a family friend that used to dress up like Santa and visit on Christmas Eve just before the children’s bedtime. One year we got snow….did we ever! It was piled almost as high as the eaves on the house and I just figured that Santa would not be making his rounds that year. This man was incredible. He knew that the kids would be so disappointed, so he walked right down the middle of Main Street (the only placed plowed in town) dressed as Santa and “ho-ho-ho”-ed his way right to the front door. He definitely made our Christmases for several years!
My favorite Christmas memory was when I was little.I was an only-child then and the first grandchild. We lived in California. We would go to my grandparent’s house for Christmas Eve. We opened our gifts on Christmas Eve so my family had to be creative in having Santa come by. Normally, most of the family would get in the car and take me to see all the Christmas lights and decorations. We all loved to see them. Then when we got back, there would be all these presents under the tree for me.
This one Christmas Eve, I was in a bedroom in the back of my grandparent’s house. We hadn’t gone out yet. All of a sudden, I heard sleigh bells coming from the living room area. I didn’t know what to do until someone called me to the living room. There were all these presents under the tree. They told me that Santa had just come. I had doubts about it because I knew that my grandpa had sleigh bells by the fireplace. Then I realized that he had gone to a lot of trouble to keep my Santa dream alive. I acted surprised and never let on that I knew it was him. I didn’t want to spoil it for him. I knew then how much they must have loved me. I’ve never forgot that.
The Christmas Surprise
Back in 1960 when my third daughter was about six weeks old and very very tiny, we wrapped a carboard box with Christmas paper, inside and out and put a pillow inside and put the baby in the box for a portable cradle.
Went to visit the grandparents and placed the box with the baby under the tree. Bye and bye along came brother-in-law and as he passed the tree, looked in the box at the baby and asked who the doll was for. Before anyone could answer, the baby started to wiggle and wave her hands. Brother-in-law almost jumped out of his shoes when he realized it was the baby and not a toy doll.
We all got a big laugh and still remember with love, especially now that tho he is over 80 and suffers from altimers he still remembers that Christmas surprise.
My favorite Christmas memories are those that involve my family…my parents and sisters when I was younger along with my husband and daughters now. We always seem to be in the kitchen…making cookies, preparing meals, eating, playing board games or wrapping presents at the kitchen table. There’s always lots of laughter, a spilled drink or two, and a dog barking. Love it!
My favorite Christmas memory is of the wooden rocking horse my father made for my first granddaughter, his first great granddaughter, 18 years ago this Christmas. He used a wisk broom for the tail, and the coolest, talking horse head for the rocking horse’s head. My father will not be able to see his future great great grandchildren on the rockinghorse as he died a year ago this past October from cancer, but I saved the rocking horse he made once my granddaughter outgrew it. It lost it’s head somewhere along the line, the old one was “loved” a little too much, but that rockinghorse is still out in our garage, just waiting to delight the next generation of little boys and girls.
My family on my Mum’s side lived in Berlin and we celebrated a traditional German Christmas with them whenever possible while I was growing up - presents on Christmas Eve, pfefferkuechen (soft gingerbread covered in dark chocolate) and lots of singing round the piano. Whenever I see pfefferkuechen, it brings back such happy memories of long ago!
I can’t call this my favorite, but it is something I’ll never forget. A while back, I made some art pieces using old photos of my grandmother from my dad’s side of the family. It inspired me to create a huge, ongoing project using photos of all my family members. So, two years ago at Christmas, I convinced my grandmother from my mother’s side to let me borrow her collection of family photos. She had them divided up into groups for each of her children and for herself but they were just in boxes or old acidic albums. I took all the photos, scanned them (about 800 of them), put them into new albums (5 albums) and brought them back to her last Christmas. My grandmother had been battling cancer and last year she was losing her fight. I got to sit with her and go through every single one of those photos, hear all the stories and spend a wonderful couple of days with her one last time. She past away on Dec. 31st, 2007 in her own bed and with her whole family by her side, just as she wanted it to be.