Not much accomplished

Well, it's the last day of April and I can't believe how little I have accomplished toward the goals I had hoped to have completed by now.  Recall, at January's Christmas Club meeting, Susan had had us make a list of things we knew we needed to do soon.  Below was my list:

The thought was that for February and March, we would each do Christmasy things on our own, but in April we would plan to get together for a meeting.   In the meantime, we were each to work on accomplishing the things we wrote down on our to-do lists.

Those plans were all well and good, but we never expected that March and April would be hijacked by a virus.  Obviously, we didn't get together in April, but hopefully maybe we can in May.

Of the 6 things on my list,  I've accomplished one of them: putting away the after-Christmas bargains.  I started working on updating (actually, creating) my Christmas card list, but haven't finished that task.

 I've had this sweet Mary Engelbreit Christmas notebook (purchased at a dollar store in Nevada) for many years and have utilized many of its features.  Not the Christmas card list, however; that's remained blank.  So this is what I'm using for my card list.

So I still have to:
🎄 Finish my Christmas card list
🎄  Order Christmas stamps for 2020's cards
🎄  Go through cookbooks and magazines to get ideas for kitchen gifts
🎄  Make gift tags from 2018's Christmas cards
🎄  Make a tentative Christmas gift idea list for 2020

I should make it a point to complete these tasks in May!

Another thing I'm pretty sure I haven't done is to make a nice, neat copy of last year's Christmas gift list to place in the back of my Christmas notebook.  So that needs to happen soon also.

I recently discovered, at the old homestead, another treasure trove of cards, most from the 1940s but some from the 1930s.  Oh, my.  I had thought that all of the greeting cards were out of the house already (although I have hundreds more to scan and list!), but these were in a box of old school papers I had labeled with the year and planned to go through later.  "Later" finally arrived, and I can't believe how many treasures were in that box.  Many from previous years to the date I had labeled it with.  Mostly Christmas cards, but some gorgeous old Valentines as well. 

At the top of the post is one example of the Christmas cards -- a "Gingham Girl" card by Norcross.  Isn't she adorable?  I have at least two of these cards in different designs, and will plan to write a post about them soon.  After that, they'll be going in the shop (link in sidebar).

I'm also planning to begin writing and scheduling posts for Christmas in July.  We'll see how far I get!  Meantime, it feels good to be here in the Christmas kitchen for a few minutes.  Hope you've enjoyed your visit!

Lighting up the darkness with vintage candles

Here's a fun Christmas-related project that we recently did.  While clearing out the Christmas decoration storage area at my parents' house, we found some vintage candoliers -- the window candles with a base to set on a window sill.  The ones we found have eight candles each.  Amazingly, these antique lights still work -- and there were extra light bulbs with them!

The cute little box above contained extra bulbs.  Later, we found another, larger cardboard box with a bunch of extra bulbs in it.

Knowing that some folks are displaying candles in their windows these days as a sign of hope, and some towns have even lit the Christmas lights on Main Street, we decided to fit the candolier out with red, white, and blue lights and place it in one of our porch windows.

This worked pretty well until we decided to put the lights on a timer -- from 7 to 10 pm and then in the early morning from 5 to 7 am.  We're not sure if it's just the sheer antiquity of the lights -- they are at least 70 years old! -- or just that the timer is too modern for them, but they keep going out.  The cold damp weather could also be causing issues, we think.  These are the type where if one bulb goes out, none of the others will work.  Thankfully, my hubby has a tester that can determine which bulbs are bad.

We've now fitted it out with more working bulbs and placed it in an upstairs dormer.  Hopefully that makes a difference and the lights keep working.  This is a fun and unique way to show our patriotism.

When we see lights in people's windows, or glowing brightly in a downtown, let's thank God for the hope we have in Him and be faithful to pray for our country!