For safekeeping

My three wise men Epiphany has come and gone and now the Christmas season is over for us. We spent the day taking down our Christmas decorations and reading some of our favorite Epiphany books such as Baboushka and the Three Kings, The Story of the Three Wise Kings and Strega Nona's gift. I always get sad after we have taken down all our Christmas things. Our house looks so empty, almost as if we just moved in, or are preparing to move out - something we do much too often. As I type this the last Christmas box is sitting here next to me, waiting for me to close it up and safely tuck it away until the next Christmas season. I just can't bring myself to do it yet.
We blessed our home with the Epiphany Chalk Blessing. I did it with yellow chalk so it's hard to see in the picture but it says 20+C+M+B+15, which means:
The Three Wise Men •C Caspar •M Melchior •B & Balthasaar, followed the star of God’s Son who became Man •20 Two-thousand •15 and fifteen years ago •+ May Christ •+ Bless our home •+ and remain with us •+ through the new year. The girls needlefelted a gift for father Victor and gave it to him after Mass. He had never seen needlefelting before so he was very curious about how they made them. I made three bean chili, using the very same recipe my Mom always made for me after I became a vegetarian in my preteen years, and some cornbread (my own version of the King cake). I placed one uncooked bean in the cornbread and whoever found it received a crown. C was the lucky one this year.

I haven't had the chance to post some of the Christmas handmades and now seemed like as good of a time as any so here we go: K made a phone for Little L's close friend, just like the one she made for Little L last year. Now they are matchy-matchy. C's needlefelted a snake for her dear friend. C loves to needlefelt, can you tell?! She made this for Little L. It's Nara, his "most specialist dog in the whole wide world" I sewed a Saint Lucia dress for a doll C already had. I found a Lucia crown on Etsy (I believe) to complete the look, although I think a needlefelted one would have been sweeter. L baby received some new pants (construction!) with an orange sweater to match. I made the sweater pattern up as I went. I wish I kept better notes on ravelry, but the little bit that I do have can be found here.

I am hoping to do some posts next week on a couple of major changes my family and I have been making involving our budget, healthy, organic eating while staying within our means (not so easy to do!) and making more of our everyday necessities instead of buying them We started these changes in December but I wanted to wait to post about them after the Christmas season was over. I can't wait to share!

For safekeeping