Thanksgiving, December and Christmas

Thanksgiving has gone, the kick off of big shopping and now December is here.  Have had a hard time getting stuff started as mom was back in the hospital for a couple of days right before Thanksgiving-had low hemoglobin count and took 3 units of blood to raise count back up.  We had thought that maybe her time was about done but after the latest stay and a good doctor visit we have put all those thoughts aside and now turn back to making Santa Claus and the season joyful!

Had an interesting post from the American Youth Foundation asking "What have you done today to make your community a better place (yes I did paraphrase it) but did make me think about my daily activities since I have retired.  The AYF also has a saying about "at your very best all the time"; how great it would be if we all followed that creed; maybe at this season it could be come our daily thought for the day.  Think how productive we would be and how we would make a difference in the lives of those around us.  OK, done with the philosophical stuff.

Opened up the stored Santa Claus box and found all sorts of things that I had forgotten-took some down to the local art vendor and have been to a couple of craft fairs.

Also found some of the "flat" one dimensional Santa's that I started with several year ago.  The daughters have received a Santa carving, either flat or carved, every Christmas over the past 15(?) years. Check these out, the arms even move!

A new friend from Tuftenboro, NH, saw me carving with pine and gave me a piece of basswood that he had cut from his local forest-I have never worked with a better piece of wood than this piece.  Also read about a new Santa design with the jolly gent looking up at the skies, trying to figure out if the time was right for flying.  Hope you like it.

Also did a new Nativity Scene, one dimensional but have some carving in to separate the colors.  I would probably call it a piece of Folk Art as the characters are pretty funky.  Found the design in an old craft book from a used book store.  For next year also bought a book on how to do a fully carved set-will probably be a "long term" project!

Weather here has been really strange-October snow of 12+" but last month temps in the 60's.  Local ski places are bumming as too warm to make snow.  But most folks feel that a day in the 60's is one less day with cold and snow-let's just hope that spring comes on time.  A good friend told me that over the next 20-30 years that the NE will become more like the NW United States, less snow, more rain and moderate temps so  maybe we are on the way!

Selling some of the  Santa's-most of the bigger ones (6" ) are around $50, smaller ones (4") $35 or so.  Ornaments run $10-$15 depending upon the size (no pictures of them).  Sold the Loon decoy to a good friend who will give it a great home; have a Cardinal in the works too.  Staying busy but still having fun.

Hope that this holiday season is going well for all-let me be among the first to wish you a Merry Christmas.  And much peace in your life.

And don't forget to measure twice and cut once.

PS-Christmas at the Richter's version 2011.