Christmas Crafts

   One of my favorite quick holiday crafts is making a pillow from a holiday place mat.  I used to find Jacquard printed place mats in the dollar store.  Or I would buy them at "after Christmas" sales and save them for next year.  Sometimes the place mat will have a front and a back that is stitched together.  All you have to do is rip about 3 or 4 inches to make a hole and put in the stuffing and stitch it back up.  Done!  Also, instead of buying pillow batting, I use the stuffing from a pillow that has seen better days.  This year I wasn't so lucky to find the two-sided place mats so I had to find whatever I had around the house.  Luckily I had a muted green gingham fabric from curtains that I made.  The gingham was the perfect compliment to the holiday scenes.

  On Christmas Day at my friend's house I was attracted to her country plaid hot-plate mats.  She said they were from her husband's mother who stitched them up when her eyesight was starting to fail. Later I showed the little handmade treasure to my sister and she was intrigued by it. She asked to have it. I wasn't letting go of the little mat so I decided to make one for her and trim it with a blanket stitch. It was not as precise as the stitching that I had done when I was young and in the 4-H Club. I will make up another one and improve my technique. Back then in the fifties, needle work was still a bit of an art form even if you were just hemming a skirt. I admire that precise stitching but it is not something that comes naturally for me. I am a "git it done" old lady.
    I have included a photo of red long johns. I have had them a few years and I got them out with the intent of wearing them and I was suddenly inspired to hang them on the wall. I added a bit of greenery, and a Santa Hat. Then I stepped back to admire my own creativity. Also, took a photo of the little table with an old hat. I think the hat was a prop that my son might have worn when he acted in high school plays.
    The colorful crocheted afghan was another fast craft. My mother-in-law had been in a nursing home before she passed away this year and she had a number of lap blankets.  I took one and just continued on in the same design with shades of red.
  I found some sequined yarn on sale and I couldn't resist making a scarf with it.  Just double crochet 20 stitches across in a network pattern.

Hot-plate mat that I used for a guide:

   

Christmas in Pitman, New Jersey

  A family named Haggerty brings the Christmas joy to its town in a big way. The bright artful scenes might be called kitsch by some viewers but it can't help but get you into the spirit of the season. The winding walkways are found outside of the Haggerty family homes. There is technical talent in creating fantasy representations of the season:   musical bobbing snowmen, Santa's reindeer mounted heads, ET, Splish Splash Santa's taking a bath.  On some nights you will find Santa himself and Mrs. Claus.  Add to it a group of young carolers and you have a delight that is worth driving miles to see.

'

Simeone Museum Visit

   My son and I picked up my sister at the Philadelphia International Airport.  She was coming up from Charlotte, North Carolina to celebrate my father's 89th birthday.   So we had a little time before the plane arrived so we visited this sport car museum.

http://simeonemuseum.org/

The entrance fee was $12. It was a nice visit but we had the whole museum to ourselves and at the end we were met with two tour guides to answer any questions and had an opportunity to visit the little gift shop.  So I will just post a few of  my photos.

Village and Nativity Scene

    When I was young I remember that little Christmas cardboard village houses were available from the local five and ten stores.  My family had cardboard glitter houses but they weren't a special treasure of ours.  Our nativity scene was very special and it was displayed  prominently.  When I married my husband with German heritage I was delighted by his mother's Christmas village and nativity scene set-up.  She explained to me that the fence was hand-made by some long gone relative and that some of the lead figurines were about a hundred years old.  This was amazing to me since my Italian heritage didn't even go back a hundred years.  Year zero of our family's heritage only went back to the earliest years of the twentieth century as far as known history.  The town where I live now has many descendants of German heritage.  My husband's mother was  German Catholic although some of his grandparents were of the Lutheran Religion.  I have since read online that this custom of building this village/nativity scene is strongly tied to the Moravian religion which is also well-represented in the community. Search for "Moravian Nativity" and you might find some delightful Christmas scenes.
      My mother-in-law had the cardboard houses and those wired brush-like trees which I confess that I may have discarded them.  I did keep her fence and the very old lead figurines.  When my husband was a kid she added skiers and ice skater figurines so those figurines are now about fifty years old.  Around 1986,  "Department 56",  ceramic houses became very popular.  My husband bought me the eight houses including the church, a covered bridge, and the horse and carriage of the Dicken's Village.  It was probably around that time that we abandoned the cardboard houses and merged his mother's figurines and accessories with our Dicken's houses.  Here are some shots that I took of this year's set-up.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, 2012!

Old Age Attention Deficit Disorder

I must confess this is not a recent development. I have had it all of my life except when I was young they did not use this term and they did not use medication for it. I know I had this disorder because at least one teacher accused me of being scatter-brained. Now that I am retired you would think I would occasionally sit down and watch a TV show or a movie but I can't do it. I have crafts, YARD WORK, time with friends, daily email/facebook checks, newspaper time, caring visits for two family members in long-term care facilities, doctor's appointments, shopping, photography, casino trips and blogging.

