Take a left at the giant candy cane

We used to go to a long-gone, local amusement park called Santa's Village. This old photo tricked me into thinking it was a winter pic, but really it was my sister's birthday in April, 1976. We Californians have this winter business all mixed up.

If you look on the ground you can see my mom's purse — we used it as a chair when there weren't any toadstools to sit on.

Now I use the purse to hold embroidery floss. Alicia Paulson has me jumping through ye olde embroidery hoop as I try to get my handmade presents done asap. Check out Alicia's set of felt ornament patterns here.

This ornament is going to my sister because she just went ice skating for the first time in a long time, probably since 1976. This is where she went. I told you we have this winter business all wacky.

The Cobweb Christmas

There have been a lot of book recommendations going around these days — always a nice thing, to my way of thinking.

Lori over at Camp Creek has a bunch of great lists, including: holiday favorites, read-alouds, and books for 8-to-11-year-old set. Amanda has her Winter reading list up, too. This got me thinking about The Cobweb Christmas — a favorite of our family. It's the story behind the tradition of putting tinsel on trees.

This spiderweb ornament that I made was inspired by the story, as well as the wonderful MSL beaded snowflakes. I put it together many years ago while recovering from surgery. It was definitely a pre-kiddeos endeavor — I can't imagine having little trays of beads and wire cutters lying around right now.

I didn't find a link to the version of the book that we have, but here's a picture.