I miss my sewing hutch. Yes, that one right there. I miss a lot of things about Mesa lately- namely Fresh & Easy- but- whoa! Off topic. Not the point of this post. I know the above photo doesn't look very organized, but I assure you it's quite the contrary. Here at Mom's I have all my sewing things crammed onto a desk with my art things and my jewelrymaking things and my laptop things and it's... kind of a bit of an-eleven-letter-word-I-shouldn't-use-in-public. Ahem.

Anyway, as is wont to happen during the holiday season and when holed up for a week on a sofa with back issues of Martha Stewart Living and Amanda Blake Soule's newest publication, I get the overwhelming urge to sew little things. Of course, checking up on everyone's blogs from the past month, I stumbled upon this little gem in my good friend Ashley's blog.

A snow queen! And how sweet she is. Now I'm sitting here making elaborate plans for the tiny scraps of white and ice blue silk I have stuffed in with endless lengths of wool yarn and sparkly white and silver beads... What a good idea I have. I can't WAIT to make Ro her own Snow Queen- put it away (with the rest of the Christmas stuff that I took down and stuffed- much to its protest- back into the storage bin this afternoon) and bring it out as a surprise next year when we're having Yule in our own home again and I have somewhere to put the glittering advent cupboard and...

A Snow Queen to set on top.
I'll be sure to have photos when she's done.

It's gearing up to be one quiet New Year's Eve at my house. No parties, no dressing up (well, maybe I'll toss on the red heels and my vintage rhinestone bracelet with my pj pants- just for midnight...) Nothing but our small family, champagne bejeweled with pomegranate seeds, jalepeno poppers and egg rolls, and likely many, many rounds of Memory and Pictionary. Hey, don't judge. Just ask my Grandma Lettie. Pictionary is awesome.

One thing that comes inherently with the holiday season in my family is the celebration of Nana and Papa's wedding anniversary. Usually it's a subdued affair- a phone call and/or card from my mother. But this year was... a little different.

December 19th, 1959.
Judy Huff, a sixteen year old bride, and Jimmy Loucks, her twenty-three year old Navy beau, get married.

(You might notice Jimmy's goofy looking older brother George standing behind him. With ears like those, how can you miss the Loucks boys in a crowd?)

She loses her engagement ring in the snow and a panic-driven search ensues.
She finds it. All is well.

Fifty years later, their very small family schemes a dirty little plan to kidnap them from their cozy apartment in Schoharie Valley, New York and haul them down to New Paltz to wine and dine them at the wonderful Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz.












It was a long evening of ridiculously delicious food, strolling long corridors, tea and cookies and toasting ourselves by huge fireplaces, gleefully browsing the gift shop (and coming home with pine cone ornaments for each of the women,) and dancing at the end.

But if you really hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm.

The post-holiday quiet. Grazing on the half-eaten trays of cookies. Toys from one end of the house to the other. A seemingly permanent uniform of pajama pants and slippers. Cups of coffee and reading new books. The tiny chatter of a little girl playing with her new dollhouse.

A Bevy of Salt Dough Ornaments

I admittedly did not have sun fuzzies when I first heard about Ni-Hao, Kai Lan! I have reprehensible disdain for Dora the Explorer/Go, Diego! Go! and thought, really, this is just Chinese Dora. This is ridiculous. It happened to be on yesterday morning and I had not yet had coffee, so I just let Ro watch it. By the time I settled onto the sofa with her, they were into the second segment where Kai Lan and her friends are preparing for the Moon Festival. Immediately I felt kind of nauseated because whenever I think of the Chinese Moon Festival I think of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club which I've read about ten times and it's so fraught with tragedy and sadness that it always makes me feel a little queasy.

Anyway, I was thrilled to see that Kai Lan actually managed to do Zhongqiu Jie some justice! They spent the day preparing dumplings, making paper lanterns, and helping bake moon cakes at the bakery to fill the orders from the neighborhood. Then they waited for the sun to set, gathered around the table, ate their dumplings, had a lantern parade to the top of the hill, made a wish on the moon and they all shared cakes.

Xie xie, Kai Lan. You do me proud.

I'm a mom. I will definitely be the first to admit that there are some days when I can't get anything right. The three year old is so three and won't listen to a damn thing you tell her. The cookies got burned all three times you tried baking them. The cat decided she was mad at you because her dish was empty and peed right on your good down comforter. The dishes seem to self-replicate overnight. You've changed four pairs of pee-pants today alone.

The shower is the only place you can hide. I mean, sometimes you can squeeze in a minute (like this one) where a bowl of Goldfish crackers and a Wow Wow Wubbzy DVD on Daddy's computer are enough to get you some peace and quiet. If only for a moment.

It's barely two more days 'til Christmas morning and I don't have my gift for my secret Santa finished, I haven't gotten the groceries for Christmas dinner (easy this year, just a big pot of my killer chili.) I haven't watched Love Actually yet and, uh, I'm reasonably sure that none of Ro's presents are wrapped.

However, I have baked a few batches of cookies that didn't burn, I did make about twenty salt dough ornament blanks that I've been painting with Ro and the rest of the family, the tree is up, and there's a glimmer of hope for snow after all.

Being home fo- ...ahem... ♫ I'll be home for Christmas... you can count on me... ♪
Being home this year is something I'm sure to be thankful for.
And especially ♫ dreaming of a white Christmas... ♪

Blessed Yule.

Solstice fires burn bright as newborn stars
shedding warmth where frost-wolf's icy breath
silvers streams, kisses each leafless branch,
making the eternal mother yield.
Frosted buds glitter like frozen tears
as nature mourns the mother's little death;
dark demons spread a heavy shroud to blanch
colour from the woodland, heath and field.

But of each thing a little spark, preserved
and tended by the ones who serve the flame
survives to light embryo season's birth,
'til life returns one more, vibrant and green.
Reaching higher each day the pale sun curves,
not strong enough to set the sky aflame.
So while nature languishes in dearth,
this darkest night the solstice fires burn.

Solstice Fires by Ian R. Thorpe.

First snow, first snowman.
So happy to finally be sharing a 'real' winter with her.