Christmas to Come

Although we've still got over quite a while until Christmas 2024, I am trying to keep my promise and change my attitude toward the holidays. I know, it's far too soon -- unless you're a diehard Scrooge like me. So I really need to start working on myself way early.

I've been thinking about the few things I've always liked about the holidays. One thing I really enjoyed doing last year was going to different towns near us to see the light displays. My guy and I would stop for coffee, too. I insisted on going out five different times during 2023 to do this, which I've never done in the past. We need to do that again this year -- and maybe also make the trek up to St. Augustine, as they're supposed to have wonderful light displays, too.

As a holiday gift I like making a dessert for our next door neighbors (2023 was homemade French Silk Pie, which everyone loved.) It's a nice gift to give, especially in this day and age when no one has time to cook. I think this year I'm going to try making treat baskets with a couple different things, so I need to start testing some recipes on my guy, who is the resident treat expert and can eat sugar without a problem.

I give back through a charity donation every holiday, but over the last couple of years I usually do that via e-mail, which honestly is really impersonal. It's one of those fallout from the pandemic things. Anyway, I want to do some in-person donations to our favorite local charities, like the no-kill cat shelter.

Little changes like these will help make the Christmas season more hopeful than dreadful for me. I'm also going to make more changes; I just need some spirit-boosting ideas. What do you do that makes you happier during the holidays? Let me know in comments.

Comments

Maria Zannini said…

As you know I have no children. One thing that always makes me feel good is having children visit. It gives me a reason to decorate the house.

When my nieces, nephews, (and grand nieces and nephews) visit, I love to see their eyes grow big when they first walk in to my house and see all the "magic".

It reminds me on how I used to feel when Christmas was new and magical.

February 7, 2024 at 7:18 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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