Completing the Christmas Saga

A few more events happened during the December timeline.  I hosted a cookie party at my apartment.  Mom, Dad, and Taylor came over one evening for festive cocktails and a bit of baking.  Mom and I manned the kitchen while Dad and Taylor sat at the table decorating.

It was a marvelous bake, as Mary Berry would say.  Later on that same week we decorated the Christmas tree at home.  It's always fun to get out the old favorites and put them right in the middle at eye-level so they can't be missed.  We even combined two classics: sledding drummer boy rafting down the tree!

We held a GH Works company gala down at Dewey's.  It was raining when we left so I pulled out my handy mini umbrella and Taylor put on his hood for the walk home while Mom and Dad got a ride from the Kirkwood Jitney.  It's meant to drive people from their cars to whatever Kirkwood destination they are headed, but they were happy to oblige a couple residents who don't live too far out of the downtown loop!

I completed a project commissioned by one of my work friends.  He had two big, old windows that he wanted painted with the houses of two of his family members, and beyond that he didn't really know what he wanted them to look like so I thought it would be neat to make them look like old greeting cards.

I started off with a little festive red cursive to add some color and get the spacing for the rest of the composition.  I decided to do a black line drawing of the houses and add a snowy white landscape around it.

The houses were difficult, but I drew an outline from the pictures he sent me on a piece of paper then put it behind the glass and used a paint marker to trace it on the final surface.  After using a sponge brush for the ground and trees, I added a little snow on the house roofs to bring it all together.  For the final touch, I used a poinsettia leaf dipped in white paint for a little textured, falling snow effect.  I think they turned out pretty good, and they were a fun little Christmas project to work on after finishing my tree.

And finally Christmas arrived.  I packed up an overnight bag and headed back home for a couple days.  We spent Christmas Eve with the Hunt side of the family, completing the traditional activities of drawing on the kids table and exchanging gifts white elephant-style.

We had a nice, leisurely Christmas morning, opening gifts while drinking coffee and examining our cool, new things.

Later that night, after cleaning the house and setting the table, we hosted Mom's side of the family for Christmas dinner.  Dad made a delicious orzo and crab cake dish, and we had another white elephant gift exchange, followed by a rousing Dollar game, which, as usual, Uncle Gary won.

And there you have it!  What a lovely Christmas season it was, and quite fun to go back through all the photos.  And fittingly, as today is the twenty-fourth, next Christmas is only eleven months away!

(photos by e.hunt)