Thursday, December 04, 2008


It's beginning to look a lot like......Christmas!

Just popping in here to say hello. I am up to my eyeballs in projects due and catching up from roaming around last week. In addition, I am going to spend the day today away participating in "Merry Madness."

What is that you say?

A close friend of mine and I were taking college classes many moons ago when our kids were still in school. We both worked part-time, had houses to run, created stuff, and were also editors of a poetry annual. We had very little time to shop for the holidays and neither one of us were keen on gift shopping.

So, she named it: merry madness. We would attempt to do ALL the shopping in one day. We would shop the entire day and into the evening, armed with long lists. We almost always found every gift on the lists. We ended the evening by having dinner in a "grown up" restaurant reviewing the day.

Nowadays we have less people to shop for. Our lives have changed dramatically in the past twenty years or so. Shopping is not so challenging anymore. The stores we loved have gone out of business and chain stores have replaced the independent businesses we always tried to frequent.

We still go , though, and sometimes find ourselves in galleries and museums instead of stores and we eat lunch instead of dinner. We are prone to giving gift cards or money . I still make a portion of my gifts as I always did, but I often buy books or music, too. We still give each other amazing gifts that we often find when we are doing merry madness and exchange the gifts right on the spot--saving wrapping!

The cloth Santa dolls above I made a few years ago. I made a few for gifts, sold a few and taught a class on how to make them. I kept the red Santa for myself and he is nearby. I was inspired by an antique Santa with an embroidered face.

Well, enjoy your day! And if you indulge in Merry Madness, I hope you have fun!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Shoppin' is a it less mad for us these days also. Hope you are enjoying yourself!!! Love your Sants!!!
Hugs.
Jackie

Unknown said...

Oh My, new finger nails and a new keyboard do not mix. a bit less mad, and Loe your Santas...