Christmas Music...

We are really in the spirit of things around here. Pancake is photographed here (bot. left) acting as concert master (do they have to play the violin?) ... anyway Pancake plays the clarinet and little c is leading the all stuffie orchestra in a rousing rendition of Carol of the Bells...

Good Guys & Bad Guys...

My nephew has learned that bad guys are scary and doesn't want anything to do with them. Funny thing though... some of the good guys, especially in the comics still look a bit, well odd.. especially if you're three.

I was trying to bribe the nephew in an effort to produce good behavior with a Marvel Comic super hero named Thing. He's a good guy? Right? That's what I was told and so that's the information that I passed on to the nephew.

He looked at it and shook his head violently. Still holding said Super up for him to see I explained that this Thing guy runs with great company... Spiderman. Nephew looks at me suspiciously and says with small outstretched hand, "I try it." But, as soon as he's touching the small action figure, he freaks out "NO! NO!" "give to kweiiis" (he's the brother and brothers as rule are entitled to cast off toys). This whole scenario was repeated almost exactly and then I just gave up.

So, I looked Thing up and it turns out that he really is a good Super Hero.. founder of The Fantastic Four and everything, but he just doesn't look like a good guy to the nephew who never wanted him. It just goes to show that you shouldn't always judge by appearances.

Merry Merry Christmas...

Little c's been coloring...

The little Sugar Plum Fairy...

This little Sugar Plum Fairy was wrapped up and shipped to California yesterday...

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Snowflake Bentley...

Not really a favorit Christmas book, but a favorite winter book for sure. Winner of the Caldecott Medal, this book tells the story of Wilson Bentley who was the first to use a photomicoscope to show the world the beauty and individuality of snowflakes.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens...

I've read a few emotionally tough books this year. And, I don't consider it wise for me to read those during the winter when there's not so much in the way of sunshine. Keep the really depressing stuff to the summer months I say. Then, you can read and go play at the park and work it off. Wimpy? I know it is, but that's how I have to do things.

After I've read some tough ones, I love to go back to the classics I adore. I just finished David Copperfield yesterday, a great novel. It's not A Tale of Two Cities mind you, but a great novel.

It's interesting that it was actually Dickens favorite (this, on the left, is a picture of him). He loved David Copperfield more than all the others because the book is the most autobiographical of all his books.

I won't go into the similarities to his own life, that would take hours and you don't want to read that much here.

I always find the themes of Dickens novels so refreshing. In David Copperfield, he talks a lot about how to choose a mate and what makes a happy life. I agree with all the things he writes on the subject.

Do you know that Dickens books have been so popular that they have never been out of print? Amazing, but if you read them .. not surprising. The themes are timeless, the morals are infinitely illustrated and valuable even today. I am grateful to have books like these available. They are a refuge.

It is interesting to live in today's troubled world and look back and see that there has always been great trouble. In Victorian times, for instance, you would not be able to reasonably expect all of your children to live to adulthood. We still lose too many children to accidents and disease, but back then I would say they lost close to half. In fact, according to The Demography of Victorian England and Wales By Robert Woods the average life expectancy in 1850 was between the ages of 35 and 40. I would be a very old woman if I had not already met my maker.

So, I suppose that I take some courage from Dickens novels. He lived in a challenging time as well. But, I believe that the way to the good life is still the same.. moral excellence.

Christmas in the Manger...

Here's one for the younger set. I love Felicia Bond, you may remember her books about giving mice cookies and pancakes and muffins to moose and all the adventures that follow. Morale: don't feed the wild life. Anywho, I love this little board book. It explains the Christmas story to your smallest little elf, but with tender feeling. Don't miss.

Christmas Day in the Morning...

I was recently asked if I could name a few of my favorite Christmas storybooks. Yes I can. I apoligize if you've been reading this blog all along because I believe that I mentioned this book last year. I love Mark Beuhner's illustrations along side this classic Pearl S. Buck Christmas tale of a boy who discovers the meaning of love and finds a desire to give a gift from the heart.

Pearl S. Buck's writing is a bit sophisticated so I would say a child over the age of 6 or 7 would appreciate it more than the younger set. Anyone older would love it as well... even if they're 105.

