Traveller

                                   I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Mischievous Elf

You've got to be kidding me!  This morning when I drug my sleep-groggy body down the stairs to get my coffee,  I was wary of getting my coffee cup off the hook because of the elf in it yesterday.  No elf in the cup...that was good, I sighed.

 I turned around to pour my coffee and I found this mess on the cutting board. Yikes!

I know what sparked this mischievous behaviour.  Yesterday afternoon I had a conversation with my daughter about my elf blog and whether she had read it or not.  She told me about one of her "facebook friends" who had the popular "Elf on a Shelf" elf and how it was mischievous.  So now I know why my "not so popular" elf has big ears. He listens to conversations.  That's right, apparently he eavesdropped and not only got the flour down, but look closely at the flour on the cutting board.  He made angel wings.  Do I think it is sweet?  Let me just say, it would have been a lot sweeter if he had cleaned up the flour mess.

(Note, all incidents may or may not be true.)

Elf

About 20 years ago an elf came to my house.  Don't ask me how, or why?  He did appear each Christmas and the children and grandchildren would shriek, "I don't like him...not one bit" or "hide him, he's freaky".  O.K., I relented, so I hid him in a box above the computer, but the next day he appeared again. 

Now that Elf on the Shelf is a popular book and stuffed toy and movie, I began to wonder what the little creature that appeared in my house was somehow related to this new Elf. 

This Christmas season has been no different.  I have paid attention each morning, sort of a detective game, to see if this elf is moving about.

Voila!  He did move in the night. 

The next morning, I found him here.  Thinks he's going for a boat ride, I guess.

I found him again.  What is this Elf doing?

I can tell you, Sugar is not happy.  Would you be with this freaky little elf in your lap?

Oh, no...not mycoffee cup! 

What do you want?  Why?  What am I supposed to do?  I'm listening, are you trying to tell me something?  Sshhhhhh!

Cowgirl and Silver

Once upon a time, long, long ago, before laptops and Leapsters, before cellphones and Nooks, even before mini-skirts, there were two sisters.  These girls played outside and made a covered wagon by throwing  sheets over the clothesline and setting a chair at the open end for the wagon master. Their mother let them have a can of beenie-weenies to eat straight from the can.  It was magic to hear the dull click of the spoon on the side of the can.

 Each of them had a horse, of a different color, of course.  These horses were long sticks with names like Blackie and Ginger.  The girls tied strings from the top of the sticks for the mane, and another string from the top so that they could tie Blackie and Ginger up to the chair in the front of the covered wagon so the horses could walk alongside the wagon.  They put the stick horses between their legs and away they rode, around the house, down the hill and around the sidewalk to the back of the house where their covered wagon was, but only after the skirmish when they defended their covered wagon from their brother and his friend. 
Cap guns drawn, "Pop!, Pop! Pop! Pop!  "We win!"
 ("Did not!" came the yell from the obnoxious boys, three years younger than the girls).
"Did, too!"

It must have been late fall because the tall iris had died back and the weeds were tromped over when the most beautiful horse in the world appeared.  Silver would be his name.  Silver the gas tank horse would have a towel thrown over his back, reins attached and would become the immovable, grand horse of all. Silver never participated in the battles, or walked alongside the covered wagon but would always be the majestic horse at the back of the fence.

Pop-Up Card

There was an article in the weekend paper on how to make your own holiday pop-up card.  Step one, get your supplies.  Instead of doing that, I decided I would practice first.  After reading and re-reading, turning the folded paper back and forth, up and down, front to back, back to front, I just couldn't figure out how to do the first step and where to cut the parallel slits.  So I asked Tiffany if she would help interpret the instructions.

I'm so right-brained that I saw the writing on the wall. I'm not a technical person.  I'll re-phrase that, I'm not a patient person with mechanical, or technical things.   I was on the verge of slicing parallel slits in everything, including the wadded up paper that was to be my pop-up card.

