I'd like to apologize to Thanksgiving

I love eggnog chai. I love twinkly lights. I love cats curled up on laps. I love puzzles. I love puzzles with cats. I love the feel of cozy fabrics like wool and corduroy. I love singing with my kids to candlelight. So of course I am a total nut for the magic of Christmas.

I'd like to apologize to Thanksgiving for the neglect because Christmas starts in September (or sooner). This year has been no different, but I do have some specific plans and preparations in mind. 

1. Concertina Christmas Caroling Flash Mob... not sure if we can call it a mob... but I'm practicing a bunch of easy Christmas songs in the key of F on my concertina. I have the intention of dressing up in a renaissance fair-esk costume and playing uninvited downtown.

2. Origami Ornaments... I'm folding a massive quantity of origami  (all the same upside-down version of a lily) to hang on our tree this year. My son is more adventurous than I am and he's contributing a random assortment of dragons, cranes, butterflies, and whatever else there is a good YouTube tutorial of. 

3. Hand Printed Tea Towels... each year the day care staff at our church get their stockings filled for the twelve days before Christmas break. I pick a day to take a turn to stuff their stockings. One year I printed tote bags. Last year I stuffed them with the small version of my calendar. This year I have tea towels picked out that I'll either screen print or block print with my stamps. I haven't decided yet if I'll do them all the same or make each one different. I have a lot of designs to choose from.

4. Music Box Houses... I started collecting music boxes over the last few months from the thrift stores and from Glaser Ceramics.  I tend to take the music box out of the usually ugly and breakable ceramic object it came in. Then I've been gradually making new cases for them in houses made out of various sizes of craft sticks. Once I got about four done I was running into an "if you give a mouse a cookie" situation. I needed a perfect place to put them. So I took the quilt rack down off the wall in my living room and devised a plan. In the end I went with my 4th or 5th version, but I'm very happy with it. The wreaths were free and made from grape vines on my parents' property. The floral wire I used to connect them were left over from pre-pandemic wreath making parties. The little shelves were made from paint stir sticks that I had purchased for other projects months ago. I did have to buy the lights, but all in all a pretty cheap project for me. I harvested the vines on Wednesday evening and the whole thing was done by the time I went to sleep on Thursday. I love projects that come together quickly.