Secret Santa Surprise!

For someone who loves presents, receiving them from other crafters/artists is so much fun!  I signed up on Facebook when Nicole (lilyella) posted her Secret Santa project. 

Then I got nervous...what would I make?  Did I already have something appropriate and good enough to send???  How will I wrap it as that was part of the project?   

Creating under pressure is not my forte.  Creating under pressure right before Christmas was an even larger challenge.  While I pondered what to do - time was running out. 

Well - I did manage to finish my Secret Santa and sent it off to Maryland to Lisa on the last day I was supposed to mail it.  Whew! 


Evening bag with rosette and pearls


 

Fingerless gloves





















I received my Secret Santa on Christmas Eve.  I was so surprised when I opened my package to find a lovely charm and bead bracelet and earrings!  I tried my best to get a good picture and after about ten shots - this was the best I could do.  It's black and crystal beads with silver charms.  Thank you, Christy!  Now I need to get an new outfit to go with my new jewelry!


Made by http://www.jillrylove.com/

I can't wait for next year - I'm already thinking about what I will make. Hopefully I will start earlier now that I know there might be another opportunity - what are the chances?

Hope you had a great holiday season and a very Happy New Year!

Bonnie

Another Christmas Past...

All the preparations for the holidays are over.  The gifts have been opened and are now at someone else's house and not in my bedroom.  The stashes of cans, packages and bags of food have disappeared and have morphed into leftovers that are stored in many places including the entry porch because its cold out there and the refrigerator can only hold so much.  While this season is an enormous amount of work, the house gets cleaner than usual and there is satisfaction that I tried to make the dishes that loved ones love/like.  The cleaning and cooking are a huge part of their stack of gifts...very huge.

Love it!  Necklace by daughter, Jen
 www.jennysjewelrybox.com

Now we can mess up the house a bit!  Yay!  Bring out the hidden magazines/books that usually sit along side of us on the couch.  My magazines and catalogs look like sticky notes have exploded inside of them marking my places, either to start, finish or pass on articles to friends or family.  There will be a scavenger hunt to find where we hid all the stuff that clutters every flat surface in the house on most days.  And then there are the bills that arrived during the last few days before the "company" would arrive...now where did I stash the Target bill?

Some people have already started or will soon begin to take their Christmas decorations down.  I say we leave them up until Valentine's Day!  I'll be napping  instead and then I'll read or knit or crochet in my nest on the couch.


Beautiful, sparkling wreath - handmade by daughter, Alissa!

We have a forecast for rain at the end of the week...New Year's weekend.  I say bring it on - I will be nestled in amongst my reading material on my favorite couch in my nearly clean living room.

Tis the season to relax!  Happy New Year!

Bonnie 

Keeping the Christmas Traditions

Most of our Christmas traditions come from my Norwegian Gram and Swedish Grandpa J. - my Dad's parents.  I'm not sure we have any traditions from my Mom's side of the family because her Mom died when she was 15 so we never experienced their German Christmas celebrations.  I'm sad that I never asked about their German traditions before my Mom died.

My Gram J. was an amazing person.  She was always in motion and especially during the holidays.  She would make Swedish sausage using a cow's horn to stuff the casings with ground beef, ground pork, potatoes, onions and seasonings.  Her thumb was short and broad and very useful as she stuffed many sausages that we would devour on Christmas eve.  Homemade buns were another of her specialties and that baked sausage tasted so good wrapped in one of those buns that was buttered and spread with red jam.  Some of us stayed away from the baked lutefisk but those who ate it drizzled melted butter with onions over the top.  Her meatballs were so good and didn't contain any weird spices.  Lingonberries were served in a crystal dish.  There was always a wooden dish filled with mixed nuts in the shell with nut crackers and a pick.

The cookies were so plentiful...rosettes deep fried and covered with powdered sugar, krumkake rolled and dusted with powdered sugar, spritz of every color and sprinkled with colored sugars, refrigerator cookies with walnuts, fattigman deep fried to perfection, sandbakkels made in tiny silver tins and filled with some yummy filling, thumbprint cookies filled with jam, Russian teacakes, candy cane cookies, frosted sugar cookie cutouts, date cookies, pinwheels and other favorites.  The cookies were kept in all sorts of tins in the back hall that started at the top floor and ended at the basement level. It wasn't heated and kept anything stored there nice and cold in the winter.

Their Victorian style house had three floors with a small attic.  Families lived on each floor...my family of four (included my brother and I at that time) lived upstairs, Gram and Grandpa lived on the main floor and my Aunt and Uncle and eventually their five boys lived downstairs.  It was built on a hill so the lower level opened out to the backyard.  A dear friend who had immigrated from Norway, Randolph, rented a room on that lower level also.  When Gram wanted him to come up to eat with us, we would stomp on the floor in her bedroom and then he would come upstairs.  I always thought that was so much fun! 

Many years after my Grandpa died, Gram married Randolph and he moved upstairs.  It was a full house and my Dad and his brother were able to live there when they were first married and starting out.  When we moved to our new house, Uncle Earl's family moved up to the top floor.  It was a great way to begin and eventually each brother saved up and moved to a new house.

