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Samantha's Christmas Bird

When my granddaughter was about a year and a half old and my daughter got out the Christmas decorations that year, she came across a couple of white felt beaded birds that I had made for her a number of years before she was married. Well, my granddaughter fell upon those two birds and played with them until the feathers fell out! Something about those birds just spoke to her.
And it was the same thing the next year when my daughter unpacked all the Christmas decorations. So I started making her new ones of different colors each year and she just loves these little birds.
My mother gave me the pattern. In about 1965 she made probably a dozen of these birds and she has had them on her tree ever since. I always liked them, hence my making them for my daughter probably 20 years ago now.
This bird is the 2010 edition of Samantha's Bird. I like to think that maybe someday they will hang on her Christmas tree and maybe another little girl in the family will love them, too.

What's Christmas without cookies?

Even though I have been dieting for a few months I still feel the need to bake cookies. I asked The Husby what kind he especially wants this year and he told me he didn't care if I didn't make any other kind than frosted sugar cookies. No problem! They're my favorite, too. Weird thing about frosted sugar cookies. My own mother never made them while I was growing up. Not ever. Not that I felt deprived, mind you. She made all kinds of date bars, fudge, divinity, cream wafers, and those buttery cookies that have to go through a press before baking. What are those things called, anyway?
But sugar cookies that were rolled out, cut out, baked and frosted with various colors of icing and then maybe topped off with colored sugars, dragees and other little pieces of ornament? No. I think because she didn't make these I formed the opinion that they were somewhat inferior to all other Christmas cookies. I tasted a few over the years and they were okay, but nothing prompted me to make my own until about 20 years ago a co-worker brought some to work that his wife had made. I remember cornering him and demanding the recipe, these cookies were that good. They have been the favorite holiday cookie ever since.
So even though I am making a few other holiday goodies, these sugar cookies are front and center. I mailed my daughter some the other day, too. Usually my granddaughter and I make them together at her house but this year, thanks to me being obliged to do MY CIVIC DUTY and be available for jury duty, I'm stuck here. But Christmas Eve I'm throwing off the chains of my diet and eating sugar cookies and having some egg nog while I watch "A Christmas Story" on the 24 hour marathon on TBS. Almost heaven, I'm tellin' ya.

He's the Man

The holiday season always tends to make me a bit nostalgic and yesterday my husband and I re-visited one of our favorite themes for Christmas. We got to reminiscing about how we found out that there was no Santa Claus. I think I may have exceeded the threshold for Santa believability. It wasn't until the springtime AFTER Christmas when I was in 3rd grade that I even got a whiff that Santa might not be real. I mean, I was nine years old at that point. I still remember the punch in the gut feeling when one of my blabbermouth school chums laid this tidbit on me.
My husband said he thinks the reason I went so long believing is because I just wanted to believe. I said, no, I absolutely had never even had a doubt. My parents and my older sister had me and my younger sister and brother completely reeled in on the Santa fantasy. And we loved it. Christmas Eve night we were beside ourselves with exitement. Santa, he was The Man. I swear, the only way my parents could have worked us into a higher state of bliss would have been to have someone outside the house shake some sleighbells. That would have just sent us over the top. We would never have slept!
Last year my then five year old granddaughter had a schoolmmate trying to insert herself into the fantasy by making fun of Santa. The nerve! So I managed to eke out another year of believability for my granddaughter by explaining in a very serious tone that kids who don't believe in Santa don't get a visit from Santa. I'm pretty sure that worked.
It's such a short time that kids get to believe in something. I wish I could go back to that myself. Christmas when you're a kid...good times.

Stuff I Did This Year