Show & Tell Friday for December 12

For show and tell today, I want to show a few more of the vintage Christmas cards from my collection.

I love this one with the snowy outdoor tree and the carolers singing around it.

The flickering candle flames have such an old vintage look!

What a welcoming look this open door has as the viewer peeks into the lighted room beyond.

This patriotic red, white and blue card must surely have been produced in wartime.

This card with its red mailbox is not as old as some of the others -- probably from the early 1960s -- but it is a favorite of mine. It reminds me of my childhood and how much fun it always was to bring in the mail during the Christmas season.

This scene of the family dragging home the Christmas tree through a snowy village is such fun. I love the smoke curling from the village chimneys.

Lastly for today, here is a cheery card featuring a December calendar. How glad I am that its date is not correct!


To see what others have shared for Show & Tell this week, go visit visit There is No Place Like Home
and check out the links. It’s so much fun to see what others have to share!

A thought-provoking post

It isn't often that I recommend posts from another blog, mainly because I have so little time to actually read blogs. But this post, from my dear friend Patty at Beside Still Waters, is an important one to read. She talks about her dismay at breaking some special Christmas items that were important to her, and her realisation that they were only things, after all. Broken stuff is just stuff. Our real concern ought to be for the broken lives that are all around us, and their desperate need for the Savior who can make them whole. Read Patty's post, and take it to heart in this Christmas season.

Some Christmasy preparations

It's been a busy and tiring day, but I did manage to get some Christmas preparations done. At long last, I nearly completed an actual list of what we'll likely be giving our loved ones. I also made a list of the baking and candy making I still want to do, and baked a batch of gingersnaps (tops dipped in red or green sugar) which I can now cross off the list. I made 8 packages of mulling spices for cider, always a favorite item in our gift baskets or for neighbor gifts. Last night I started a small crocheted stocking for one of the grandbabies. I've started to make some embroidered mini flour sack towels for grandkids who help their mom with dishes, and I recently found in my stash half a blue & white checked dish towel (I had used the other half for a wall hanging at some time, I think) which I cut in half to make 2 more mini dish towels to go along with the embroidered ones. I just need to hem the cut edges on the checked ones to have those complete. Hope to get a little more done on the stocking tonight, and maybe make an ornament or two as well.

A poem to encourage you

This poem was printed on the back of our church bulletin last January. I saved it, and lately the words have spoken to me so strongly that I thought it needed to be shared with others as well. So here it is:

A HYMN OF TRUST

In quietness and confidence
My strength shall ever be!
No weariness shall overcome
The soul that's stayed on Thee.
Though trials sore and hardships come
My strength He shall renew;
His presence shall envelop me --
No ill shall e'er pass through.

My case into His hands I've given,
He knoweth all my need;
And He who notes the sparrow's fall
Shall still provide and lead.
Though sudden sorrow pierce my heart,
Though storm-clouds rise and thunders roll,
In quietness and confidence
Shall be my strength of soul.

Though friends may fail, the world be dark,
I know for me He cares,
And as a Father pitieth
In all my grief He shares.
And so, whatever may betide,
Or whether weal or woe,
In quietness and confidence
Shall be the strength I know.

~ Nettie M. Sarge

And one of the promises the poet alludes to is from Isaiah 30:15 -- "in quietness and confidence shall be your strength". These words were actually written to God's people, Israel, who so often rebelled against His care for them -- the verse goes on to say, "and ye would not". But God still does give strength in quietness and confidence to all of those who will truly walk with Him, no matter how difficult their circumstances may be. This is what the poet is trying to convey here.

I hope this poem encourages someone else today as it has encouraged me!

Menu Plan Monday for December 8

A bright, sunny but very cold day here in northern New England. It was 2 degrees below zero when I got up this morning at five! Here's my menu plan:

MONDAY: Macaroni & Cheese, Asparagus, Coleslaw

TUESDAY: Spinach Calzones, 3-Bean Salad

WEDNESDAY: Veggie Bean Soup, Multigrain Biscuits

THURSDAY: Three-Cheese Spinach Roll-ups, Italian Mixed Vegetables

FRIDAY: Red Beans & Rice, Apple Salad

SATURDAY: Hot Dogs, Baked Beans, Coleslaw

SUNDAY: (Our church is now going to a weekly -- rather than monthly -- potluck with an afternoon service to follow, to save heating the building twice on Sunday through the winter months, so my Sunday meal each week now through February will be for the potluck.) Vegetable Lasagna, Ranch French Bread, Dessert (yet to be determined, but yesterday I brought a Cream Puff Dessert that was such an overwhelming success, I may just do it again!)

If you would like to see menus which others have shared, head over to I'm an Organizing Junkie and check out the links. Usually close to 300 people -- sometimes more! -- share links to their weekly menus. You'll find some great ideas and often recipes too.

A new adventure...

Yes, as some of you more observant readers may have noticed, I'm embarking on a new adventure here at my kitchen table. My daughter Carrie got me started as an Amazon associate, and so if you do any shopping there and go through my link, I will benefit a bit from that. It's just an interesting thing to do and maybe help out our finances a little bit at the same time.

And then there's my A-Store, which I have wanted to have for a long time but haven't had the time to get started. I have been having too much fun adding products to the various categories. You might be especially interested, this time of year, in checking out my Christmas Shop. I must warn you though that the store is still very much under construction. I have had very little time to work on it this week and I still don't have all of the products sorted out the way I want them in the different categories. I also hope to add personal descriptions to many of the product listings. In the Christmas shop right now I have many books that have been such fun for my family over the years. So do some window shopping, if you've a mind to.

I'm looking forward to this new adventure!

Let the baking begin!

It's official -- the first batch of Christmas cookies for 2008 has just gone into the oven. It's a new recipe (for me, although it's from a 2003 Taste of Home magazine), one I've wanted to try for some time because it looked simple and as if it would be delicious, too. The recipe is Cranberry Coconut Bars and it looks like the basic formulation for traditional seven-layer bars -- the type with graham cracker crumbs, chocolate chips, coconut, sweetened condensed milk, etc. But this recipe has been majorly tweaked and uses white chips, dried cranberries, and pecans as some of the ingredients. They certainly were simple to put together -- so simple that maybe I'll tackle a more involved recipe this afternoon!