Gone To The Beach

Friday, December 12, 2025

Christmas is Coming!

Hi! It's mid-December, oh how time flies these days. And here I am awaiting Santa, the house all decked in its own small way.

The tree is decorated, the quilts are out, aired and admired once again.

I got a new little tree this year. It does not have integrated lights, so was very inexpensive. I love it! I've wanted a white tree for years, got a bargain with this cutie.

These are repro Shiny Brite ornaments I got at Home Goods. So adorable, wish I d bought more sets. Be sure to save the boxes, old or new.

My Noah's Ark is out with about 1/3 of the animals displayed.

A quick walk thru. Mo and I expect a few guests over the holiday weeks, but I mostly decorate for myself--and for you! I hope you enjoy a peek around.

Tiny treasures hidden in the stacked Shaker and pantry boxes.

The quilts are the first Christmas decor to emerge, I love seeing them. Some are aired, then used on beds and sofas.

Others are refolded and stacked.

And then there's all the Christmas minis I have made over the past years.

Mo is interested but perplexed. Though that may just be his resting Pug face?

He LOVES his Trader Joe's Advent calendar. But I fear he is learning bad habits, what will he expect come January?!

Presents are wrapped, hidden or mailed. I finished the skating outfit for my little friend's soon to be supplanted by bigger/ better Dolly. So fun to design and make doll clothes.

Wine is chosen, menu is planned. Cookies will be baked next week, always the last thing I do. My mom used to make many cookies, all thru December. One year, I was very small, but a willing helper--she was in a frenzy baking for a party or cooky swap, but my dad ate the cookies as fast as she baked and decorated. Now remember these were young parents, maybe early thirties, and though later bickering became an art form, back then they rarely argued. I was the big eyed spectator to this tiff, unforgettable. [Kids see all, recall all.]

So as Daddy's hand reached for yet another cookie [Pfeffernüsse? eew], my mom lost her temper---burst into tears, grabbed the tray of cookies and dumped it on the kitchen floor at my dad's feet. Screeched, "I will NEVER bake another cooky. Ever." And she did not. She followed up unbeknownst to us, by selling all our cooky cutters to an antiques/ vintage dealer friend! And years later when I came home from college, my dad and I went to make the cookies---not a cookie cutter was to be found. Mom was unrepentant. "I told you so fifteen years ago..

My dad went to his workshop and created the white star cutter in the pics below [left]. Was it made from aluminum siding or a gutter? I treasure it. The colored handled ones remind me of the vintage cutters my mom gave away.

After the cooky fiasco, my mom---undaunted--- instead embraced the creation of a traditional European Christmas bread, stollen , recipe from her own mom. Normally a wonderful educated gourmet cook and baker, her stollen was truly terrible, worse than her famously bad meatloaf. We'd use it up by making french toast or bread pudding on New Years Day morning. (Stollen is a braided yeast bread with nasty candied fruit similar to Panettone, but a flat braid.)

Pfeffernusse recipe: HERE "FEH-fer-noose"

Stollen recipe: HERE

Holiday memories, family stories, do you have one to share?

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

beach pics/ Wednesday: a clear storm, as we call them here. High winds from the south over the ocean. 50+ mph gusts. Huge waves. I had to wash my salt encrusted windows today.

And rainbows from my chandelier prism suncatchers greet me now each morning.

Happy Holidays!

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Cold

Hi everyone!

I've been unable to post here on my blog since before Thanksgiving! Phone, computer, photo upload, Cloud sync issues. I think it is fixed now, but it even took my friend two days to make it all work again. I did fix my printer myself, as quite proud...but the Cloud etc! I read and read to fix-it posts, but nope. Just words, no comprehension. So now, hopefully back to usual format, tho pics may be meagre.

.....

Earlier this week was the Cold Night Full Moon, a supermoon. It glowed huge and white in the bright inky blue sky, accompanied by Jupiter and brilliant stars Sirius and Aldebaran. The light was so bright there were clear moon-shadows on the deck and I could clearly see the dune grasses, the waves, the details of the ships 10 miles away. Even the outline of the New Jersey coast to the southwest, and the shapes of the lighted buoys that mark the shallows here.

The Cold Night lived up to its name though. Gale winds rose in the night and temps ''plummeted'', weather guy's fave word, to 19* with a 12* windchill.

I woke up 2 AM to a very cold bedroom and no power. Taken aback because the windows looked almost like daylight, but my wonky phone said 2.07. A confused, sleepy Mo was asking to go out. The moonlit beach and super-visible night sky were stunning with all human light pollution gone. This is what ancient people must have once seen. The starry sky---moon, Jupiter, Orion, Gemini, Pleiades and their stars, the Milky Way. I wore my fleece over my nightgown and Crocs, stood out on the deck and marveled. Yes, cold and scary but also a joy. Unforgettable. A different world, filled with sparkling blue air and moonshine.

A moment out of time, timeless......

If it was summer I'd have dressed and gone out to the beach.

I've been working on my 2025 Christmas little quilt. It is rather last minute, not what I planned.

Based on the TQC October 22 quilt that was so fun to make,

plus a baggie of their Christmas "$6.oo Shop Scraps" and some Two Thimbles Christmas pretties.

I saved this rough hemp faux feedsack for years. Just barely fits.

Now I have set it aside to do my tree and prep cooky doughs. My brother sent pics of his beautiful house looking like a chic fairyland--the outside all illuminated in the snow, the interior filled with darling tiny trees and their big tree of course. Each tiny tree has a different kind of antique or vintage ornament collection.

All the Christmas quilts are out, anyway. Priorities! Ready for display or airing.

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Mo had a spa day to greet the holiday month. New groomer, so wonderful. Here he is doing his ET in the Bath impression.

And showing off his last year's sweaters.

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My little friend [age 5! Homework! Crazy.] came by to do a homework assignment art project w my help. [I didn't butt in, it was meant to be a child/adult project.] I supplied a tray of buttons and trims and wielded the glue gun . Fun! I showed her Silent Night, the Star quilt, but she and her dad gave it a a brief glance and a fast NO! I was sad, but not surprised. I'll finish it anyway, just have to do the Snow Babies. [January proj] It looked pretty great on my bed for the show and tell/ no takers thot.

Off to try again to find my Tree decorations. This is fresh ilex, leafless holly. Trader Joe's. They also had peonies, if you want some. [ilex is poisonous to pets! I have it high and inaccessible. Mo wouldn't eat it but just in case. I had forgotten why I don't usually buy the holly I love so much.]