Saturday's 12 Days of Christmas Winner!

The winner of Saturday's Christmas Movies post is:

Barbara Vey!

Congratulations, Barbara!

Please send your snail mail info to Jeanne at: jeanne@jeanneadams.com

Thanks so much to everyone who commented!!

Christmas in England

by Anna Sugden

This is our first Christmas back in England after six years in New Jersey. As we put up our first real tree (a Norwegian fir called a Nordman, which doesn't drop its needles - ideal for the tender-pawed, and the post-Christmas clean-up!) and hung real mistletoe, with its creamy white berries, for the first time in six years, it struck me that there are a number of things about Christmas in England which are different. I don't know if they're unique, but they make an English Christmas ... English.

Knowing we have visitors from all over the world, I thought I'd share five things about an English Christmas with you.

1. Christmas music - Yes, many of the Christmas songs you know and love are the same. But, for many people over here, Christmas isn't officially Christmas until you've heard Noddy Holder (the lead singer of Slade) declare "Its Christmas!" in his gravelly voice. At the risk of showing my age - here are Slade(You'll have to watch right to the end to see the moment I mean).

Another favourite of mine is "I wish it could be Christmas every day" by Wizzard.

2. Christmas lunch - I talked about this in more detail on a recent post at Writers at Play ), so I won't repeat it all. Suffice it to say that Christmas is our big turkey day (though some prefer goose). What makes it really English is the selection of desserts - Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mince pies and/or a Yule Log.

3. Christmas crackers - Christmas lunch isn't officially underway until you've pulled cracker. No, I'm not talking about getting lucky with an available hunk - not with all that family around, anyway! A Christmas cracker (see picture) is a fun tradition - when you pull it, it splits open with a bang. Inside is a paper hat (which must be worn), a 'gift' (kind of like the prize at the bottom of a box of Crackerjack) and a silly Christmas joke (the ones little kids find hysterically funny).

4. The Queen's Speech - with Christmas lunch over, it's time for collapsing in front of the TV. Before the Christmas blockbuster or the Christmas specials, comes the Queen's Christmas Speech. This is broadcast by the BBC. It also goes out around the world via the radio on BBC's World Service. In years gone by, many families waited to open their presents until after the Queen's Speech. In our family, Christmas stockings could be opened first thing on Christmas morning, but the main presents had to wait. I suspect fewer and fewer families follow that tradition any more. Sadly, I also suspect that fewer and fewer people actually listen to the Queen's Speech.

5. Service of Nine Lessons and Carols - I've saved my particular favourite until last. Usually held on an evening before Christmas, this is a wonderful event. And whether you're in an 11th century Minster, a small village church or a modern chapel, the format is always the same. It begins with the lights being turned off, so that the church is lit only by candles. Into that gentle glow comes the pure, sweet voice of a young solo chorister. Unaccompanied, he or she will sing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. I can't express how magical that moment is. And how much it makes you feel the wonder and beauty of Christmas. Then, the lights come up, the organ plays and we all join in the rest of the hymn. Through alternating readings from the Bible and Christmas hymns, the story of Christmas is told.

For me, this is the loveliest celebration of Christmas. Whether it's hearing the familiar story from the age-old passages, singing along to traditional favourites like "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" or "O Come All Ye Faithful" or listening to the choir sing a carol composed especially for the service. Even when we were abroad, we always tried to scour the internet to find a service to listen to - Carols from Kings (that's King's College, here in Cambridge) is often available and worth hearing.

I hope that has given you a little insight into Christmas here in England. Now, it's your turn. What does your country, state, area or town do that is special or unique to celebrate Christmas?

And don't forget, one of today's commenters has a chance to win a fab prize in the Banditas Twelve Days of Christmas!

Fantasy Christmas Booty

My goodness you all have dirty minds! And at Christmas, too! :-)

No, I'm not about to post pictures of Hugh Jackman's backside. I'm here to announce the winner of today's prize. And that winner is...

LAURIE!! Thanks for teaching us about the beautiful island of Santorini!

Please send Jeanne, the Christmas Bandita, your shipping info (including your name), and she'll get your prezzie out to you. jeanne@jeanneadams.com

And thanks to everyone for playing fantasy Christmas with me!

Twelve Days of Christmas to Date Winners!!!! Be sure to claim your prizes!! Contact Jeanne at jeanne@jeanneadams.com with your snail addy!

