Count the Blessings that are Real.

"If I cannot bring You comfort,
Then at least I bring you Hope.
For nothing is more precious
than the time we have, and so
We all must learn from small misfortune.
Count the blessings that are real.
Let the Bells ring out for Christmas
at the closing of the Year!"

-Hans Zimmer, "At the Closing of the Year"

That quotation has been running through my head the past couple weeks.  I think it's because my family is going through a period of change, and all of the discomfort, confusion, and opportunities that come with it.  We don't have much comfort this Holiday season, but a great, great deal of hope.

This is a strange Christmas in my family.
We are at once more, and less than we have always been.

We have 3 new spouses, 2 new neices, and a couple more little ones on the way.  Our year has been such a year of abundance.
However, all this abundance has caused certain deficits.  Less time for doing homemade stuff, less flexibility in schedules, leading to fewer scheduled family events.  Less energy leading to less baking, less decorating, or any of the other finishing touches that make Christmas feel that much more...Christmas-y.

However, some traditions remain constant.

We always decorate our parents house on the 24th.  This is because, as my parents explained to me when I was very young, before the 24th, it's not Christmas; it's Advent.
This lead to such a pleasant sense of expectation throughout the month of December, and to marvelous memories of Christmas Eve.  Each year, we cheerily cover every available surface with decorations of every kind, ranging from beautiful victorian angels collected by my Grandmother, to the cheesy, paper things we made while still in pre-school.

So tomorrow, despite all the changes, we will be decking our halls, and preparing the way for the Christ-child in a blaze of light and joy.

In preparation, my sisters and I went to the Christmas tree farm to pick up some swags and a wreath for our parents door.  It was lovely, and they were so very silly, so I felt the need to share.

Teach me to love.

I'm preparing a christmas package for my brother, who currently lives in China with his Korean wife and daughter.  It should, if all goes reasonably well, be mailed out today.

There's so much love being shoved into that box, along with the various gifts. There's love layered in the pages of the children's books, and nestled in the folds of the wrapping paper, laid to rest beneath the bows.

Some of that lovingness is made up of handmade gifts. Handmade caramels.  Cards hand drawn by my other neice, handmade earrings, and the most beautiful tiny hand-knit sweater and socks for the new baby they're expecting.  My sister B made the sweater, and pictures of it are probably up on her blog, or will be shortly.  I also decided to give my brother a folio I made, to store precious images and/or documents.

It was a cozy, warm process, making what I did, and then packing up my carefully wrought gifts with those of my family.

Inside the folio, I nestled the program from my sister's November wedding, and a print this:

I miss my brother, and his family quite a bit.  It's too much love to keep to myself, so I must export it, and hope they receive it in good condition, all intentions properly interpreted, unmarred by the distance it must travel.

A gift for you.

In the spirit of the season, I made a printable to share with you.

In a fit of post-wedding-I-can-now-do-whatever-I-want-with-my-spare-time madness, I staid up until 3 am the other night, scanning in the fronts and backs of Victorian, Edwardian, and 1920s era postcards my mother has collected over the years.

Then I realized that I actually have no spare time to do whatever I want with, because Christmas is right around the corner, and most of my Christmas presents this year have to be shipped, which means I can't exactly spend an all-nighter the 24th, getting them done. Well, I could, but then they'd get them for next Christmas instead of this one.
(Which is exactly what's going to happen with some handmade aprons I promised my gal-pals last year. Sorry ladies.)

So, I've had these lovely Victorian images, and decided to turn the only Christmas related one into a free, printable Christmas card for you peoples.

My printer was behaving, for lack of a more technical term, wonky, so it may print a bit more vibrantly for you.  It kind of glows in an old-timey sort of way.
to download the printing proofs, follow this link.

The fonts I used are Maxinitiale and Heart Sweet Heart.

I also just love this postcard, not for the image, though the holly is lovely, but for the mushy things that the sender scrawled all over every available bit of the front.
Here's the original:

In case you're finding it hard to read, it says:
"With best wishes"
"Doz oo love me yes?"
"Oh, you kid!"
"How about this? xxxxx xxxxx"
"From you little Honeysuckle Tessie"

I don't know who this Tessie is, but she sure wasn't afraid to let the whole world (and the post-man) know about the depth of her affection.
She sounds perfectly lovely and enthusiastic.  Plus, she has lovely penmanship.