Cards and Trees

Christmas cards are starting to arrive with every postal delivery, which means that I need to get mine ready to post.

I refer, in my introduction to this blog, to complications and one of my complications is that I'm somewhat prone to fatigue.  The fatigue has caught up with me this weekend, so I had a rather slow start to the day.  After that I did settle down to a session of card writing.

It is the weekend of the local Christmas Tree Festival and craft market so I went along this afternoon.  the trees are set up in the parish church and visitors are being asked to vote for their favourite.  There are some good ones with a mix of traditional, modern and innovative and a few particularly caught my eye.  The Beer Festival have a tree decorated with bottle tops and beer mats, the WI have a traditional looking tree.

The Brownies' tree includes some pudding decorations:

and the Retirement Group's tree has some lovely work on display:

My decision was a difficult choice between the Junior School's Advent tree of decorated biscuits:

and the Floral Society's tree of 1914-18 cards and event memorabilia:

Wandering round the trees and market has made me feel that the season really has started.

Christmas Spirit

Today's photo actually carries a date stamp of 4th December 2010 and was taken at a weekend gathering of a rather special group of women and it shows the table being prepared for our celebratory meal together.

It was a cold weekend but we had a warm house with plenty of mulled wine, mince pies and friendship. A good reflection of the Christmas spirit.

Carol Service

One of the offices from which I work is in a not-for-profit organisation building and another organisation based there is Wycliffe Bible Translators.  They moved in late last year and are establishing a tradition of hosting a lunchtime carol service for the building.  Last year it was in the last week before Christmas but this year they went for an early slot and it was held today.

If I'm honest, that was a bit early for me to be singing O Little Town of Bethlehem and Silent Night and I think they missed a trick by not having a few verses of the Advent hymn O Come, O Come Immanuel, but I was happier with Joy to the World and Hark the Herald!

It was a good event, with tea, coffee and mince pies afterwards, giving us all a chance to mingle.

All of which means that the photo for today is carol singers in the village that forms part of my Christmas decorations.  As I won't be decorating for Christmas until a bit later in December, this is a photo from last year.

Frost

It was a bit of a frosty start to the day today, and again the car was warning me that that there was a danger of ice. So this seemed a good photo for today (although the day it was taken much considerably colder!):

It warmed up a bit and got wetter as the day went on, but fortunately the rain held off for this evening's Christmas market/fair in Wendover.  It wasn't actually much of a shopping opportunity, but it all helps to build the festive spirit and there was a lovely happy atmosphere.

Card Making

Today's image is one of the cards I made the year our theme was The Snowman.

This year's cards are almost all made, although a few still need inserts and a couple need some finishing touches.

I need to settle down to some letter writing ...

Advent Images

The first section of the Advent Candle is now burning and this morning at work we opened the first door of the office advent calendar.

It isn't actually a new calendar; it is the one that was a gift from the grandmother of a member of staff a year or so ago and which we shut in January and have brought out again… Yes, we could have a new one, but this one is now "team tradition"!

Last month I had the idea of posting a photo for each day from 1st to 24th December, together with any relevant notes of my Advent and Christmas preparations.  Being realistic, I can see that I'm likely to run into difficulties with making it a daily task unless I queue things up as drafts and get the posting semi-automated - which seems a little too mechanical.

However, as there were Christmas Fairs and events all over the country this weekend I will at least make a start with this image from an event last year:

Advent Sunday

The clock is running!

The first candle on the advent wreath has been lit and we have eaten the first mince pies of the year (taken together with a glass of Madeira!). This year I've started with the Heston spiced ones...

Advent Sunday is also the day when I aim to finish making my Christmas cards and work out who will be receiving which card.  In many cases they are made with the recipient in mind, but in others I find I have an image I really like and so make several variations and leave it to now to decide who will have which.

The other main activity for today has been to make sure that the remaining tasks are in the diary with the days I want to have achieved them.

Remember to make a wish for each mince pie you eat between now and Christmas Day!