December 12 -- Leslie Gladnick

December 13 -- Virginia Horton

December 14 -- Keira Soleore

December 15 -- Crainlarich

December 16 -- Cherie2628

December 18 -- Gillian Layne

December 19 -- Treethyme

December 21 -- Laurie

MORE 12 Bandita Days Winners

SUPER CONGRATS to our winner on the 7 Swans a Swimming Day (Dec. 18th) and the post about the underground cities:

Gillian Layne

Please send your snail mail info to Santa's Bandita helper Le Duchesse Jeanne at jeanne@jeanneadams.com for your very special gift!


and congratulations to
TREETHYME - our winner for Dec. 19th and the post from guest blogger Dianne Castell.

Congratulations Becke! Please send your contact information to Jeanne as per the above.

Your Fantasy Christmas

by Kirsten Scott

I was reading a great Harlequin Desire the other day (The CEO's Christmas Proposition, by Merline Lovelace) and it was filled with fabulous descriptions of Christmas in Salzburg. You could see the homemade wooden toys, taste the buttery breads, and hear the children's choirs singing in the background of a wintery wonderland. (Here's a picture of Salzburg in the winter -- incredible, isn't it?)

Of course, if you're going to be stranded somewhere at Christmas time, it helps to be stranded with a gorgeous millionaire. But that's beside the point.

The point is, I am now adding "Spend Christmas in Salzburg" to my Bucket List. 


Not long after, I was at a holiday party and a friend of mine was complaining about her dysfunctional family and how Christmas brings nothing but angst and fighting. Some year, she vowed, she would be on a beach for Christmas, far away from everyone but her sweetie.

Hmm...Christmas in Oahu? I hadn't really considered it, but once she said it, the idea started to grow on me. Sure, I'd miss the kids and all, but putting that aside, wouldn't it be great to take that dreary, cold, wet time and spend it covered with suntan lotion, sipping a fruity beverage with my husband at my side?

Which leads me to the subject of today's blog: Your Fantasy Christmas.

Where would you go, if you could go anywhere in the world? I suspect most of us want to be exactly where we are, surrounded by family and friends, close to our church and all the people we love. But work with me here -- we're romance readers. No one does fantasy better than us. If you have to, you can imagine you've been stranded by cancelled flights or some other Act of God, and simply CAN'T get home (thereby absolving all Christmas-related guilt).


So what would it be, and who would you bring? A warm beach with your sweetie? A trip to Sweden's Ice Hotel with your best friend? How about New York City, with all the hustle and bustle, the ice skating in Central Park, and the giant Christmas tree?

Remember, we're still counting down the 12 Bandita Days of Christmas! One lucky commenter wins a prize! So let yourself go. Close your eyes and start fantasizing!

Christmas Movies

by Beth Andrews

No, I don't mean movies about Christmas (although I have my favorites - It's A Wonderful Life is at the top of that list *g*) today's post is about movies released on Christmas Day. Yet more reasons to love the holidays are all the wonderful movies released betweeen Thanksgiving and the end of the year, but what about the movies opening on Dec. 25? This year's releases include:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - a movie about a man who grows younger as he...well...ages. *g* Starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett

The Spirit - a superhero battles to protect a city

Bedtime Stories - family movie about a man whose bedtime tales come true in real life starring Adam Sandler and Keri Russel

Valkyrie - story about the failed assassination attempt on Hitler starring Tom Cruise

Marley and Me - movie about a couple dealing with their troublesome dog starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson

And there are already plenty of great movies playing in theaters including The Tale of Despereaux (this was one of my older daughter's very favorite books), Seven Pounds (I've seen the commercials for this Will Smith movie at least two dozen times but had no idea what it was about until I read a review of it), Yes Man, a Jim Carey comedy, Doubt and The Reader (for those who like more dramatic movies *g*)

I have to admit, I've never gone to the movies on Christmas Day or even Christmas Eve but it's obviously a coveted release date. In fact, some very popular movies were released on Christmas. Here are the top ten:

Ali


Catch Me If You Can

Alien VS Predator: Requiem

Dream Girls

Patch Adams

Cheaper By The Dozen

The Talented Mr. Ripley

The Godfather part III

Stepmom

Fat Albert

Now, out of these ten movies, I've only seen three (Patch Adams, Cheaper By The Dozen and Fat Albert) and I didn't see any of those three in the theater. Which makes me think I really need to get out more :-)

What about you? Have you ever gone to the movie theater on Christmas Day? Do you plan on going this year? If so, what are you going to see? Any movies currently playing that you're anxious to see? Have you seen any of the other movies released in previous years?

