Merry Christmas!

Hello, everyone. I just realized that the Christmas season has been so busy that I hadn't posted in a while. Sorry about that!

This is our Flight Into Egypt ornament. That actually took place a good some months after the birth of Jesus, but the photo came out better than the glass Holy Family ornament.

We're expecting a traditional South Texas Christmas, enjoying the official food of the season: tamales! We shouldn't even need jackets for going to Christmas Mass as the cool air of these few days is supposed to slide on out.

I wish for all y'all a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.🎄🪅

Working on Christmas decorations

Hello, everyone.  The Christmas season is compressed this year: the Fourth Sunday of Advent is also Christmas Eve.

We're trying to get the decorations up in a bit of a rush as a result.

The living room tree, with the Christmas quilt on the wall.

The library tree, mostly decorated with eggshell ornaments, with the quilted tree skirt. Bowl full of pincushions in background is just incidentally there. 

The nativity scene, with a new strand of lights. (The old string was dead.) 
These are the progress thus far.

After the frost

 Hello, everyone.

A quick update on our recent frost: it's not as bad as we feared it might be.

Before the frost, the Lila avocado was covered with a sheet and also wrapped in a C7 incandescent strand. Y'all will note that a rock was place to keep the sheet from blowing away. (Fairly stiff winds were forecast for this front--almost a true Blue Norther in fact.)

After the frost, the sheet was removed and the light strand was moved to the base of the baby tree. As y'all can see, she has survived. Though with her branches bent over from the weight of the wire and sheet.

She grew about 7 inches or so last year after we painted her stems with white latex paint. It's almost time to get the paint out again and protect those new, tender inches of growth.

We're going to keep the light strands where we placed them until potential frosts are in the rear-view mirror.

Action Photo: the new tree skirt

 Hello, everyone. The new tree skirt is with its tree, and for a bonus the Kimberbell Jingle All The Way quilt is hung alongside.

The Kimberbell Jingle All The Way quilt was a multi session class at the (late and much lamented) A Block Away quilt shop. Sadly, that shop is no longer. But I still have the things I made in classes there. 

And!

A new quilt shop is opening in the next town over from me. When I have a good picture, I will show it. I already stopped by to say hello and get a charm pack. (I didn't actually need it, but I want to support the ladies who have opened the shop.)

The wall quilt has a hanging sleeve at the top, and I put a curtain rod (with a cute finial) into it. Careful use of rubber bands to both set the amount the inner part sticks into the outer part of the rod, and to try and control the natural tendency of the hanging yarn to pull toward the center has been my friend in this. The hanging yarn is one of the fat, braided ones from Hobby Lobby. It's a sort of garnet red.

This is the only picture I have that really shows the bow on the tree, too. Thanks to the late afternoon sunshine, plus turning on every light in the room!