The following photos will show Tiffany working with her "test" card.  Patiently drawing, cutting, folding.

Just look at those nimble fingers.

Draw, snip, snip, fold, fold.

Glue, glue, test it.  Yes, picture 3 is her pop up card, but wait...what is she doing in picture 4?

She added snippets of a magazine, and of a card and voila, Tiffany's pop-up card.  She thinks that I took these pictures to show how she did it, but really it was for me to remember how she did it. Good job, Tiffany you made a terrific pop-up card.

 Let's see, picture one, how do I hold my fingers?

Merry and Me

There is so much to be thankful for.  When I begin to go over my blessings in my mind, I remember my daughter, Lyla's, nightly prayers that included each family member by name, then the animals, then her school friends, then the gifts she had received, then the...and the...and the....I may have suggested at that point that she visualize the "whole world" and include everything in it and bless the "whole world".  I could see that there was no end to her prayer. She had grasped the concept of the "infinite". She was a very thankful child (and still is).
Today I feel the same way as Lyla did.  If I mention one person then I will be forgetting other others.  So I have made it simple.  I have chosen...not my favorite, mind you, but I have a formula for this choice. I have chosen to be thankful for the person who has been the closest to me the longest.  She is my twin sister, Merry.

Merry has been my friend and soul mate since we were born (except maybe when we were pre-teen, but  I didn't like anybody then).  She has pulled me out of the "funk" more times than I can remember, she listened to me cry, whine, ramble and breathe.  I love you, Merry, and I'm thankful that you to have been in my life.  If we share another life together, maybe Karma will be as good to me in the future as it was this lifetime.

Shoot, now I'm feeling guilty.  I'm now visualizing the "whole world"...and YOU are included.

Onions and Other Foods

Food takes over our minds as Thanksgiving is near, very, very near.  The lunchmeat sandwich, the shepherd's pie, the chicken noodle soup, none of these foods satisfy that food urge of a Thanksgiving feast. None of these foods occupy my mind when I go to bed at night.  Apple pie, chocolate fudge pie, turkey and dressing with giblet dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, ambrosia, ...these are the foods floating about in my head these days.

 The following painting is called "Onions", I can't remember when I painted it, but it might have been near the holidays.

Holiday Donkey

A long time ago my husband and I didn't have time to take off from work and travel to either his parent's or my parent's house for Thanksgiving.  Instead we stayed at home.  He watched football and I cut up magazines, you know, the "wishlist"; the things I wanted, the things I liked or the way I wanted to look.  It was on that day that I discovered Verushka, a tall, leggy model.  Yes, I wanted to look like her. I may still have her picture somewhere, and for the record, I never looked like her.

About 4:30 in the afternoon an immense sadness crept over me.  I suggested we go to a new store (a Convenient Store) and buy a turkey t.v. dinner.  We did just that and as I ate the turkey slices from the aluminum section and the corn from the other section, I vowed that we would never again  be without family on Thanksgiving. 

It was perfect timing because the next year, our first daughter was five months old and we would always be with family.  We prepared our first Thanksgiving dinner for both of our families and it was delicious, even the permission pudding (which was more like a flan).  It was to be one of thirty something Thanksgiving dinners I would make.  Often, after lunch, we would do something crafty.  Many years I started my woodcut for my Christmas cards or we played board games.  

One year when our second daughter was about eight years old, she taped the "Holiday Donkey" on the back of the door.  It started out as a "tape the tail on the donkey" game, but ended up with a pilgrim hat and of course for Christmas it got a red nose taped on it.  I love that horse.

I am a "tradition" person, and there is always room for change. The last five years the kids have assumed the roles of cooks and chefs and prepared delicious meals for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.They have children of their own now.  It is sad to let it go, but what a wonderful, delightful change to "go" to Thanksgiving dinner.   Have a Happy Thanksgiving everybody!  Don't eat too much!