Today is one of the Banditas' 12 Days of Christmas so be sure to leave a comment to be eligible to win a prize. :-)

A Magical Christmas with Dianne Castell

hosted by Donna MacMeans

It's an honor to introduce you to a wonderful talented friend of mine, Dianne Castell. Not only is she a talented writer for Kensington's Brava and Harlequin, but she also has an innate ability to say the exact thing I need to hear at the exact time I need to hear it. It's amazing! Be sure to ask Dianne about the reader and writer event she hosts along with Lori Foster every June in Cincinnati, and the anthologies they'd done to give back to local charities. Speaking of generosity, Dianne is giving away THREE copies of STAR QUALITY. With that, I give you Dianne...

Hi, Everyone, and thanks to Romance Bandits for having me as a guest blogger, especially at this special time of year.

I believe in magic, I really do. Too many special things happen that I wonder, How did I get so lucky!

Christmas is that way. It’s magic all over the place. Things happen at Christmas that never happen any other time.

I think that’s why we watch the same movies every Christmas year after year. We want to relive that magic. My favorite Christmas movie is Love Actually. It’s jam packed full of magic. And of course It’s a Wonderful Life and Scrooge are so full of magic that we get ghosts to remind us just how terrific that magic of being alive and having family is in case we’ve forgotten.

And there are tons of songs about that magic of Christmas. Have you ever tried to roast chestnuts on an open fire. It’s a miracle they don’t burn to a crisp!
And there’s the magic of snowmen coming to town and Santa and reindeer and coming home for Christmas when you didn’t think it would happen.

Star Quality, my December release with Lori Foster and Lucy Monroe, is all about that magic. Even though it isn’t a Christmas book, it’s about that touch of something special that brings two people together and they fall in love. Star Quality happens under a blue moon, meaning the second full moon in a month. It casts a special spell over a little town in Ohio and three couples who had no chance of falling in love do.

I’ve had special magic moments in my life. Some at Christmas, some not, where all the stars are in perfect alignment and my life is perfect and bam something special happens and I can’t explain it. Pure magic. Some are more subtle like seeing my kids singing at midnight Mass, some more profound like my daughter finally finding the right guy and getting engaged on Christmas Eve, and I still remember all those years ago taking a winter walk with my new husband at night in the snow. It felt...magical. There simply is no other word for it.

So, what magical things have happened to you at Christmas? Sometimes just getting all the presents wrapped in time feels like magic.

Heck, for me it's just getting presents purchased in time - says she who hasn't bought anything for the dh yet. So tell us - what magical things have happened to you at Christmas?

Dianne will select three people from the posted comments to receive a copy of Star Quality - plus don't forget - one person will receive a special Christmas treat from the Romance Bandits as part of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Lots of goodies here!

May you have a Merry Magical Christmas!

Hugs,

Dianne Castell
DianneCastell.com

When Christianity Went Underground

posted by Aunty Cindy aka Loucinda McGary

Ten days ago, I wrapped up my two week tour of Turkey, a fascinating place brimming with history and culture. I can't recommend a visit there highly enough.

One of the places I looked forward to seeing most was the Cappadocia region. This area is a wide expanse between two now extinct volcanoes with highly unusual rock formations called "fairy chimneys." These were created by a hard layer of rock which did not erode at the same rate as the softer layer of rock (called tufa) underneath.

I knew that the inhabitants of this region carved caves out of the soft tufa stone and sometimes lived in them. What I didn't know until I got there, was that entire cities (the largest with an estimated population of 16,000) were carved underground! Some of the cities date back to prehistoric times, and some of them were inhabited up until the 1950s when the Turkish government decided they were historic treasures and great tourist attractions and moved everyone out.

The real heyday of these underground cities, and the part that fascinated me the most was from around the 2nd to the 5th centuries AD. Christians fleeing persecution from first the Romans, then the Arabs, moved into the region and expanded the underground cities into a network of over 100 different locations.

Cities went down 10 or more levels and were interconnected with an elaborate system of tunnels. Entrances were camouflaged into hillsides, and top levels were usually stables since the tunnels were too narrow to accommodate livestock. Though the inhabitants lived above ground most of the time, during times of attack or war, the cities could easily sustain themselves for months at a time and were pretty much impenetrable.

