A smidgen more outdoor decorating

 

 Just posted some of our outdoor lighting over at my Kitchen Table blog, so now I'm adding just a bit more.  We didn't have a lot, but more than usual.  The trees that I posted about on my other blog are new this year, so you may wish to go over and read more about them, where they are located and how we chose to decorate them.

 
The flag at the top of this post is one we have on a flagpole mounted on a tree out by the end of our driveway.  We have it illuminated with a small solar light all year round, but Mr. T hadn't thought to get a  nighttime photo of it until he was outside snapping photos of our other lights.  It looks a bit Christmasy since it's on an evergreen tree.

Now the lights below are some that we light up every year.  These are the strings of colored lights with the large bulbs.  We've had them up there for years, tucked just inside the roof line of our garage.  We just have to replace a bulb or two from time to time.  Sometimes we place a lighted star (white lights) centered just below these.

The photo below pictures neither lights nor decorations, but our stacks of cookie tins that are keeping frozen on the front porch.  They are a little bit decorative, I guess -- and people do light up when they see a plate full of Christmas cookies!

A fun vintage Christmas card

 

 For a very quick post this evening, I'll just share a fun vintage card I found recently and listed in my shop.  "A Christmas Note" is a play on words as this card has a musical theme.  Even the letters spelling out the words have some music notation attached to them.

The large treble clef appears to be formed out of white-frosted greenery and red berries.  A pretty cluster of holly and berries decorates the treble clef.

This would have been a very appropriate card to send to one's music teacher back in the day.  Hope my readers have enjoyed seeing this vintage find!

Sunday Scripture

 

Here is our fourth, and last, Sunday Scripture for December.  Remember, I am writing these posts from an Advent study that I did with Good Morning Girls in 2013.  The study, Keeping Our Hearts Focused on Jesus, is still available as a free download, so if you are interested head on over there and get it.  Scroll down and click on the book-like image similar to the illustration above, and the pdf should open right up.  More than just a Bible study, this is an ebook that includes recipes, Advent activities, and more.  I think it will be a blessing to you.

I've mentioned before that I like to use the SOAP method of Bible study, and the studies from GMG use a very similar one.  I find this method a real blessing whether I am studying shorter passages or longer ones, so I hope you'll give it a try if you haven't ever done so. Just a reminder that the S is for Scripture -- just write it out -- and the O is for Observation, the A is for Application and the P is for prayer -- concerning how you'll apply this verse or passage,  or praise for what it means to you.

Each week of this Advent study focuses on a theme: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace.  This last week's verses are focused on Peace. 

Today's Scripture is Zephaniah 3:14-15.  In the actual study, this one was from December 24 -- just in case you downloaded the study and are following along with it.

S=  "Sing, O daughter of Zion, shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.
"The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, He hast cast out thy enemy: the King of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more."  (Zephaniah 3:14-15)

O=  These verses are clearly prophetic.  As C.I. Scofield says, "That this, and all like passages in the prophets, cannot refer to anything which occurred at the first coming of Christ is clear from the context.  The precise reverse is true."  In the Scofield Reference Bible, this scholar has titled this section of Zephaniah "Israel's restoration and blessing: the King in the Kingdom."

So when verse 15 states, "the King of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee",  it is not really referring directly to the Baby in the manger, but pointing forward to a time when He will reign in the millennial kingdom.  In that day, it may be said that God's people will not "see evil any more".

Still, Christ's presence on earth as a Baby was a cause of great rejoicing: "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people" (Luke 2:10).  Think too of the rejoicing of both Simeon and Anna as these elderly believers came into the temple at just the right moment to see the infant Jesus and the realization of God's promise to send a Savior (Luke 2:25-38).

A=  I can be glad and rejoice with all my heart, as I recall and celebrate the coming of the Savior.  I can rejoice that He is my Savior.  He has "taken away [my] judgments" in that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:1).  He has cast out my enemy -- Satan, and he is a defeated foe.  