So I walk by my bed and spy the unfinished scarf.  It wasn't my plan but I attach the appliques by sewing a red button in the middle.

So I completed my project, woo-hoo, and I go hunting for my camera to take a photo.  As I walk into the family room I see my handbag in the doorway and decide to walk it back into the bedroom.

When I am in the bedroom I decide I want to check my email so I walk back into the family room and I pass by the boxes of twig lights that I bought and forget about the email and decide that I want to put lights up but I need an extension cord so I walk out to the garage to find one. So when I am home it is just one series of events that are triggered by what pops into my head.  Sometimes I complete a task and sometimes I don't.

Veteran's Day Tribute

  Just wanted to post some of my husband's photos from his time in Vietnam at the Phu Cat air force base in 1968 to 1969.  I am glad that I was able to record a few of his memories before they faded away completely.  I look at them and think he was impossibly young looking for such a serious mission. At that time there were many young men in this area who signed up for the Air National Guards in hopes of evading brutal combat and the draft.  In any case, Roy wound up at a relatively safe air force base.  He did tell me that there was gun fire at the perimeter at night but it was not serious,  just a type of teasing to show, "Hey, we're out here!" He always spoke about his time there in a light-hearted manner. So when some suggest that my husband is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, I tend to dismiss this idea.  I do remember two young men from Hammonton that lost their lives there:  Gerard Palma and Raul Melendez.  The following citation describes his work as an aerospace ground equipment repairman.

This is one of his buddies, Fred Green.  I have not met this man but I believe he is a councilman in a nearby Absecon.

This is part of a group photo.  Roy is the third from the left at the bottom.

Roy wrote on the back of this photo, "Just call me, Captain!"  His job entailed getting bombs loaded into jets and loading canisters that were used to get jets started quickly referred to as "hot shots". Roy once found a pilot's pack that contained the pilot's pistol, his maps, and other pertinent items for his mission. Roy returned the lost pack to the pilot and he was so grateful.  From then on Roy was allowed to eat with the officers and the pilots in what they called the "ready shack"   One tradition that Roy described is that when pilots returned from successful missions they would ink up their butts and then hoist them up to the ceiling to make a butt print.  Roy asked about a particularly large print and he was told that it belonged to the base's librarian.

He loved taking photos of the children:

In the background you will find a picture of Roy's first wife, Maureen McAndrews.  He was married at 19 before he went to Vietnam.  She then began her battle with Lupus and she eventually died.  Also, Roy, at three months old, lost his father due to an assault in New York City.  After it was a struggle for his mother raising two boys and earned very little as a housekeeper for area residents.  Then in 2010 at the age 63, Roy became profoundly impaired due to dementia.

This is a scan of what Roy wrote in the back of this photo. 

I miss his notes that he used to leave

 for me if he went out--misspellings and all.

Dog Memorial in the Woods

  Went shopping again to the Christmas Tree Store. Although first we went to a wonderful hair stylist at JC Penny's in Hamilton Township. My nephew David is getting his senior year high school photos.

    The store was "Christmas" crowded. I only bought one of those red Nordic designed knitted hats with the flaps and the braids that most of the young people let dangle. For 2.99 you can't beat. It is fully lined with a smooth fleece. I remember back in my skiing days you couldn't buy a warm hat like that for under 30 dollars but I guess they were made of wool.

  So when you go to this shopping center from our way, Hammonton and Egg Harbor City, we often use Aloe Street and along that road, secluded in a special place is one of those weird New Jersey features.  Unless you know where it is you probably will miss it but it is visible somewhat from the road.  David and I got out and walked up the trail and found a huge tomb with a stone in front that said Rover and I had trouble reading it but I believe it was from the 1800's.  There is an aging statue of the dog on top.  I did not stay and record the date because I thought surely with the right words placed in a search engine there had to be something written about this site.  I gave up after an hour of research.  I will have to go back and again check out the year and the owner's name.------went back today and tried to do a pencil rubbing but that wasn't working.  The only additional information is that it says in memory of Rover and the tomb looks over a hundred years old but I think it says 1935.

This memorial is very close to the train tracks that run between Philly and Atlantic City.

Later that night, David showed me the upgrades that he made to Roy's old bow.  It is good that he is able to pick up this sport without close family members that are able to help him.  Also the lack of deer habitat is more limited every year around here but he is lucky that he has access to land out near Winslow/Waterford area.

 Actually this gull was from our last trip to the Christmas Tree store. I believe it to be a young gull because of the speckled coloration on its head.  It would not move even if a car came within a foot of it.  It was not injured---guess it just didn't want to waste energy.