This big rock that looks like a millstone was rolled into place at the entrance to each level. The hole in the center was for shooting arrows at the enemy, who pretty much had to approach in single file due to the narrow tunnels. Since the cities were interconnected, runners would let a neighboring city know they were under attack and a counter attack could be launched. The early Christians were able to live and thrive here for several centuries.

We visited the underground city of Kaymakil, which had eight levels and an estimated population of 3,000. Four of the levels are now open for tourists, but yer olde Aunty (whose head almost scraped the ceilings in the largest rooms) only went down two. My DH (who could not stand straight except in the stable) went to all four, though he had to crawl on hands and knees through the connecting tunnels. Definitely no place for anyone with claustrophobia!

Today is day 7 of our Banditas' 12 Days of Christmas. In the traditional Christmas carol, this would be the day "my true love" sent 7 Swans a Swimming. Just like the underground cities of Cappadocia, this song was about more than meets the eye. It was written by Catholics during the time when they could not openly practice their religion in England, and the words had a double meaning. According to Aunty's sources, the 7 Swans a Swimming represent the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit -- prophecy, serving, teaching, exhortation, contribution, leadership, and mercy.

Have you ever been surprised by something that turned out to be more than it seemed? Do you think you could live 7 or 8 stories underground?

Did you know that the GR has a Turkish cousin living near the ruins of the city of Troy?

Let it Snow,

by Christie Kelley

Let it snow, let it snow.

What is it about Christmas that makes me snow crazy? About 10 days before Christmas, I start watching the forecast to see if there's any chance we'll have snow. (Yes, I checked yesterday and will today too.) Now in Maryland, we only have about a 25% chance of a white Christmas. But I still hope it will happen.

As I was doing laundry yesterday, I suddenly wondered why snow and Christmas? Where did this idea come from that we need snow to make it look like Christmas? I had to find out (otherwise known as procrastinating the deadline book). Being the internet geek that I am or as my husband calls me, the internet queen, I set forth to discover why Christmas and snow go together. Along the way, I found a fantastic website called whychristmas.com. If you have a question about Christmas, they probably have the answer.

According to whychristmas.com, people associate snow with Christmas because most of our holiday traditions come from Victorian England. During the early 1800 and into the start of Victorian times, we were still in the Little Ice Age. So it was common for England to have snow and even for the Thames to freeze. Then there are also the songs related to snow and even the Dicken’s book, A Christmas Carol. Now we all know why we associate Christmas with snow.

Growing up in upstate NY, we had some awesome snow on Christmas some years. When I was a teenager, we went to church on Christmas Eve. It had just started to snow as we walked inside. By the time we came out and hour later, 3 inches of snow was on the ground. It continued to snow all night and by morning we had about a foot. Since I had no place to go it was fantastic.

Even in Maryland, we sometimes get snow. About five years ago, we had just finished opening packages and realized something strange was going on. We looked outside and saw the biggest snowflakes I had ever seen. They looked to be about four inches in diameter. It was the prettiest snow.

What about you? I know some of our Southern Hemisphere readers don’t have a chance of snow but what about the rest of you? Does having snow make it feel more like Christmas? Any chance you’ll have snow on the 25th?

Tuesday's Twelve Days of Christmas Winner

And the winner of Tuesday's post about The Cake Bandits . . . drumroll please!!!!

Goes to . . .

Cheri2628.

Be sure to send your snail mail addy to our Christmas Coordinator, none other than Madame Snork at

jeanne@jeanneadams.com

Congratulations!!!

Another winner!

It's time for our busy little elf to draw out another name in our 12 Bandita Days of Christmas, so please give me a drum roll...the winner from among the comments to my small-town Christmas post on Monday is...

crianlarich

If you can drop Bandita elftess with the mostest, Jeanne, your shipping info including your name , she'll get your pressie out to you. jeanne@jeanneadams.com

And thanks to everyone for sharing your Christmas memories yesterday, whether they were from a small town or large city or anywhere in between.

The Cake Bandits

by Jo Robertson


Do you ever feel that the holiday season loses its sense of giving and love? Is it as hard for you to keep a loving spirit as it is for me? Rather like the cartoon below, do you feel you're being held hostage to the holidays?

My mother taught me an important message about the holiday season. Mom was a happy, optimistic woman who had the fortune or misfortune, depending on how you look at it, to marry a man who also was outgoing, gregarious, and very alpha.

All the years of my growing up, my mother took a back seat to my father. It wasn’t until he passed away that she blossomed. Now, don’t get me wrong. They were married fifty years and remained in love to the day Dad died.