The Lord is in the midst of me in that He dwells within me in the Person of the Holy Spirit.  I have much to be joyful about!

P=  "Lord, as much as I have tried this season to focus on You, in many ways I have failed miserably.  I have allowed busyness and stress in preparing to celebrate to crowd out my joy -- not completely, but to a much greater degree than it should.  

"I thank and praise You for the snatches of celebratory joy that I found this season -- the scent of balsam fir; the beauty of bright red winterberries; a lovely piano offertory; the sweet voices of children lifted in a carol; the generous gifts and meaningful cards from loving friends and family, and so on -- but I feel rebuked that my entire season could have been (and should have been) much more joyful, in view of our reason to celebrate.

"Help me in this day and during this week, to show my joy in Christ's coming to a needy, needy world.  In Jesus' name, Amen."

And there is our final Sunday Scripture for December!  I hope that this little series has been a blessing to you.

Merry Christmas!

 

Gorgeous image is from Gooseberry Patch

Mr. T and I would like to wish all of our friends a very Merry Christmas!  

 Our day started off with our usual quiet times and then a very simple breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs and wonderful rye bread from our neighbor Walter (his traditional gift to us) and clementines.  This is a simpler Christmas breakfast than we ordinarily enjoy, but Mr. T wanted to get to his usual Saturday morning flag wave.  

I have a couple more small gifts to wrap and then need to put together a salad and a cookie and fudge tray to take to our daughter's where we will be for dinner and the afternoon.  During that time we will likely Skype or FaceTime with our Nevada daughter and her family.

I can't think of a nicer way to extend our Christmas wish to all of you than to share this beautiful poem by the beloved writer Edgar Guest:

God bless you all
This Christmas Day;
May Bethlehem's star
Still light the way,
And guide thee to
The perfect peace
When every fear
And doubt shall cease,
And may thy home
Such glory know
As did the stable
Long ago.

Edgar A. Guest

I pray that each of us may find that place of "perfect peace when every fear and doubt shall cease".  We can find it by committing ourselves to the Lord Jesus and by staying our minds upon who He is and the truths of His Word.  Isaiah 26:3 and Philippians 4:6-7 tell us more about God's perfect peace that surpasses all human understanding.  Perhaps you might like to look those Scriptures up sometime today.

 May you enjoy a blessed Christmas day and week and a very happy, healthy 2022!

A fun little gift from my faraway daughter

 

Yes, my lovely and dear daughter Joanna, far away in Nevada, surprised me with the sweetest little gift.  She had sent our wrapped Christmas gifts to our local daughter Carrie, to be opened there on Christmas Day.  But she left a few things unwrapped for both Carrie and me, so that we could have the fun of using them before Christmas.

The above mini ornaments are part of what she sent to me.  Look how cute: little tiny embroidery hoops!  Each is made to look as if it has a little embroidered design in the hoop.  It's hard to tell from the scan, but the background in each design actually looks like cloth, although of course it is not.  Aren't these the sweetest?  Now I want to enlarge that house design and stitch a larger version of it!

Thank you, JoJo!  You made my day!

The many vintage faces of Santa

 

 I don't mention Santa a whole lot here in my Christmas kitchen.  Growing up, we always pretty much knew that our gifts from Santa and our stocking stuffers were really from my parents.  My mother could recall vividly how betrayed her much younger brother felt when he realized how his older siblings had "lied" to him about Santa.  I suppose that's why she encouraged us to think of Santa Claus as a nice fairy tale -- but the tags on the "Santa gifts" always bore my mom's neat printing.

We did the same with our own kids -- Santa was a fun fairy tale to read about -- the book Jolly Old Santa Claus, with its gorgeous illustrations (see one of them below), was a favorite -- but he didn't really bring any gifts, couldn't grant any wishes, and he definitely wasn't all-seeing or all-knowing.

