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Showing posts with label Advent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advent. Show all posts

Saturday, 15 December 2012

Sending love to the people of Newtown Connecticut

Making christmas star and angel cookies  for the grandchildren this morning my thoughts were with those bereaved families whose children did not come home yesterday.  And that I have never seen a president cry before



15th December

xx

c

Saturday, 8 December 2012

Sixteen days to go

Do you remember making paper chains? Buying packs of coloured paper strips, glued on one edge? As a small child the simple task seemed huge, fraught with problems, choose the colour carefully, don't lick all the glue off, line the edges up neatly... Oh I forgot to loop the strip through the last link!




I love the knitters take on these decorations

Xx

C

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Snowflake

The Fifth of December



We had our first snowfall of the winter in the South of England last night.  We woke to lightest sprinkling of white, blades of grass still visible and a bright cold sun

xx

C

Monday, 3 December 2012

Gingerbread House

Easily recognisable, it's the witch's house from the Hansel and Gretel story, the model for all those booths at German frost markets and  many Christmas decorations.



But, why? What have snow covered forest cabins got to do with Christmas?  Where did the tradition originate?  Googling did not help this time.  I know they came from Germany, but how did gingerbread houses become part of their Christmas traditions?

I have a feeling I am going to ask that question quite a lot as I think about the meaning and origins of many items on the Advent wreath

x

c

Sunday, 2 December 2012

2 December

I love the cold crispy mornings of winter, the sparkly frost on the roofs and icy blue skies but would never venture out without a few layers of woolly clothes.


A tiny mitten added to the advent wreath today

xx

c

Saturday, 1 December 2012

Advent

Apart from the over ambitious annual knitting plans  I am very relaxed about Christmas this year. That's despite it being December 1st, my having bought just one present (a beautiful wooden lorry with a magnetic crane to lift the blocks off for the Little Model's Little Brother) and finished only one handmade present.  No baking done for the freezer, no mincemeat or cake make, not even wrapping paper or cards bought because I have decided to make my own this year.

Why so chilled? Why no frenzied list making? I'm not sure really but I like this new relaxed me and perhaps it has something to do with having booked a Whole Three Weeks off work beginning on the 13th December .

But I have knitted an advent garland and today we prepared to hang the first item in the little tree in the hallway.  

A candle



Waking this morning at 5.30 and lying awake in the dark for half an hour before putting on all the lights and making coffee it was not hard to understand why many winter festivals are celebrated with candles.  There is no need for a candle early in a summers morning, watching the dawn in russet mantle clad creeping over your personal battlement or on a warm balmy night as you sit in the garden at nearly ten enjoying the twilight.  But in the winter evening's dusk there is something especially comforting about candle light (to say nothing about how it enhances the complexion)

So it pleases me that the instructions for the knitted advent calendar begin with a candle

x

C