So on Christmas Eve, we all would gather at Gram's.  It was a house that was filled with wonderful smells that permeated the main front hall and invited us in to the festivities.  The sparkling tree with multi-colored lights stood in the front picture window.  The ornaments were plentiful - some antiques with isinglass windows in little red lanterns, silver multifaceted glass shapes, red felt Santa's, big round shiny balls - some decorated with shapes cut out of red tape, icicles, and tinsel and of course, the handmade paper snowflake ornaments from her grandkids. 

Our tree with spun glass Angel on top!

Gram had cupboards filled with dishes - tea cups in one, a pedestal ruby glass candy dish, silver platters, dishes and candlesticks, pink depression glass serving pieces, and oh so many gorgeous dishes and her good china in a small mahogany hutch that I watched over until recently.  Her special dishes with lots of pink roses and gold rims were always on the table at Christmas. 

Her mahogany Duncan Phyfe table with all the leaves added with matching and mismatching chairs, filled the dining room and we all sat together at that table with her good china and good silverware and candles all aglow. When the family grew to include my sister and another cousin or two we had a kids' table stuffed between the adult table and the stove that heated her house.  I still have the wicker rocker that sometimes managed to smash the glass of her teacup cupboard that sat next to the stove.  I think I get my collecting obsession from Gram!  I have her tea cups and the same cupboard that has had its glass replaced quite a few times.

All of the kids were so excited not only for the presents but just to be together with my Dad singing his carols and cajoling us to join in with him.  I remember  when my sister was about 3 years old, she would put a black olive on each finger tip and eat them off one at a time.  The windows were all steamed up from the previous days of cooking and from the crowd of people all in our Christmas finery.  We were almost shoulder to shoulder in her small living area.  But it never seemed crowded - it always seemed just right.

Once we finished eating and were filled beyond capacity, the dishes had to be washed before the presents were opened.  I'm not sure of the year it happened but the boys and men were relegated to the dish pan.  So the pressure was on to get everything cleaned up so we could pass out the gifts.  The gifts were always very special - something I had wished for or had written down on a list.  Santa always came to our house on Christmas morning with more gifts. 

Usually we went to church before we went to Gram's but if we didn't, there was a midnight church service.  I remember how difficult it was to keep my eyes open.  It was always cold and the snow had been shoveled so high to keep the sidewalks clear.   The candlelight service brought the meaning of Christmas to us in a magical atmosphere with the stained glass windows shimmering in the darkness of the church.  After all the activities and family fellowship, this was the perfect ending to the birthday celebration of Jesus.

And I think of all the pans and dishes used in the preparation of these feasts with no dishwasher!  We still make the Swedish sausage but now there are 8+ people who work to make sausage.  Granted we do make over 80# of sausage but instead of the stuffing horn, we recently purchased an electric grinder/stuffer machine to do lots of the work for us.  Well - the cookie part - we don't even get close to the kinds of cookies Gram made all by herself for weeks I imagine.  My Dad still loves lutefisk...the only one who does, but he goes out for the stinky fish!

Such were the labors of love that were involved in our Christmas traditions.  Our memorable traditions are even more memorable as I get older.  I am so thankful for all those memories.  Now its up to me with the help of my two daughters to keep as many of those traditions alive in our family.  I can still see my Gram working at her enamel table in her little kitchen with her decorative plates on the aqua walls making special treats for her loving family.  I hope she's proud of us - sometimes I think I can hear her laugh as we attempt to duplicate her traditional recipes. 

Merry Christmas to all and a special Merry Christmas to our Angels watching over us in this season!

Bonnie

Expectations

When you live in a northern state like Minnesota, you spend a certain amount of time waiting...expecting.  Here it is December 10 and another snow storm is looming.  Seasonal events for tomorrow have been rescheduled for next weekend when we hope the weather isn't an issue.  So all week we will watch the weather and determine if we can come together to make the Swedish sausage that is a part of our holiday celebrations each year. 

They say:  Biggest storm in recent years...about 18' for our area...maybe.  Gusty winds with blizzard warnings in the south.  Nasty storm system.  Ice expected mixed with snow...freezing rain ahead of the blowing mountains of snow.  Lots of water in the atmosphere...Arctic air to follow.  Ttemperature 0 degrees on Sunday and -10 degrees Sunday night.  Brrr.... 

I'm kinda excited - not about the snow but about being held hostage in my house during the storm.  Christmas is coming and I'm not that ready.  I have tons of projects started and expecting me to return and finish them up.  So now I have two days in a row, without interruptions, (except the usual cooking and cleaning), to start some and finish others.  

1.  I printed my Christmas letter so I can send out my cards. 
2.  Then I will make 16 altered art tag decorations for my friends. 
3.  I'm using the linings of jackets to make roses with pearl embellishments for other friends...like a pin or necklace piece.  
4.  Piecing two quilt squares for our Christmas block exchange on Tuesday.
5.  Blogger Secret Santa gift has to be in the mail by next Fri. - better determine what to make and get 'er done.
6.  Finish decorating house...got the tree decorated so just have to set other stuff about.
7.  Finish my grandson's bed roll quilt.
8.  Make 5 book bags for grands and great grands for the books we've bought for them.
9.  I would like to finish Stieg Larsson's third book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  It's getting to be the good part now.
10.  Whew!  Is it Monday yet?