Still, vintage Christmas cards featuring Santa Claus abound, and it's fun to see his various faces and activities, so I'm going to share a few of my finds here.  All have been in my Etsy shop; some have sold and others have yet to sell.  But they are popular!

Looks like he is holding onto his hat with green-mittened hands.

This sign-painting Santa is rotund!

Leaning on a candy cane

Playing a tambourine

Classic chimney entrance

The windblown look

Cruising city streets in a green jalopy

With sweet baby deer

Leaning on a candy cane

Listening to a child.  Classic Marjorie Cooper.

Swinging on a candy cane

Getting the reindeer ready

Hopping aboard the Christmas train!

A skating Santa!

This Santa adorns a cocktail-size paper napkin

A winking Santa

And a merry music box Santa!

Hope this has been fun for all you lovers of Christmas vintage!

Christmas cards for special people

 

Nowadays it doesn't seem as common -- but back in the day, there were Christmas cards for various people in one's life -- relatives especially, but also neighbors, friends -- and even people who had Christmas birthdays!  I thought it might be fun today to feature a few of those special cards, some of which have sold and others which are currently listed in my Etsy shop.  At the top of the post you see a lovely card for an aunt.

You could send your nephew a Santa's pack full of dimes!

For a Christmas birthday!

For a wonderful teacher.

 

For a swell boy

For nice neighbors ...

For a nice family ....

For Mother

Oh, the cards for little girls!  I believe the artist on these two may have been the inimitable Marjorie Cooper.

There's even a card for someone nice!

And two more for little girls.

I'm sure I have more, but here are just a few examples.  Hope you've enjoyed this look at some of the sweet and thoughtful Christmas cards from yesteryear!

On my computer desktop right now

 

 Most of my readers know that I simply love Gooseberry Patch art work.  I also love that they make some of this beautiful work available as free desktop wallpapers.  If you would like to check out more of the Christmas ones (including this one), go here: Christmas Wallpapers.

I've mentioned the availability of these wallpapers before, but I'm loving this particular one that's on my desktop this season.  The snowflakes on the green background are so jolly.  And the Christmas cookies on a little plate with a Christmas napkin and two steaming mugs of hot cocoa, one with a candy cane -- well, I just love it all.  The mountains and fir trees in the background -- it's obviously snowing in the higher elevations.  And the house all decked out for the holiday -- and even the sweet little evergreen and pine cone garland that surrounds the scene.  Every detail is just perfect.  If you too would like a little instant Christmas spirit, by all means check out this link.

Some of our candy making with the grands

 

Back when Christmas was still weeks away, we set a day, as previously mentioned on both blogs, to make some candy, do a bit of crafting, and go out for ice cream sundaes.  It turned into trimming the Christmas tree as well, which was fun, and singing lots of Christmas carols in the car.

I promised to share some of the candy recipes we used, so I will mention two here and two over on my regular blog.  We made Creamsicle Fudge, Chocolate Dipped Orange Slices, Rocky Road Fudge, and Candy Cane Fudge.

Creamsicle Fudge is, as you might guess, a fudge with the orange and vanilla flavors of a creamsicle.  

It is a little too sweet for many people,  although I must say that a younger friend of mine for many years in high school and college had a little holiday fudge business, and found that the Creamsicle was one of her top sellers.  But Mr. T had wanted to make it this Christmas anyway, so it seemed natural to have the grands help with it.  Josiah took on that project, and may have wished he hadn't when, near the end of the process, we discovered we had no red food coloring (only yellow) to tint the orange part of the fudge.  The best we could do was to use green and pretend the flavor was lime, not orange.  It does look pretty and  slightly Christmasy, I will say that for it.

The other candy recipe I will mention here is Rocky Road Fudge.   

Julia and Ari made this fudge together.  Below is Ari stirring the peanuts and marshmallows into the chocolate fudge mixture.  This is one of those easy fudge recipes that just use chocolate chips, a bit of butter, and a can of sweetened condensed milk.

