Hide and Seek

I spent a good part of the day playing hide and seek with the ornaments on our Christmas tree. I think that they enjoy hiding from me. Take as an example the ornaments in tonight's blog picture. I know that these ornaments are hard to find so I start taking them off before I even get to the box they go in. Today when I finally got to their box and put them in there was one of the "12 Days of Christmas" missing and I had to go walk around and around the tree to find it.I finally found it and this box was ready to go back into the larger box of ornaments where it is stored. I have managed to repack three large boxes of ornaments today and this is how the tree looked when I left it a little while ago...though, the ornaments in the boxes on the coffee table are now packed back into their larger box. Still a "few" to take off!

Woody did his normal Saturday errands...library and Walmart. Later in the day he walked four miles. Besides taking ornaments off the tree I have been making plans for Joseph's one-year outfit that I am going to make for him. I woke up early this morning and decided that I would look through some of the fabrics that I have hanging in my "fabric closet" and I actually managed to find exactly what I need...fabric for some overalls and also some for a knit shirt. Each of Nathan and Kathy's children have had their one-year photo taken in something that I have made...I would hate to break tradition! Now for a memory about the "12 Days of Christmas" ornaments. My mother bought these for us when we were on a trip in Salem, MA back in 1988. We were in MA for a family reunion on my mother's side of the family. Mother, (my father didn't come), Cheryl, Woody, myself, Melany and Nathan were all there visiting with my aunt and cousin at the same time...the only time that ever happened. While we were there we took a day trip to Salem...went to The House of Seven Gables, The Salem Witch Museum and several other places...one of which was a really neat Christmas shop that was housed in a gift shop called The Stoned Elephant (its name another story in itself!). You couldn't find happier people than my mother, sister, aunt, cousin and myself in a Christmas shop!(One of the reasons that we have so much Christmas "stuff!") We had the best time looking and choosing various ornaments. Mother ended up getting a set of these 12 Days of Christmas ornaments for me, my sister and my cousin. So they are a very pleasant memory of a great family time together. And, now for the rest of the story about the reason for the name, The Stoned Elephant: It seems that the first elephant to come to the U.S. came by boat. The water supply ran out and they had to give the elephant beer to drink. Another aside: To help defray the expensive drinking habit of the elephant 25 cents was charged to see the elephant. In that time that was a week's wage! Just a little trivia for the last day of the month!