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.

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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!