Blessings

Wishing you a day spent celebrating the blessings that fall all around you.

Joy to the World on this Christmas day!

We'll be up opening presents early (the kids wake at the crack of dawn to open their stockings!), then after breakfast we'll be off to my parent's church where I love to sing the old Christmas hymns. Then we'll spend the rest of the day relaxing, enjoying being all together, maybe going to a movie in the evening after dinner.
How about you? I'd love to hear how you spend Christmas.

New York visit

Happy Christmas Eve!

This week we made the 13 hour drive up to Philadelphia, we're here at my parent's house for Christmas, and we took advantage of being back up north to take a quick trip back to visit New York City, only 2 hours drive away from here.

We spent 3 days there, staying with friends and stopping by lots of our favorite places and really trying to make it about what the kids wanted to see. The Museum of Natural History was at the top of the kid's list,

Climbing rocks in Central Park was another one that was up there,

We all enjoyed the misty winter beauty of our old city. Being back there for the first time after our move (how can it be 6 months ago already!?) had me feeling nostalgic and completely energized by that energy that is only in NYC, but it also confirmed our move for us in so many ways.

Seeing the city decorated for the holidays was fun and we visited the holiday market at Union Square along with my favorite cafe close by, both of which I had been missing at this time of year,

and more than one of NYC's cool playgrounds.

We left feeling tired, and also feeling like New York city will always be one of those perfect places for us to visit as a family, since we know it so well and there are things that we all love to do there. But we feel perfectly placed at our new home and city in Charleston, which was an end of the year gift for me....
Looking back we have come so far in a year, from deciding to leave New York, to organizing and making the move to adjusting and settling in Charleston, and while it was one of the hardest and most strenuous years of my life in many ways it also was full of the gifts of clarity and strength which have forced me to grow in ways that I was ready for.
So our visit back to NYC reenforced all of the choices that we have made, and for that I feel deeply grateful.

Tree Skirt

 Making a tree skirt for the base of our Christmas tree is a project that I've had in mind for a few years and finally this year, after being inspired by this tree skirt, I thought it would be fun to make something similar. So, I pulled out the felt and got to work. The rainbow theme is just one that interests me and the project came together as I laid out the dots.

The most time consuming part so far was pinning everything in place. Now, I'm starting to sew the pieces on, I'm wishing that I had a sewing machine for this one, I'm sewing them all on by hand in the evenings while Frank and I watch past seasons of Survivor (our guilty pleasure). I'll post pictures when its done!

Also, I just wanted to mention that tomorrow will be the last day to order from my shop before the holidays, in case you had your eye on something. I'll be closing my shop for a two week holiday break as we leave for our trip to celebrate up north.

Merry and Bright

Once we got our Christmas tree up the decorating began in full force, along with some ginger bread fun which was clearly hard for some people to hold back from,

The kids and I had such a great time setting up this mini Christmas tree for all of the fairies and small animals who live on our family nature table,

We unwrapped the beloved wool Nativity made by my amazingly talented friend Nicole, and placed it in the middle of our living room where Carys gazes at and caresses the baby Jesus figure multiple times a day in the sweetest way.

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care,

Our stag head even got in on the decorating this year,

On our front door I hung a straw wreath from Ikea that we've had for a few years now and was such a great bargain as its simplicity goes with anything and it seems like it will last forever. This year I stuck some pieces of dried Hydrangea flowers in it to spice it up.

On either side of the door I placed small Lemon Cypress plants, which smell really amazing and make me happy every time I walk by.

Our front door has 6 window panes and as I was going through our Christmas decorations I found these six small gilded paper birds. I hung one in each pane, they hover there and move when the door opens,

they look great in silhouette too,

Finally,  I found the perfect spot for these hanging star garlands above our stairs. I bought them a while ago at the Union Square holiday market, which you should definitely visit for amazing creative gifts if you are ever in NYC during the holiday season. That holiday market is one of the things that I am missing about NYC as this season approaches, but we are heading north for the holidays and we've got a short visit to our old city worked in there! It will be our first time back since our move 6 months ago and I am a bit scared and nervous to go back since leaving was so hard, but mostly I'm excited to see old friends!

