allspice berries fresh picked from a friend's tree
This is the star for the top of our Christmas tree. I made it the year Gary and I were married - fashioned out of cardboard, painted gold and lined with handmade paper beads, rolled from glossy magazines. It was getting flimsy so this year I added more to it and strengthened it with layers of clear glue. It is now two sided -- handmade paper beads on one side, tiny glass beads on the other. The "stem" is collaged. We all love how it turned out.
Christmas morning. Hard to read but Sky made me a "Home Sweet Home" sign in ceramics.
This year's Christmas consisted of unwrapping gifts, playing with gifts, and a cookfest. The hit was a new recipe for squash soup with a "magic" mineral broth made by slowly cooking whole washed veggies and herbs with skins, leaves, and all, in a large pot of water. Christmas evening we hosted two families for dinner. We had a wonderful time enjoying everyone's cooking, then the kids all played while the grownups talked. After desert we gathered around the piano to sing Christmas carols, some in two and three part harmony, which of course, reminded us all of why we were celebrating in the first place. "O come let us adore Him..." 