Could I be expecting too much out of this snow storm???

Bonnie

10 More Things About Me...

1.  I love all things gingerbread, gingersnaps, and ginger ale!  Love the spicy part and refreshing taste.


2.  I'd never be able to live where its warm in the winter...no not.  I hate the ice of MN but the snow is manageable and lovely to look out the window and see the clean, whiteness of the land.


3. Birds, squirrels, pheasants and even the chipmunk can keep me entertained for the longest time.  They play out my window on the other side of my laptop screen so its very easy to stop and stare.  I fantasize about their lives and loves.


4.  Grazing is my preferred form of eating...not so interested in stopping what I'm doing to make a real meal.  My Guy has to have more balanced eating affairs however.  This week I spent one day all day preparing food so I wouldn't have to do the daily drudge of cooking.  Worked great - we still have stuff to eat so no kitchen duty for another couple of days!!!


5.  Life without my Guy would be pretty unbearable.  Speaking for myself, I hardly get angry at him anymore.  I guess I've gotten used to his ways and he to mine in a manner of speaking.  He is my best friend.  He is very tolerant.


6.  I will do just about anything to be able to stay in our home on our land in the country.  When it comes to the point where we can't handle some of the chores that go with having ten acres, I'll figure it out.  Won't move to town unless we're taken out of here kicking and screaming!


7.  I'm at peace with a minimal social life now.  I see my exercise and coffee friends three times a week and then I can come home and be satisfied.  I do need to see my family though too.  My guy really doesn't like to leave home and if he does, its a race to come right back as fast as he can.


8.  My next bigger challenge is to actually build something...maybe not my tree house but something like a gazebo or playhouse.  I have the winter to think of something manageable considering my skills.


9.  Pretzels are my favorite snack right now...not plain ones but chocolate or white chocolate dipped or peppermint sandwich type.  So good with the sweet chocolate and salty pretzel.  Yum.


10.  Getting ready for the holidays is fun.  And then suddenly its over except for the clean up.  Yuck!  I don't like to take the decorations down...its seems sad.  It's way into January by the time I pack the tinsel and garlands away.  We have a much smaller tree this year but I have enough stuff to decorate about 6 trees.  There is comfort in having so much Christmas stuff.

My Lovely Old Barn

She has stood here in this space for more than 100 years.  I fell in love with her the minute we drove in the driveway in the year 2000. 

Every weekend we would leave the bustling city and drive to the bucolic country looking for our retirement home.  While the description of most of the places listed in the acreage part of the real estate section of the paper did not in any way meet our expectations or their descriptions, we kept looking and hoping and wishing.

Then one weekend on the advice of the receptionist in my building whose friend had a farm for sale, we ventured up north to check it out.  Unlike other weekends, this one held hope - lots of hope.  First of all, lilacs welcomed us up the drive.  My Guy will vouch for this - as we drove past the bushes into the open area of the yard, I said, "I could live here."  The barn - the circle drive around the yard - the ten acres - the house from the outside - made me feel like I was home.  Then we looked through the house and I was sold.  I could have moved in that day.  I was in love.

I've always thought of my barn as "her" - a mother building who has housed many children.  How many calves were born in this barn, nourished in this barn, sheltered in this barn, were milked in this barn and maybe their lives ended in this barn.  Countless. 

Not many families have lived on this land...families who came here, lived here, loved here and stayed here until they couldn't.

Then last week I came home from the east and noticed my barn - her roof was sagging more than ever.  The sun had weathered the south side and the freezing rain added too much weight and finally the snow must have been just too much in her weakened state.  A couple of days ago, I took some winter pictures after the snow and ice.  It was very cold and I couldn't get a good shot of my barn.  So I took pictures of our trees and the yard so I wouldn't have to get my boots on and plow through the snow to get the picture of my barn.

Yesterday my Guy came in and said, "The roof gave way on the barn."  I went out to look and my tears froze on my face.  The one end of the roof had given way.  She has stood vigilant over this farm all these years.  Now her demise is more certain.

When we moved here, I wanted to use my barn for weekend tag sales.  My Guy said it wasn't safe.  The roof on the back side needed repair.  We asked his brother who knew something about fixing up old barns.  He crawled up in the hay loft to look at the damage.  The estimate was devastating...I would have to win the lottery to repair her roof.

I had envisioned using the wooden stalls where the animals had been corralled for my repurposed, recycled and refurbished goods.  I kept pushing to clean her up and power wash her and it would be so nostalgic and fun.  It never happened.  We never even stored much of anything within her walls.  Now we never will.

Her shell will probably stand longer than we will.  Built before 1900, she is  constructed of tamarack trees.  We won't be able to really access the damage on the inside until spring I guess.  Aging is a fact of life.  I know that - I just thought she'd live forever.  Sometimes I am surprised by the things that tug at my heart.  She did and does.  I love my barn.

Bonnie