I enjoyed this post about holiday decorating on a design blog that I've been visiting lately

with some really great easy DIY ideas for holiday decorating, and this clever craft tutorial that would delight my kids for our family nature table.

Getting our Tree

Of all the many (many) Christmas tree shops that seem to have popped up in every parking lot in our new neighborhood over the past weeks this one caught my eye with the VW bug draped in sparkly lights sitting out front. So that's where we went to pick out our tree.

The sunset on our drive there was spectacular,

Jasper picked out the perfect tree immediately,

and we drove home, with the tree tied to our roof, for our favorite part, getting out the decorations!

Over the past ten years Frank and I have been gathering ornaments that have special meaning to our family, and unwrapping each one to hang it on the tree is a pleasure,

Reminding us of how our children have grown and the importance of this ritual, marking the passing of time, and this season of togetherness and celebration.

We've been enjoying our tree so much this week, especially in the early mornings when we get up and it is still dark outside, then we can really appreciate the twinkly white lights.

The last thing to go up on our tree was the tree topper Christmas Angel that I made last year, we were all so happy to get her out of the box and greet her again, another old friend!

Wishing you...

A very,

with all of the trimmings!

Love and light.

xo

Tropical Christmas

We're here in Florida, preparing for a tropical Christmas with Frank's family,

Being in the sunny warm weather has felt so healing after the frigid temperatures that we were having up north. We are melting into it, after the initial feeling that it is a shock to the system to fly down here and suddenly be in summer weather, with the sun shining so brightly! Oh sun how we've missed you!

So far we've been doing some of our favorite things to do when we come to Naples, Florida. We visit our favorite "pirate ship" playground (the wooden structure looks like a ship!),

Marvel at the tropical foliage,

Go to the zoo, where we go on the special boat ride monkey tour (I love that Carys looks so serious in the photo, that's some serious monkey watching),

Collect and arrange our nature finds (The fact that my children do this makes me feel like I have trained them well!), 

And generally enjoy some tropical silliness,

Things are about to kick into some serious Christmas celebrating when the rest of the family arrives tomorrow. I hope that you are getting ready to celebrate a wonderful holiday where ever you are!

Our Christmas Angel

Happy Solstice! Last night Frank and I got up at 2:30am to witness the lunar eclipse, this particular alignment, right on our winter solstice, has not occurred in over 400 years, so we felt like we didn't want to miss it. I heard that it was visible from all over North and South America. I had never seen an eclipse before and this one did not disappoint, seeing the moon darkened was surreal, and I have never seen the stars glowing so brightly! It felt so special to see it!

I want to share with you the new tree topper Christmas angel, that I just finished. I've learned some wonderful crafts at our Waldorf playgroup's parent craft group, but this has been by far my favorite. I love learning a new skill and then "running" with it to let my creative juices flow. For this project the teacher showed us how to create a doll out of wool through the process of needle felting.

Then we took wool home to complete the dress decorations and wings on our own. I also added the basket that she is holding, as sort of a cornucopia, my kids call it her "basket of presents". The basket is actually a petal that I learned how to wet felt in the amazing felting class that I took after Thanksgiving!

My favorite part of making the angel was working on her hair,

I loved making it wild, adding braids, twists, flowers, gold....all kinds of pretty things. She's got my idea of angel hair!

I makes my heart sing every time I see my kids admiring her up on our tree. I want them to remember the little things that I make, as through making each thing for our home I am making my love tangible.

This afternoon I asked Frank to pick a number between 1 and 6, and he chose number 5....so Ang, you are the lucky winner of Nicole's beautiful Indonesian glass bead necklace! Contact me with your information so that she can send it to you!

I wishing you all a bit of Christmas magic! Frank and I are about to head out for a date night, yeah!