Monday, December 27, 2010

Guess who's coming for Christmas?

Poor MOTH (man-o-the-house). I had bugged him for two (maybe 3?) weeks to bring down my grandmother's nativity set. Then one morning, his usual day off, he had to go in to work at 6:00 a.m. I got up and saw he'd taken time to crawl up in the cold attic and bring down the box.

christmas vintage I began to set up the familiar characters -- Jesu, Isa, Jesus, his parents, the barnyard animals -- atop our lawyer's cabinet. I decided to leave the Japanese lamp, with the woman who looks like a Persian angel riding an elephant, behind the scene, to add lighting at night.

nativity sceneWell, that's when one thing led to another. I pulled out a couple of whirling dervishes from the case below, then out came the Navajo doll weaving a blanket, to add a bit of local homage to the sweet baby Jesus. Of course, the magical cat and rabbit ornaments that I usually put on the tree seemed the perfect scale, and, well, once I got started I couldn't seem to stop.

vintage nativity set
Having no shortage of global odds and ends laying around within arm's reach, our usual set expanded to include Hopi kachina doll, a coyote storyteller, an angel amputee I can't bear to throw away, a gargoyle, a big witch doll my kid made in elementary school (actually he says his teacher made most of it, which is a big no-no in the art ed world but we love it just the same), a boy doll we call "Joey's Inner Child," and a little red buddha who's hiding somewhere south of the gargoyle.

I thought for sure the MOTH would be horrified, but he loved it. I do think it's fitting, and there's something about this arrangement that frankly reminds me of Christmas Eve at my house...

Saturday, December 18, 2010

My blog is't de-ad it's only sleeping

That's a paraphrase of an old mountain song you've probably never heard of and since it's kind of morbid I won't go any further...

So how's about this one instead? Paraphrased from the country classic, Hello Walls:

Hello blog... how things go for you today?
Don't you miss her since she up and walked away?
And I'll bet you dread to spend another lonely night with me
But, lonely blog, I'll keep you company
Hello blog, well I see that you're still here
Aren't you lonely since our author disappeared?
Well look here -- is that a teardrop in the corner of your screen?
Now don't you try to tell me that it's rain...
She went away and left us all alone the way she planned
Yes we'll have to learn to get along without her if we can
Hello blog, I'm gonna stare at you a while
You know I can't sleep so won't you bear with me awhile
We must all stick together or else I'll lose my mind
I've got a feeling she'll be gone a long long time...



Nope! I'm baaaack. School's out for a bit and I got a big chunk o' work done this Fall, so I'm ready to party in blogland. Time to dig out my pictures and notes and book reviews I've been saving since September!
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