But she didn’t become fully realized as a woman until she was on her own. I saw her, at the ripe age of seventy, become the president of her church’s women’s organization. Lest you think this is a small job, let me explain. She organized every single church dinner of the year; she visited the sick and poor, taking in meals, clothing, and whatever else she managed to scrounge up from the church members. She supervised dinners for family members every time someone died. She coordinated with her pastor to order food supplies and necessities for the indigent in their congregation.

Big, big job!

Added to that, she and her friend Ethylene, planted a garden every year that would rival any co-op’s. They had corn, tomatoes, all sorts of beans, lettuce, onions, carrots. They tilled the soil, planted, pulled weeds and harvested their crop every year, hundreds of Mason jars of veggies and hundreds of bags of frozen ones.

And then they gave it all away!

Amazing, isn’t it? What generosity of spirit, and what a good example to me! I wanted to pass on those same values to my children.

When my kids were small, I'd try every year to think of a new way they could learn to give instead of receive. And it wasn't easy! See the oldest five to the right. Do they look like they're in much of a giving mood?

One of the greatest lessons came from someone else and was a gift to us -- from The Cake Bandits. This unknown couple in our church delivered the most fabulously decorated cakes to various families in the congregation throughout the year. Every Sunday my children waited to see who'd get the next cake from The Cake Bandits.

Finally our turn came. See the picture of the railroad station cake at the left? It was delivered anonymously to our doorstep one morning right before Christmas. The note said, "Merry Christmas from The Cake Bandits." We never learned who these generous people were.

One Christmas our family chose an emotionally needy student, you know, the lonely kind who doesn't seem to have many friends. We bought several gifts and played "doorbell ditch." Except when we rang the doorbell and ran away, we left these beautifully wrapped gifts for the student. Of course, no one ever knew who'd left them, and my children speculated for weeks about how excited that student must've been to know he had a secret friend.

Another year each child chose a gift from among his or her wrapped presents under the tree and gave it away to a needy child in our neighborhood.

This one was hard because my children always considered themselves the needy children since we were a one-income family at the time and Daddy was a school teacher.

What about you?

Do you find it particularly challenging to help keep the spirit of giving within yourself during the season?

What special traditions do you or your family keep to make special memories?

Don't forget -- One commenter will receive the Bandita prize today as part of our Twelve Bandita Days of Christmas, so be sure to leave a comment!

Christmas in a small town

Though I now live in a city, I grew up in a small town in Kentucky surrounded by acres of farmland and forest. There was no skating at Rockefeller Center or hopping over to the movie theater on Christmas day. Why? Because there was no ice rink or movie theater in town. We did have a drive-in for awhile, and I remember it was $5 per carload in the summers and we'd see how many people we could stuff in a car. :) Even though the town was small (about 3,000 people in an up year) and wasn't exactly awash in economic prosperity, it did provide its own set of Christmas memories.

Like most towns in America, it had the annual Christmas parade down Main Street. It didn't have big floats like the Macy's parade, but it did have horses, the Shriners on little motor scooters, floats mainly made by clubs and teams at the high school, the Job Corps drill team, our small high school marching band in which my two best friends played, and Santa.

Here's Main Street, including one of the two stop lights in town -- in the entire county, for that matter.

Though in recent years, there has only been one of those plastic, light-up Nativity scenes on the courthouse lawn, I can still remember when there was a live Nativity there. Community members dressed as Mary, Joseph and the wise men would brave the December cold and stand in that open shed for hours. I think there might have even been live animals.

Here's the courthouse sans Nativities. You can, however, see the Christmas tree decoration on the utility pole at the left.

Back in those early childhood days, I can still remember my dad bringing his mom to town (she didn't drive) to do her Christmas shopping. At that time, there was a Western Auto store still on the square. I can still remember all the shiny bikes in the front window. In a town that didn't have a Wal-Mart or anything similar beyond a Dollar General Store, the Western Auto was the best place to buy toys, and buy them she did because my sister and I were her only grandkids. The Western Auto is gone now, gone the way of the live Nativity.

