My Christmas shopping is done (I know, I can’t believe it either), my cards are in the mail, my presents are ready to be wrapped, and I spruced up a gnome. I am not generally a gnome person, but I had to go looking for a gnome game and I came across these little fabric gnomes (14″ high) on Amazon for not-too-much ($15) and one of them had a green hat and I thought, “I could make that my Christmas tree this year” because I am not in a Christmas mood, so I bought him and he was darling, and then I saw the gnome-couple-with attitude and got those because they were so happy-making, and when they came, they looked like Pratchett’s elves in that only they could tell that girl gnome was a girl gnome, she looked like she had a handlebar mustache, so I cut the two swathes of hair into three pieces and braided it that still didn’t look right, so I added red yarn, and then gave her some eyelashes and made her an apron, and now I’m trying to figure out how to give her a basket of something like apples or bread because she’s too big for dollhouse food, but she needs to be carrying something nourishing.
Yes, that’s a run-on. That’s exactly how it happened, one thing after another, and the end I was left staring at Glam Gnome wondering when I’d lost my grip on the whole thing. (I’ll post a picture later when there’s light.)
Then I ordered four more gnomes (it was a set). I am NOT a gnome person, but now the little buggers are everywhere. I’m going to put one out on the front door wreathe. They’re Scandanavian. Cold holds no fear for them.
So what did you work on this week?
This really tickles my fancy. I’m looking forward to seeing your gnome menagerie when you get pictures up!
This week, work and Christmas activities are cutting into my crochet time. I’ve got an afghan started, but am having a hard time getting motivated to work on it. I actually worked on Christmas cards in preference to that! (Almost done with that project!)
Now trying to decide what to take to the annual extended family Christmas reunion for my husband’s kin. His father was one of eight children, so there are a lot of people who could show up. After a number of years of going to this shindig, I’m starting to recognize people – just don’t ask me names!
I’m currently toying with two ideas – one a tried and true casserole with sausage, potatoes, onions and creamed corn and the other a crockpot of meatballs. Both will probably be polished off by the crowd. I’m also thinking of making a jello salad that would please my Dad. Probably too sweet for these folks, but that just means leftovers to bring home.
I had a great vacation and on the plane on the way home, realized that I’ve caught a cold. Oh well. It’s been a year of lots of stuff, so why not roll out with stuffed sinuses and a cough, eh? Looking forward to 2020!
I’m laughing about the gnomes, because back in the bunny days, I would say to people, “I’ve only got six bunnies” just to watch their faces and eyes bulge. Heh.
I took off from work until Friday. Tonight, weather permitting, we trek to Busch Gardens (Williamsburg). I like how you have to differentiate so nobody thinks I’m driving to Florida. It’ll be in the 40s, Fahrenheit. Brrrr!
Christmas shopping? I am so totally done. Being me, I will waste money on stocking stuffers like candy that they will eat immediately – they always do.
Gnomes. Don’t let Gilmore Girls Babette know you have them. Gnome man is an island. Florida Man is an inept bungler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_David_the_Gnome
I toyed with the idea of buying a pencil tree this year. I toyed too long and they were out of stock so it is back to the three piece clunker to put together. My original thought on a pencil tree would mean fewer ornaments. My grandchildren nixed the idea anyway (of fewer ornaments) so that is another reason we’re staying old school. But wait till next year I won’t tell anyone until it is a done deed.
I got a laugh out of your “one thing leads to another) that’s more or less how I roll.
Super crazy (as in busy) (also as in overy-touchy and disconnected from rational thought processes) at work this week. I needed to hear about gnomes. Now I need to go home ant take a picture of the gnome I bought years ago from my niece’s school’s bizarre. It can be my annual instagram post!
I think you meant that in the PAST you were not a gnome person because this doesn’t read like you can currently make that claim!
They must be having a moment. My niece-in-law has been making quite a few of them; my nephew is bemused and confused in turns by it all. She really is a gifted crafter; she’s participated in at least one Christmas craft fair this year and did very well.