Honey...

Little c has had the most annoying cough lately, just this dry irritating cough the last 3 days. I thought about keeping her home last night as I was looking through the medicine cabinet in hopes of something that would make her more comfortable.

The cough medicine that I had said it was definitely not for kids, so I had nothing. When I mentioned this to C, he said that he'd just read an article about a study that said that a teaspoon of honey did more to alleviate an irritating cough in children far more than any over-the-counter drug. Well, I had honey and it was worth a try... it couldn't hurt. It didn't hurt... in fact it worked great. Really great. I am still scratching my head about how great. Tonight I made her drink a cup of tea that I made with a lemon wedge and about a tablespoon of honey. No coughing. None. She's still not feeling really well, but is much more comfortable. Amazing stuff honey.

I hope we are going to keep our bees. They've been disappearing you know... and we need this honey and fruit and flowers and... that's another subject.

The Holiday...

I may be the last person to have seen this film... but since no one warned me about it. I'm going to tell just in case you haven't seen it yet. It's the freakiest show. It's like it had two different writers.. one who wants to tell a nice romantic story with the holidays as a backdrop... and then some demented idiot whose mind is in the gutter.

Half of the movie has this darling story line with this elderly Hollywood writer.. sweet story and darling lines and then back to the gutter. YUCK! Rent it if you have ClearPlay and skip it if you don't.

Holiday...

This is a really fun Cary Grant- Katherine Hepburn film. The writing is great and the script is tighter than a lot of older films. It's not about Christmas, which was a bummer but... still fun.

The Bluebird of Happiness: a little book of CHEER

I received this darling little book from my mom for my birthday last month. I LOVE it! I love those little gift books anyway, but this one is a real favorite. Happiness and Bluebirds and quotes like these:

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.

~Robert Louis Stevenson

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

~Albert Einstein

Happiness... not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour.

~Walt Whitman

Dear Santa...

These Dear Santa mugs are really cute. I saw them yesterday shopping here... I love reproduction vintage stuff. It's less likely to give you lead poisoning and still very cute!

One Winter Afternoon...

The Sugar Plum Fairy...

available now in...

THe LoVe BoXEs SHop

Christmas Cards...

The Christmas cards were mailed, but if you didn't get one and would like one. E-mail me an addresss @love.boxes@att.net

Merry Christmas!

PS Julie S., I don't have your new address...

Enchanted...

This movie is darling and I can't wait to see it again. However, I have one beef. Why can't a Disney movie for kids be G rated and deserve the rating. There is some mild innuendo and a towel scene that while very mild just don't need to be in a movie for children at all. It certainly didn't add to my enjoyment of the film.

Still, the writing is cute. Bill Kelly did a great job. The film mostly refrains from the really cheep and gross Shrekesque humor that I really believe kids don't need. There is real writing the script is pretty tight.

The film would have flopped without Amy Adams who plays the very naive, but sweet Giselle straight up. She is amazingly believable and has a dynamite voice.

Be prepared for a full dance number in the middle and about 15 minutes to get the story set up, but I even think husbands can handle this family movie because it really has some clever humor throughout.

Nanny Diaries...

Laura Linney did a great job in the part of the crazy mother. And the little boy, who is at least one of the stars of the show, but gets bottom billing on this poster, was darling. Dysfunctional family films are a dime a dozen, but in this one, the family is rich instead of poor. Does that make it different? This film is train-wreck sad, but it has a happy ending, at least mostly a happy ending, which makes in a little easier to swallow that the book, which is emotionally brutal. An OK film, but not a great Christmas pick.

Ginger Spots...

3 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp . sea salt

2 tsp ground ginger

1 cup salted butter

3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 large egg

1/2 cup unsulfered molasses

bake at 350 degrees for 8-9 min. Add icing when cool.

PS.. I like to use this tiny (about the size of a 50cent piece) scoop to make them. They are so cute tiny. :)

Michael Griffin Nasa Adminstator

NASA Chief Questions Urgency of Global Warming... article here.

Religion & Politics...