Christmas Day when I was young involved short trips to see the two grandmas. Lunch was always with my mom's parents, who lived in town. Mamaw and Papaw had 15 grandchildren, so we each got one small gift. But it was nice to be in that house stuffed to the rafters with cousins, aunts and uncles. Dinner was always with my dad's parents in the next county until they passed (Grandpa when I was 5 and Grandma when I was 10). Grandma always made way too much food, and we always took some home with us. The things I remember most were her homemade chicken and dumplings, slow-cooked green beans and yummy banana pudding. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Christmas night would round out with whatever Christmas movie was on one of the three channels we got via our antenna out in the country. It was usually one of the black-and-white classics.

So, were Christmases simpler when you were young? Do you have small-town Christmas memories?

Bandita Goodies

Santa's little elf picked Keira as Sunday's BB winner! YAY Keira and congratulations. And thank you everyone for hanging out with me all day and sharing your holiday crafty experiences. Now I'm super hungry for bonbons, really wishing I knew how to make scones and in deep envy of those Bandita Buddies who work at Michaels *sigh*.

Keira, if you can drop our darling Bandita elf, Jeanne, your shipping info, she'll get your pressie out to you. jeanne@jeanneadams.com

Kelly's Heroes!

Sorry I'm late with this. Mea culpa! I had visitors on the weekend and haven't got back to the Internet until now. Anyway, I have mega booty to announce.

First, the winners of Kelly Hunter's books (and I say winners advisedly) are:

Gillian!

Joan T the Bandita!

Lovely Kelly was so impressed with the Banditas and Buddies, she threw in an extra book! Isn't that wonderful?

Thank you to everyone who made it such an exciting day in the lair. Isn't Kelly a hoot? Seriously if you want a treat, grab her books! I know I'm plugging them hard but they're SOOOOO good, it's like sharing a box of chocolates with your friends. And we all know how good that is.

Joan and Gillian, please email Kelly on kelly@kellyhunter.net with your snail mail details and she'll get your book out to you!

And the winner of the first day of the 12 Bandita Days of Christmas is:

Leslie!

Leslie, please email our prize coordinator, aka Santa's helper, Jeanne on jeanne@jeanneadams.com and she'll get your special Bandita prize out to you! Please tell her that you're the winner for day one of the 12 Bandita Days.

Congratulations to all our winners and don't forget to come back to play with us in the leadup to Christmas!

Crafty Holidays

by Tawny

Tis the season to haul out the gluegun and glitter. Pom poms and paint. Construction paper chains and handcrafted snowflakes.

Ahhh, its holiday crafty time! I remember in gradeschool, this was the fun time of year. Lessons were shorter so we had more time to create. I'm a big fan of creativity, so I was always excited. I remember making gifts for my parents, cards and other fun things. Did you ever do the paper bag Santa's? Cottom ball beard and a fingerpainted face. Ahhh, the memories!

So, obviously I love to craft. I'm a huge scrapbooking fiend, and this time of year is my call to creativity. (Okay, I admit it, I hear the call all year round, but this is the time of year that I drag everyone off to listen to it with me). I nag my kids to come make decorations for the house with me. One of my favorites is a papercrafted Christmas Tree, with loops of paper and lots of pretty sparklies.

Another thing I love making are ornaments. Michaels sells clear glass ornaments that are wonderful to fill with glitter, or to paint, or to glue bits and pieces of pretties to. Last year, we discovered the fun of making ornaments out of CDs. We always buy CDs in bulk, so we took a half dozen and glued scrapbook paper to them, added glitter (do you see a theme here?) and ribbon to hang them from the tree. I loved it! My daughter made some for her 4H group, too, using wraping paper.


This year, we're making gifts, too. My husband cut a 4x4 into blocks for me to paint, and I've covered them with pictures and, yes, glitter. I also created calenders for all the grandparents this year using the kids pictures. One year I decorated candles, using pretty paper and ribbon... but they caught on fire (go figure) so this is my next candle-type project -something in jars that is less likely to shock the recipient with a possible bonfire.

I have to admit, as much as I love to make crafty things, I'm not so sure people like getting them. One year I helped my brother move and was hauling out all the stuff he'd stored in his garage. I found all the crafty type gifts I'd made him still in their giftboxes. He claims he loved me enough to keep them and that should count for something. So a lot of times, if I'm not sure the person will really like the gift, I resort to turning my creative impulses into the kitchen. Almond toffee, fudge, cookies. Oh, yeah!

So how about you? Are you a creative crafter who hauls out the glitter this time of year? Do you make your own gifts? Do you like receiving crafted gifts?

And don't forget! Today is one of the 12 DAYS OF BANDITA CHRISTMAS! Be sure to comment to be eligible for th edrawing to win a Bandits Prize!!