If you’ve been following my blog you know that Dave and I make each other ornaments for Christmas every year. It started back in 2005 when we were dating when he gave me the first ornament. If you’d like to see what we’ve made over the years, just google Christmas ornaments in the search box.
Since I’ve been into wool felt, I made this ornament for Dave. Originally it was going to be designed from one of my mandalas, but I had trouble with such small pieces. If I made it a normal size it would be too big. I settled for this one which is a take on my mandalas. Most of the felt I used is the felt I dyed earlier.
Dave made me this snowman from several different kinds of woods. Isn’t he cute? That snowman in the background was another one he made me for another Christmas.
We also make cards. Since I’m into wool, I added this poinsettia to his card.
It’s really a wonderful tradition. Only our homemade ornaments to each other are hung on our little tree.
Something that always reminds me of Christmas and grandma are springerles. I never liked them as a kid. I guess I just didn’t appreciate them, and after all she made other cookies I liked better. As I’ve gotten older I really appreciate these German anise-flavored cookies. I picked up a dozen yesterday at the Donut Bank. These are good, but not as good as the ones made by the sisters in Ferdinand, Indiana. We used to make a trip up there for their Christmas craft show where they also have springerles and other German cookies for sale. We need to put that on our calendar for next year.
We had a couple of our bluebirds visit one of the feeders on Christmas Eve. Dave caught one of them sharing the feed with this beautiful red-bellied woodpecker. We always love seeing our bluebirds staying close to their home.
And before I go, we bought a new kitchen gadget. Since we will be going through a kitchen renovation in late January, we’ve been thinking about how we’ll cook when the kitchen is torn up for a month. We have the grill, a hot plate, and our microwave/convection that they’ll remove and relocate to the dye studio. However, Dave uses the pressure cooker a lot for a variety of meals especially beans. So we now are the proud owners of an Instant Pot. He’s been using it quite a bit these last couple of weeks. He made vegetable beef soup the other night. He started with pressure cooking the beef bones. Once the broth was done, after removing the bone and skimming any fat, he added all of the rest of the ingredients and slow cooked the soup. Now that it’s my turn to cook I’m looking forward to learning how to use it.
It’s been a wonderful Christmas. I hope all of you are safe and warm and enjoying your holiday. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!