In 2004, when I went to NYC for the Riot Relief Luncheon, James Lane Buckley was the key note speaker. His brilliant speech covered the subject of rising secularism in America. Mr. Buckley's speech cited many quotations by our founding fathers with a theme of faith and concern that the people of this nation would continue to be a people who loved God and a people who would try to discover, learn and then do God's will. Our founders knew this to be a recipe for success and when that recipe has been followed, our nation has accomplished its greatest triumphs.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, a man of deep faith, called the nation to repentance in his Thanksgiving address. He said, "But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

I think it would be interesting to see what the papers would say if President Bush said something like that. Still, I feel that Lincoln's words are true today. For example, if your only opinion of America was to be gleaned from watching network television, it would be possible to assume that ours is a nation of godless reprobates.

This morning my dad sent me an article that appeared in The Boston Globe yesterday, which quoted a statement made by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in a recent interview, ""It's difficult to talk about religious faith in our political system," Blair said. "If you are in the American political system . . . you can talk about religious faith and people say, 'Yes, that's fair enough,' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter.""

I was very interested in Mr. Blair's statement because from my perspective I think it's getting difficult for American politicians to express any real religious sentiment for the same reason. Politics has been so divisive recently in America that we don't talk about political views in polite company, something I find very sad, and we mention religious faith in hushed tones so as not to be offensive to anyone. And, there is a reason that our culture is going that way. Here in Utah, several years ago there was a lawsuit, which made national headlines, to stop a local High School choir from singing religious music at Christmastime. The federal lawsuit was not successful and the U.S Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, but people don't like to get sued.

It is true that in just the most recent history of our nation, Americans seem to want their politicians to distance themselves from God, "rising secularism" as Mr. Buckley put it. But with scandal and corruption in the halls of power in the news on a daily basis, that idea is not working out for us very well.

Americans are protective of their rights and they don't want religious belief to be any thing that is thrust upon them in any way. As I have read books over the past year about the oppression of regimes like the Taliban, I can understand some of that sentiment, but we must be careful not to take that too far, and I think we have.

George Washington said, "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." If we don't look to God for our moral compass, our compass may fail us.

When I choose a candidate for public office, but especially for the highest office. I want to know that I have chosen one who is humble enough to pray. I hope our future leaders will be humble enough to be on their knees before God and ask that they might know in their hearts and in their minds the right course. Our nation needs leaders whose faith informs their actions and whose actions are a testament to their faith.

Allison's Column...

Allison has a really great column this month. Read it here.

Poinsettia... The Christmas Flower...

I love these flowers so much. I guess I love these plants so much since it's the leaves that make them colorful and amazing.
One year I decided to paint a poinsettia box and it's still one of my favorites. I wanted a Christmas poem to go along with it, but there was not one. So I wrote this:

Poinsettia

hail Christmas
the red star
flower of the holy night
and proclaim
"be of good cheer"
for he lives who alters
scarlet sin to whitest snow
for he lives who rose
the third day
for he lives creator of grace
in heaven and earth
... in crimson robes He comes again
while the red star waits and burns and shines
for to humble manger He first came
but in brightest glory will He reign.

Have you ever seen any other poinsettia poems? I also love the Tomie de Paola book. He has a really fun website.. see it here.

O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree...

It's very difficult to show you the whole of this tree. It's a pencil pine (fake). It goes in a small room though so it's perfect for that. If I back up and take a picture of the whole tree, then you'll see all the contractor off-white walls in this room that I don't really like. So when you look at the tree, imagine a bright lime wall behind it with pretty glossy white trim, which is what it's going to be someday.

Miss Vanessa...

Michelle, you wanted to see my lovely postcards from Miss Vanessa's shop. These are a deal! They are printed so prettily ... even the back is beautiful! Check out Miss Vanessa's Etsy Shop here where you can find very lovely holiday things.

Believe...

I made these blocks at homemaking night. I think maybe I will tie some bows around them or one or two and add some jingle bells. I love Santa. Little c's new thing is to go around asking everyone if they believe in Santa or not... you know our mantra around here is... "those who do not believe, do not recieve." I'm sure I believe. :)

Raising a Reader...

