One Part Inspiration...

Every year, my boss would say "We should go on a light tour".  It's become tradition to bring it up. We haven't always been able to carry it out because inevitably schedules fill up with Christmas events and it just doesn't work to add one more to an already full plate. However, this year, we have had the chance to look far ahead and make a plan. The plan turned out to be a work in progress.  There was a much discussion about who would drive, which route we would take, where we would eat ---all the important things. Eventually it was decided that since two of the six of us tend towards car sickness, and there were hills and turns to navigate, that we would be the drivers.  Then we phoned each other on our Bluetooth devices and that gave us the ability to hear what was going on in the other vehicle. As we passed the first neighbourhood, we realized we were very close to a former workmate of ours.  We decided spontaneously to stop at her house and sing a few ...

I didn't have a clue about her past.  I never knew her when she was running for her life.  When I met Oma, those memories were in her distant past.  But I know those memories shaped who she was when she knocked at my at my door one day, introducing herself to me, just after she found out that her daughter was going to marry my father-in-law. Oma was just a youngster in the years of World War II, and had lived through some very difficult times,  and she didn't take 'the good life' in Canada for granted.  She embraced the moments, and those she loved - with an open heart and open arms.  She willingly shared what she had with those around her, because she knew what it meant to live in uncertainty and to rely on the kindness of strangers. When Oma came over, she usually arrived bearing gifts - clothes and shoes for my children, stuffies, and offers of blankets or anything else that we needed.  In time, I learned that was her way.  Oma offered her...

As we were planning programs for December, I asked the question that was hanging in the air.  "Are we going to do a door decorating contest this year?| Grande. Silence. We have 'always' done a door decorating contest.  Then it got to be that 'one more thing' that people did not want to put on their list of things to do for Christmas. Bah. Humbug. So, when someone asked if I wanted to organize it, I had a quick meeting with myself, and I said yes. And then I went into high gear becoming Santa's head elf. Mostly, I hired other elves to do the work for me.  These elves came in the form of volunteers who come each week to help enhance our programs. I asked some to cover the doors of the people who agreed to enter the contest. Check.   Then I asked others to cut out the shapes for my door. Check. Still others agreed to help take the pictures of the doors and create the 'voting poster' complete with a baggie for stickers for the vo...

I didn't have it on my list to do today, but in the blink of an eye, I found myself mucking around making a Christmas arrangement in this VERY large vase which I bought several years ago. At the front, you will see thee poinsettias and the red flowers, which I bought for a fabulous discount at a Big Box Store which was going out of business (is it any wonder when the regular price for each piece was 20$?!) I spent the better part of the morning and some of the afternoon working with the tableau.  In the middle of the project, a friend came by to collect some items we were getting selling and saw me looking up at the evergreen tree longingly.  It was the kind of look I wanted, but I didn't have a ladder handy.  He offered to help me out and soon, I had the base.  After I did as much as I could, I realized I didn't have enough product to make it effective. Serendipitously, my daughter and I were going on a Mother-Daughter date to our favourite Christmas store for t...

I started with the door wreath.  It was in the middle of November. I have been saving it since I got it at a such a good price at the end of last year.  All summer, I looked at the bag it came in, silently count the days til I could take it out and put it up in celebration.      My husband wondered why I put it on the inside of the door.  I told him it was so that I could see it. [It also means that I don't have to go outside to rescue it when the winter winds blow]    Can I just say, it gives me great pleasure to walk down the hallway and see the wreath hanging there as a harbinger of all that Christmas means.         Closer to the end of November, I told my him that the decorations would be like putting a frog in water and setting it to 'boil'.  He wouldn't notice too much at first, but eventually, he would clue in that we are now fast and furious into the Christmas season.  F...