First off!

What comes off the tree depends on which box I decide to fill first...that is usually the one that is closest to me. And, this year it happened to be the box that I always store the "card balls" in. A "card ball" is made up of circles cut from old Christmas cards...then you draw an equilateral triangle on the back of the circle and fold them on the lines and then glue them together...five circle/triangles make up the top and the bottom and ten around the middle. My mother made our first card balls...the one that you see in the center and the one the same size behind it. She called them "story balls." She suggested that we take the balls and make up stories about the pictures to tell to the children when they were little. The balls that she made were made from some of the Christmas cards that I received as a child. Then over the years we have made different sized balls...you can see a large one that I made many years ago (I think we were living in California at the time...so many, many years ago). Then I experimented with smaller circles...the smallest ones that you see were made with circles the size of a quarter (I think that I have made them from dime-size circles...but don't have one of those to show anymore.). Melany made the Norman Rockwell card ball. For the small one I made, I used a Joan Walsh Anglund card for the top. And the middle sized one that I made has the words of Christmas for the top. We at one time had one on the tree that had rather rough edges...Nathan's first attempt to make one...that one now resides next door so it can be hung on Nathan and Kathy's tree. Once you get really "good" at doing this you can make the center and the bottom have all the pictures be right side up...you have to have 10 "right-side-up" triangles and 10 "upside-down" triangles. There's no telling how many of these that I have made over the years. In this picture you can see a pink card ball and a blue card ball over to the right...those were made from some of Melany and Nathan's baby cards. At the time I made two from Melany's and two from Nathan's. They each got one and I kept one for each of them. The red and green one that you can just barely see on the left is a more complicated...an origami one that Melany made. I stick to the simple ones! Though, Woody and I have made them from different geometric shapes before. We didn't keep those...we made them to give to a family when we were living out in California...I don't remember the circumstances...I just remember that our Sunday School class provided Christmas and a tree and ornaments for a family.

Woody and I headed to early church this morning. After church we went to Sunday School. Woody taught his class. We came home and I made Cantonese Spareribs...yum! yum! We had those for a late lunch. Then I continued on with the undecorating and redecorating. I still have some redecorating...though a lot is done, but all the undecorating except for the tree is done (unless I find those two or three items that I always seem to find that allude me when I'm putting things away!). The tree is still a big project, but at least I am to that point. And, the first set is off the tree and I will go and put those card balls into their box as soon as I finish blogging. Woody took a couple of walks today. He walked while he was waiting for our lunch to be ready...I'm guessing for about an hour. Then late this afternoon he went on another walk around the block. He has been watching football this afternoon and reading. I stayed up waaaaaaaaaaay too late last night as I got involved in my book and wanted to find out what happened and read till the end. So I have been a bit sleepy today...though I only took two very short power naps!

Well, back to the tree! We'll see how far I am with it tomorrow night when I blog! Doubt that I will be done...but time will tell! As the decorating is, so is the taking off of the ornaments a memory time...so I will go get lost in memories!