I have just learnt that Snoopy’s Christmas, inevitably the first Christmas song you hear on the radio every year, is uniquely New Zealand thing. It was a hit here in 1967, and nowhere else.
So I’m sharing. It’s objectively not very good, but it’s the sound of Christmas, that and Fairytale of New York. I wonder what that says about the national psyche.
https://youtu.be/ToEolESPGQg
Huge hit about 1970 in the US! Loved that song. Thank you!
This is one of my all-time favourite Christmas songs, so it did reach Canada, too. 🙂 Not sure if I’ve heard it on the radio lately, but I love it!!
Good to know my Intel was totally wrong, and we’re not really a freakish outpost lost in the South Pacific. And you’re welcome, Caryn.
This puzzles me because I was under the impression that we Yanks were not all that popular in NZ. Or maybe this came out long before we became unpopular.
We’ve always been unpopular but some of us are more unpopular than others.
It definitely reached Tasmania, though I haven’t heard it for years.
I had the album. In the US around 1970. Also the Partridge family and an 8 track of Mary Poppins. I was on the cutting edge of music.
This made my day! I remember the song from my childhood (in the U.S.) but probably haven’t heard it in 20 years. I love how the story evokes the Christmas truce of 1914. Also that the temperature was 40° below, which is incidentally the same temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Thanks!
No gnomes here, but I do follow @thecatlvt on Instagram, and she’s got a foster kitten named Cheery Littlebottom. (Most of the fosters are named after Pratchett characters. It’s a really fun account.)
I’m almost done with a quilt for a friend’s retirement! I should be able to mail it on Friday, so it can arrive by Christmas, because even though it’s not technically a Christmas gift or even a Christmas quilt, it IS Christmas-y (traditional red and white). Evidence here: https://www.instagram.com/p/B50vWREApOr/
How I laughed at your gnome story and your whole process for developing the gnome; hilarious! I haven’t finished Christmas shopping, but hope to do so today. Took a van of seniors to our local HUGE mall (BelSquare in Bellevue, WA) to shop, have dinner, and then see the Snowflake Lane Parade that they do every evening at 7:00 PM for the season. Such a fun little parade; they dance the first couple minutes, then the tune “Let It Snow” comes on the big loudspeakers, and IT STARTS SNOWING. They have figured out how to develop artificial snow and big blowers on the second floors of the buildings on the parade route just let rip; amazing! We just laughed, smiled, sung along with the Christmas tunes, waved at the parade going by, and had a great time. I was handed three different lollipops by three different characters (and I’m a senior!)
I wrote out the holiday cards and mailed them! I do have to make cookies but that will wait another week for that. Everything else is done. (Thank gods my family gave up on Xmas gifts some time ago.)
I’ll probably make some cranberry shortbread cookie dough to bake tomorrow.
As for gnomes, they are growing on me. I haven’t aquired any yet. Maybe I will craft one. There’s plenty of ideas and instructionn out there. And if I start, one thing will lead to another…
Hmm. You say you’re not in a Christmas mood, yet you’re so prepared! Me not so much. Some done, some not. And still debating the cards this year.
Did pop out the other day for some midday, weekday shopping–thinking it would lessen crowds and checkout lines. Which it did. It didn’t, however, help with stock availability and sizes. The latter the most challenging.
But I did get the answer to just how high stores can pile items before they topple over (very high) and how many of said items need to be removed from said tall piles to get to the right size (a lot). And where to put the removed items while you search (in your arms and not nearby it turns out because only surrounded by other tall piles).
Still, made some happy finds so all good. Just not all done:)
Adorable. I needed some gnome whimsy today.
I had a very productive weekend. I made chocolate haystacks and butter tarts. I wrote, addressed and mailed (on Monday) all my Christmas cards. This was in between writing all the words, dinner with friends, and dog scent-work classes. I felt very accomplished!