Julia prepares to spread the Rocky Road while Ari licks the chocolate pan!

You can check my kitchen table blog sometime this week for the other 2 candy recipes.  Enjoy these if you try them!

Sunday Scripture

Here is our third Sunday Scripture for December.  Remember, I am writing these posts from an Advent study that I did with Good Morning Girls in 2013.  The study, Keeping Our Hearts Focused on Jesus, is still available as a free download, so if you are interested head on over there and get it.  Scroll down and click on the book-like image similar to the illustration above, and the pdf should open right up.  More than just a Bible study, this is an ebook that includes recipes, Advent activities, and more.  I think it will be a blessing to you.

I've mentioned before that I like to use the SOAP method of Bible study, and the studies from GMG use a very similar one.  I find this method a real blessing whether I am studying shorter passages or longer ones, so I hope you'll give it a try if you haven't ever done so. Just a reminder that the S is for Scripture -- just write it out -- and the O is for Observation, the A is for Application and the P is for prayer -- concerning how you'll apply this verse or passage,  or praise for what it means to you.

Each week of this Advent study focuses on a theme: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace.  This third week's verses are focused on Joy. 

Today's Scripture is Luke 2:10-14.  In the actual study, this one was from December 19 -- just in case you downloaded the study and are following along with it.

S=  "And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
"And this shall be a sign unto you: ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying,
"glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."  (Luke 2:10-14)

O=  Verses 10-12 are the words spoken by the angel of the Lord to the shepherds.  They were not to fear -- for they had been "very much afraid" when the glory of the Lord shone round about them (verse 9).  The angel was bringing them "good tidings of great joy" which would impact the entire world: "unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

The angel gave them a sign: this Baby would be wrapped in swaddling clothes -- as any other baby in that day would be -- but unlike other babies, this one would be lying in a manger.

Following this, verses 13-14 describe what happens next: suddenly the angel was joined by a multitude of the heavenly host.  These angelic beings were praising God with the words "Glory to God in the highest!" and "on earth peace, good will toward men."

A=  This Savior was born for me!  How thankful I am that I am one of those "all people" to whom the "good tidings of great joy" were brought.  Glory to God in the highest!  Am I bringing the appropriate glory to Him with my life?

P=  "Lord, I praise You for the Gospel -- for the "good tidings of great joy"!  I praise You and thank You for Your plan of salvation -- that Jesus came to be the Savior of "all people" who would trust Him by faith believing.  I praise You for bringing me to the understanding that Jesus came to die for me personally, and for drawing me to You with lovingkindness.

"I pray that You will help me to live my life in such a way that it brings glory to my Savior and points others to Him.  In Jesus' name, Amen."

And that's our Scripture Sunday for this week.  I hope that you're enjoying this little series.

Strictly ornamental

 

Over at my regular blog, I shared how, unbelievably, Mr. T and I were able to spend the night at our little camp on Thursday night.  Staying in a mostly uninsulated building in mid-December is just not something we'd thought of as being possible.  But it worked out, due to mild temperatures overnight.  

I was thankful that a week or so before,  we had done a little Christmas decorating there.  It made it seem much more cozy.  In this post I'm just going to share some of the ornaments we put up.  There are more, but Mr. T didn't get a photo of each one.

The windows at the camp all have a system of hooks and eyes to hold the hinged windows open during the summer.  Granddaughter Julia had the great idea of hanging an ornament from each hook!

Made from a foam ball and fabric scraps

This felt skater has paper clip skates.

Got this from an Etsy shop, Treasures with a Twist, a couple years ago and love it!

I embroidered this one in the 1980s -- it's an Erica Wilson design featuring Beatrix Potter's art

This snowflake ornament is hanging from one of the kitchen cabinets.  It's perfect there!

Hope you've enjoyed this little peek at our Christmasy camp!  Check out my Kitchen Table blog to see more.