a shadowy me on Monday

I got out for my walk while the sky was blue as more rain is forecast and while I was out I captured a shadow of me literally waving to you all this Monday (thanks to Sian’s great meme)

It was a suitably festive weekend which included friends’ choir’s carol listening; market and craft fair visiting and quantitative easing; German festive biscuits sampling; holly wreath buying; winter scavenger hunt item finding; tree lights admiring and Christmas meals discussing.  Plus some less festive Swedish warehouse visiting.

Wishing you all a great week, festive and otherwise, as I head off to use an Allen key and decipher the picture instructions.

Me on Monday

pausing in my perusal of my decorations boxes to join Sian in waving to you all on a Monday

and looking back on a weekend with plenty of walks and crochet and stroking the cat and writing cards and donating items to the foodbank and perusing the winter scavenger hunt list from Joy and marvelling that grey clouds do indeed have silver orange linings

looking forward to my first mince pie of the year and starting to put out some festive decorations – hoping you are enjoying the start of December too.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas blog friends

I’ll be posting my final Up and Down of the year on Friday along with details for 2014.

Look Up Look Down at festive decor

I’m slowly decorating my house, taking a few bits out of the boxes each day and finding them a home.  Decorating in early December still feels a bit strange as always followed the 12 days of Christmas tradition when we were growing up which meant we decorated on the 24th and took it all down on the 6th. 

Looking up at some of the eclectic mix I’ve places on top of my display unit

and looking down at my reminder of Christmas in New Zealand – plastic pohutukawa – a native tree that is covered in fabulous red flowers in December

hooked Santa

inspired to crochet this amigurumi Santa as soon as I saw the pattern in Simply Crochet.  At 16cm he is bigger than I’d imagined  (don’t you hate pattern illustrations with no size perspective) but now sits nicely on my display unit, surveying the festive preparations.

5 on the 5th at the Christmas market

Joining Sandi’s  lovely meme again this month with a wander around the ‘European market’ (formerly the German market) set up for the festive season in Edinburgh.  I went just after it was open so that I could get some decent shots of the displays

I love all the funny hats that are still popular this winter

I could smell this stall before I came upon in and bought a string of cinnamon, lime and orange which is infusing my house with festive smells as I type

these decorations look so jolly all grouped together

these polymer clay covered bowls always fascinate me – in part with awe at the skill (polymer clay is one craft I’ve tried but found too frustrating to keep up)

and something I hadn’t seen before, these thin white ceramic bowls have patterns that show when a candle is lit underneath them

Thanks to Sandi for prompting me to visit the market with my camera as my focus.

Festive Swap

When I first read Miriam’s post suggesting a festive decoration swap my initial thoughts were about what I would make.  Having signed up I had some fun looking through crochet patterns and finally made up a trio of stockings to send to Jill.  I really enjoyed the process and was happy to be able to send a small festive cheer to a blogger whose photography I’ve admired for ages. I was delighted when I heard from her that she had received the parcel and to see her post, which you can see here. 

Then I received an envelope though my letter box and remembered, this is a swap so I get a lovely decoration from a fellow blogger too. Fiona had made me a beautiful, elegant 3D snowflake decoration with matching card

 

I’ll be hanging them in a prominent place as I decorate next week. 

big thank you to Miriam for arranging the swap.  I’m enjoying seeing each decoration as it appears on blog posts.

festive cheer

Heavy rain set in yesterday and the 10 day forecast has grey clouds on every day except Monday

My festive lists and preparations for family celebrations are beckoning (with un traditional items such as Thai dipping sauce as well as traditional mince pies).

I’m guessing many of you will be in a similar situation so until we connect again on the other side of Christmas – fond wishes that your festivities are all that you hope they will be and this little haven of cheer - home made mince pies on my NZ Christmas plate with my Christmas mugs full of a hot beverage

[Apologies to the song writers for my change in the words]

[snow effects from a brush by K Pertiett]

Fabulous door decoration

Many of the doors in my neighbourhood are sporting colourful festive wreaths. The local greengrocer has a big pile of holly wreaths outside his shop and there were big piles of pine ones at the garden centre last week too so they are obviously widely popular.

On my Saturday walk I was impressed by the variety on show so I snapped some to create a collage.

These are not part of the festive tradition in New Zealand – I guess because it is summer in December and wreaths originate in mid winter celebrations.

Are door wreaths part of the festive decor in your neighbourhood?

a tradition?

Is intention and one repetition enough to create a tradition?  As someone who has been accused of counting ‘1,2, lots’ and ‘once, twice, always’ I tend to think that it is – so here is my new Santa tradition.

Last year when I was unpacking my decorations for the first time since moving back from New Zealand in 2009, I decided that I’d like a small tradition relating to ornaments.  With all of my decorations out on display I noticed that Santas dominated

so I decided to add to them each year.  Last year I bought the fellow on the top row, second from the right.

This year I bought another cheery Santa ornament with a Scandinavian feel

so is intention and one repeat enough to be called a ‘tradition’?  Do you have a festive ornament tradition?

on the bright side

one of the things that I find hard to re-adjust to back in Scotland after 20 years in New Zealand is the long hours of darkness in winter – at the moment it gets dark around 3.30pm and is still not fully light as I type this at 8.20am.

But in normal ‘Pollyanna’ mode I found a plus side now that the festive lights have been lit.  As well as the lit decorations down the high street, the council wraps several trees with small lights.  I love how these trees look and have even been tempted out for a short walk after dark to see them

When more of the houses in my neighbourhood have their house lights and trees up I intend to do another after dark photowalk to capture the magic.