Christmas

Another Christmas is over. Sigh. I always feel a mixture of relief, contentedness, and sadness when it's the day after Christmas. I mostly feel relief at this point. I always enjoy Christmas, but I am just fine with it being done for another year.

Here's some photos that highlight some of what this Christmas was for us.

These photos show our baking day spent at my brother and sister-in-law's house. I love cooking and baking at their home as they have a large, modern kitchen. Don't get me wrong, our kitchen is fine but in 1957 they didn't make the kitchens very large. That's an understatement. Anyway, we baked for hours, and we also made a few other treats to share with people. In fact I gave away seven tins of goodies to co-workers. Here's the beginning preparations of the white chocolate snack mix I made:



The following photos show cookie production in various stages. My mom and daughter helped out this year.







A few days before Christmas Eve our son-in-law replanted our front planter. It looks so pretty now! Our daughter made a felt banner on the spur of the moment, but you can't see a bit of it here. I must take a close-up picture of it later on this week. The reindeer was given to me as a gift by one of my students.
It's made out of palm fronds! Our planter and porch area:





Here are some photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had family over for both of them, and sadly some of the folks on Christmas Eve couldn't be here for Christmas Day.

Here's our table on Christmas Eve:


And the tree:


My niece and my mom on the 24th:


I wish I'd gotten a good picture of my great niece on her first Christmas Eve. The one I took turned out blurry so I can't share it here.

Christmas Day in the kitchen:


More family members on Christmas Day:


Finally, our dog on Christmas Day. Our daughter made him the bow out of felt.



It was a great time. I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday, too.

A Bit of Heritage

Work has been busy, and my classroom is just about ready! Phew. I brought a huge stack of stuff to work on at home, but for now I wanted to come here and share some photos with you.

I've slowly been trying to collect little pieces that reflect my Norwegian ancestry. My husband is also half Norwegian. I wanted to share some photos of pieces that were given to us or purchased by me the past few years.

While reading various blogs, I was thrilled to come upon some photos of rosemaling in Ele's beautiful blog:http://abitofpinkheaven.blogspot.com/ Rosemaling is a type of tole painting that originated in Norway.

Here's a napkin holder that's rosemaled. I bought it last year at an antique store in West Central Minnesota.





Here are two plates that I bought last summer. The red one was purchased brand new in a Norwegian store in Minnesota, and I bought the tan one at an antique store.





The needlework that originated in Norway is Hardanger embroidery. It's done on 22 count fabric, and I personally haven't ever tried it. I guess that's on my 'to do' list! Here's a Hardanger cross that a dear friend gave me. She's in her eighties, and she just learned how to do Hardanger a few years ago.




Another Norwegian type of item that I like are little dishes with Hardanger designs pressed onto them. In this craft, the person who makes them presses finished Hardanger pieces into clay and forms a Hardanger type design. A relative of mine collects them and uses them in her bedroom and guest rooms as little catch-alls for jewelry and other small items. Here's a dish my aunt gave me last summer:




Here's a view of several of our Norway pieces together. They're all sitting on top of a beautiful Hardanger piece that my late mother had someone stitch for me. My mother-in-law always appreciated my love of needlework! The photo also shows some pretty salt and pepper shakers that have blue rosemaling designs handpainted on them. You can also see a rosemaled plate that I bought over twenty years ago, as well as another small ceramic dish with Hardanger pressed onto it.






Finally, here's a view of all the Norway items arranged in our family room corner. It looks like I need to put a plant there, too, to warm it up a bit. I also wanted to crosstitch a Norwegian bellpull, but that's also in my 'to do' list.



Do you collect any items that reflect your heritage? I'm not much of a collector at all, but finding these Norwegian items has been fun.