Fridays Finest Holiday Edition

My mother wanted to share a childhood holiday story today, so in lieu my Criagslist finds I am sharing this...thank goodness because I have my whole family coming over for Christmas Eve dinner tonight.

You all have no idea how excited I was when she sent this to me!!!! Every Christmas I have asked my mother to tell me a story about Christmas when she was young and every year my mother gets as far as a sentence or two and then she would cry. So, yes every year on Christmas for as long as I can remember we have been crying over my mother's happy childhood. So happy that the memories overwhelm her.

So, here's just a piece of the puzzle I have been trying  to connect for over 30 years (can you believe that??)...


Because I like to think of myself as living in the present and looking to the future, I bow to modern holiday color schemes just because I don’t want to be a stick in the mud.  But if truth be told I’m still shocked when I see a shocking pink Christmas tree or a turquoise dyed poinsettia.    I love red and green, two colors that make me think of the holidays and two colors that find their way into my decorating schemes no matter where I’ve lived.    When I was little and a coloring fiend, my parents had to continually buy me new packs of crayons because the red and green crayons were always worn to a stub.


My love of these colors reached a zenith when I was in grade school.  As the holiday approached in our cold, snowy northern town, our greatest joy was to paint the large windows of our classrooms in traditional Christmas designs (10-12 windows in all).  Red and green, of course, were the predominant colors with dabs of yellow (for stars), dark blue (for night) and brown for reindeer or manger scenes.  In case someone chose the Three Wise Men as their design, purple and gold were also available.  Large holly festooned red bells were popular themes and one window always featured a large candle.  Because it was 100 per cent guaranteed that our classroom lights would be on at the crack of dawn and all through the day, these painted windows glowed like welcoming beacons to cold children who had just trudged several blocks through heavy snow.    We loved those windows with a passion and I’m sorry to say the glorious old building that housed these holiday painters is soon to be torn down.   The future is always beckoning.

 

A lovely Martha Stewart Holiday image...my mother has every single Martha Stewart Magazine and most of them are under her bed, so she can grab an issue at 3 in the morning to read.

Free downloadable holiday cards by Kana Kobayashi, LULU and Samantha Hahn from CWC!

I will be doing just one post next week before the New Year, so until then I wish you all a super Happy Holiday!!!