Now to get the shopping done…
I’m way behind on holiday stuff. Sent out the first few gifts today and packed a few others. Organized the rest so I’d have a better idea of what I still needed, which isn’t much. Cards haven’t been sent, though, and I haven’t done my (very basic–lights along the walls and a Winter Solstice altar, maybe a few swags) decorating yet.
I’ve been busy making jewelry to sell at the artists’ cooperative shop I run, and on Etsy, though. https://www.instagram.com/p/B58nnIoHwWM/
Ironically, one of the gifts I sent out was a gnome reindeer 🙂
What is paua shell? I love the necklace.
Paua is the Maori name for abalone.
Nice, Deborah!
I like to think I have the makings of a curmudgeon. I have “Bahed!” I have “Humbugged!” I have complained about “the crass commercialization of Christmas!” I am over it. I have grandchildren. And as Dickens wrote:
It may be that the author should have had the Dickens beaten out of him for that abstinence/spirits pun. Perhaps not…
Mind, I reserve the right to Bah and Humbug about Valentines Day and big expensive weddings and diamond engagement rings and get off my yard! Also Columbus Day and birthdays in general. I have a list, you see. A long list.
Merry Christmas to all? Good night.
I’m still trying to get more freelance work. Meanwhile the thermostat on the bath/shower tap has gone and the plumber claims he can’t get a replacement. I consulted my friend’s partner (a senior maintenance engineer) who reckons I should be able to get one from the manufacturer, so I’ve emailed them. At least the bath still works; and it’s not a sign the boiler’s about to peg out, as I feared at first.
Election tomorrow, and I’m not optimistic.
But in better news, I’ve put my pictures up (some photos on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B53L7AdHvn_/ ). Also got my Christmas cards printed, written and posted. I’m going to Shrewsbury tomorrow, and hope to finish my Christmas shopping. And at last my solstice meal is starting to gel, with two definite and two possible takers.
Your pictures are beautiful, Jane!
Thanks, Lian. It’s lovely to be surrounded by colour again.
So much work that I’m doing it in my dreams (came up with a great tagline). Jury duty. A jaunt to Texas to chaperone my niece-who-pretty-much-doesn’t-need-a-chaperone to her horse show; mostly I hid out and wrote about wastewater treatment.
What is this thing you speak of…”Christmas”?
P.S. Love the gnome story.
If you don’t mind, where was the horse show? We were in Texarkana last weekend for one.
Oh, that would have been cool to be in the same place – but we were in College Station.
I accompany her to shows once or twice a year and can now tell a canter from a trot.
Very cool! We show AQHA. What is her breed?
American Saddle Horse.
I am way behind with Christmas. But this week I managed to get the house decorated.
We went to a church Christmas breakfast and we volunteered to bring a breakfast casserole. At the last minute my mom and husband convinced me to make baked oatmeal instead. Baked oatmeal is oat meal,apples, brown sugar, dried cranberries, baked in milk and eggs.Better leftovers, they said. I think we were the only ones who ate it, so plenty of yummy leftovers
Writing. Otherwise, I called in sick today and didn’t do much other than watch TV and do Christmas shopping. So good for me on that last bit.
We are way behind on Christmas. Christmas may not happen. I have some old sick people on my mailing list and I really should send cards and yet I keep not doing that trivial amount of work. Have had a low-grade illness for about a week which decommissioned me over the weekend (was good for even less than usual, that means) and even stayed home from work for a day.
However I have not stopped writing. Rolling with novella #31, wrote a song which that story needed, am also writing (up to almost 20K words) on a novel set entirely in 2020 which I don’t plan to publish till 2021. These characters are so present in my mind that I can’t seem to keep them in a drawer for later.
I posted pictures of what I’ve been working on in Instagram, but I’m at work so I can’t get the link for you guys. Pot holders and ornaments. Only put up pictures of the pot holders because they are making me the happiest at the moment.
I love gnomes. Not sure why. Can’t wait for the glam picture!
I, too, have a growing gnome collection. I participated in two gnome MKAL (mystery knit a-long) on Ravelry. They turned out too cute. But they need more friends… I foresee more gnome knitting in 2020.