I started reading to c when she was 6 months old in hopes that one day she would be a reader, a real reader. I also have followed my friend Michelle's advice (she's a real reader) and had c listen to lots of books on tape, which I really believe is a great tool for every kind of reader, but really great for beginners.

Yesterday, when I could not get her to stop reading her book, "It's so good mom!" "Mom! It's not a good place to stop right here." "Mom, 10 more minutes!" Three and a half hours later..."I'm finished!" Yesterday, my little c finished a 537 page book. This morning when I went to get her tired little self up, I asked if she wasn't overly tired and maybe should have saved a few chapters for this afternoon (violent head shaking). She regrets nothing. I think maybe she's a real reader.

World Travel Box...

This box has not been varnished and waxed yet, but it's just about done.

Christmas Movies...

I love Christmas movies, but this one in this version is my favorite far above all the rest. It is the musical version of A Christmas Carol starring Albert Finney who plays the best Ebenezer Scrooge ever. I love the music.. "Thank you very much, thank you very much! That's the nicest thing that anyone's every done for me!" I love that number, but all of them are good. There is one really dumb sequence where Marley takes Scrooge and shows him his office in hell. The special effects are really poor there and it detracts from the rest of the film which is pretty perfect I think.

I think the story of The Christmas Carol really lends itself well to a musical format and the music is great, but I also love the ending and this is what really gets me. It's long enough that you feel very confident that Scrooge has changed his ways. You are really able to see how he's made everyone else happy. Movies, especially these days show 2 hours of horrid struggle and conflict and then they show a 30 second resolution and the whole thing is over (can you tell this is a pet peeve of mine?). This movies is different, it ends not just as you let the wind out of your lungs, it gives you a chance to take another breath.... breath in breath out, wipe your tears and smile...then it's over.

December Treats...

These are one of my favorite. We eat them around here like chocolates out of a box. Delish!

Holly Claus The Christmas Princess...

Little c is reading the novel The Legend of Holly Claus and really loving it. I think that she would also enjoy this picture book. I was shopping at BN the other day and looked through this book which confirmed my view that some of our best art is found in Children's Picture books. Jeffrey K. Bedrick is the illustator of this book, and the pictures he's created are so imaginative.. simply amazing.

Merry Christmas Ornament Box...

You've seen the pink ornament box posted below, this box is one that I made on the road to making the other box. I hardly ever get a new design just as I'm imagining it in the first try. But, I think this box still turned out pretty cute, (the glitter on the ornament didn't photograph well) and it's going in

THe LoVe BoXEs ShOP

this morning...

Wrapped and Shipped...

I like to wrap the boxes in this shred and then in tissue so that they arrive in perfect condition. Then, I take them all packaged cute to the post office. My post office has employed one or two guys that like to be funny. Last time I was at the post office, I told the postman that my package was fragile (I wanted him to put that orange sticker on it) and he asked me if I'd wrapped it properly. I told him that I thought so. He held that package above his head and asked me if I would be comfortable if he dropped it (I am not making this up). "Not really comfortable," I said. He told me I should probably re-pack it. Then he told me that my box would be stacked under other boxes up to weights of 70 pounds. It's a miracle they all don't arrive "schmooshed" (this ought to be a technical postal term). So, I told him that I was in a rush and I had to ship it now and I asked him if rather than a "fragile" sticker, I could get one that said, "place on top" and "only toss underhand". But, I'm putting more peanuts in the box next time for sure.

Monograms...

I've been finishing up some monograms recently. Here are two in pink and green (my favorite!) The top one seems to be for a little dancer. I put the ribbons to add a feeling of motion, they also make me think of point shoes, but I don't know if she's a ballerina or not.

I'm hoping to finish a world travel box this week and get my Christmas tree up... and the cards mailed out... and. and. What Christmas project are you doing today?

Ornaments...

There will be a few more Christmas ornament boxes in

THe LoVe BoXes SHoP

later today. They have a new quote inside however,

"Love was born at Christmas... Christina Rossetti"

Stephens Chocolate Mint Truffle...

This is another one of my favorite holiday treats made right here in Utah. It's the best! I love the Mint Truffle flavor the most of all. If it's not available at your local market, you can purchase some here.