You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2010.
Times Square ~ New York City
2010 is just about over… in retrospect it was a pretty good year… surprises and good things as well as the routine matters of every day living.
Here’s to 2011 and the promise of a bright new year… calendar pages yet to be written upon… dreams fulfilled. 2011 will be interesting in that the dates below are the same frontwards, backwards and upside down. Things like that amuse me.
January 1 and January 11 are 1/1/11 and 1/11/11
November 1 and November 11 are 11/1/11 and 11/11/11
Happy 2011 no matter how you look at it 
Hi, it’s me Chappy visiting gram’s blog to tell you about my Christmas morning like I did last year… you can read that post if you CLICK HERE.
As you can see I’m very patient and not touching or sniffing anything but I’ve got my eye on that red package wrapped in tissue paper. I love tissue paper.
Finally after tons of hours I get the go ahead to unwrap my present. Rip, rip…shred, shred… tossing bits of tissue paper everywhere.
Somehow I wound up under a big piece of wrapping paper. Funny, I don’t even remember that…I’m very focused when I’m opening presents. See what I got. It’s a bunch of squeaky balls attached to each other. Really fun to shake around and chew on… and that’s when the problem began. I think I chewed too hard because before we knew it I had gotten one of the balls loose and well, it could have become a choking thing for me. Gram’s upset she didn’t think of that before she bought it, but her heart was in the right place and that’s what really matters. Maybe next trip to MV we’ll find something.
Gotta say, I look pretty dashing in my red bandanna.
Here I am with mom amidst the wrappings. We look happy don’t we.
This picture below was taken at Aunt Patty’s house on the 24th…see, I’m being good and patient there too.
Hope everyone had a good Christmas, I sure did. Oh and Happy New Year to everyone too.
Chappy signing off….woof, woof
When Deb and I were on MV in October we saw this print of the Flying Horses done by artist Joan Walsh. I love the Flying Horses and Joan’s rendition definitely captures the essence of them. Believe it or not I wasn’t sure whether to purchase the print, until Deb suggested it would make a nice counted cross stitch project for me, as well as a nice Christmas gift !! She said she could chart it and it would make a nice companion piece to the Tabernacle one she charted for me in 1996. Sounded like a great idea . I immediately had selective amnesia concerning the entire conversation and so was greatly surprised on Christmas morning to open a box containing…
chart of the Flying horses…
which Deb divided into 8 sections… you can see a close up of one of the sections below…
included is chart of floss colors and names, and tah dah, floss and fabric.
Since I’m still working on the Tisbury counted cross stitch I gave her for her birthday last month, it will be awhile before I begin the Flying Horses. I already can’t wait until I finish it and can hang it next to…
The Tabernacle…
{{below is my post from 11/7/07 about it …
This is my counted cross stitch masterpiece. My daughter Deb took a photograph of the Tabernacle… blew it up to an 8×10 and charted it by hand on graph paper. There might have been computer programs for that but she didn’t have one and I’m not sure we even had a computer!. She also bought the material and my daughter Patty bought the threads and that was my Christmas gift that year. All I had to do was sew it. People always ask how long it takes to do projects so I kept track. Over the course of 3 months I sewed a total of 138 hours… every inch of the picture is counted cross stitches… even all the blue sky… and there seemed like endless amounts of that. After it was finished we took it, along with the original 5×7 photograph and had it framed. For a couple of years I just wasn’t happy with the frame though so when I had my other MV counted cross stitches framed I gave this picture a new one. I also added a little plaque at the bottom that says The Tabernacle, Oak Bluffs – Martha’s Vineyard.}}
Sew So, I’ll be keeping busy for the next several months and when I’m done and it’s framed I’ll show the finished project.
Happily clustered on the Christmas tree are some of my Vineyard ornaments. I don’t have as many as people think I do… if I did I’d need another tree. The Santa on the left is holding a wish list, it has only one wish on it “….trip to Martha’s Vineyard” which pretty much says it all for me.
A close up of the Tabernacle and the gingerbread house ornaments. These are glass ornaments with the pictures painted on the inside. In this picture the sun is shining through them.
Simple and beautiful.
MV bread basket with a handmade wreath sitting in it, although not an ornament is ornamental.
Winter begins Tuesday, Dec 21, 2010 at 6:38pm EST
Pretty much everyone loves Christmas music and has a favorite song, or three, or twelve. I love the classic carols like “O Holy Night” and the standards like “White Christmas”. However, there’s one song that makes me smile and bop around the house, or drum on the steering wheel of the car, and that’s Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. I can never hear it enough times.
And so knowing this, Deb made me a special CD which she gave me yesterday. Out of 21 songs “All I Want For Christmas” is on it SEVEN times. At first I thought it was going to be every song, and Deb said she did think about doing that, but that would have been silly. She did a terrific job of choosing interesting songs and I’m enjoying them but I have to say I like numbers 1-4-9-11-15-18 and 21 the best.
Thank you Deb.
Every year the second weekend in December is the Christmas in Edgartown celebration. I didn’t get to go this year but it got me thinking about the four times I have gone, and it is quite an experience. Actually it was almost five times but in 1993 a blizzard prevented us from getting to the Vineyard (CLICK HERE to read that post). Edgartown does a terrific job of celebrating the oncoming of Christmas. The town is decked out in all its holiday finery and happily welcomes visitors to enjoy all that is offered.
I took this picture of the Whaling Church early in the morning … it looks so typically New England to me. The Minnesingers from the high school put on a concert here as part of the weekend celebration. You can’t help but feel the Christmas spirit after this glorious concert.
Here are the Dr Daniel Fisher House and the Hob Knob Inn all decked out in twinkly lights and lots of greenery. The pictures in this post are from three different trips.
Edgartown Lighthouse.
I think one of the most fun things is the Christmas parade. You won’t find big inflated balloons here, but what you will find is pure enthusiasm and joy. From the horse drawn wagon in the beginning of the parade, to the fire truck with Santa at the end which is always a crowd pleaser and a smile maker.
Even four legged celebrants get into the act wanting to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
A Santa scallop !
It’s hard to keep up with all that Edgartown offers for the three day celebration. There are open houses at many of the inns where you can get a chance to look around and sample goodies they are offering. And while you’re enjoying that often times carolers drop in to serenade with a song or two. The stores are all open and they too have foods to sample and ciders and wines to taste. You can literally eat and drink your way around Edgartown.
Another highlight is Donaroma’s Evening of Enchantment (click on special events on the website), it’s a twinkling fairy land of lights, music, garden displays and entertainment by enthusiastic bell ringers.
Christmas in Edgartown … a joyful experience indeed, one I hope to experience again someday.
I love this ornament from 1993 of my grandchildren… Tyler, 7 months old and Tiffany 4 and 1/2 years old.
My daughter Patty surprised me today with a trip to Gingerbread Wonderland at the Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morristown, NJ.
There were hundreds of gingerbread houses of every description you could imagine. A few of the categories were – kids, families, schools, and adults. The imagination that went into these works of art was incredible…not to mention the amount of time spent in creating these incredible, edible works of art.
Here are a few of what we saw. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.
Charlie Brown Christmas
This man recreated his own house.
Taj Mahal
And my favorite…
Just look at the details that went into this small town.
I’m impressed by the entire town but especially with the details in the faces. You’ve got to have a steady hand and probably a magnifying glass.
Thank you Patty.
