It's Christmas time!

This weekend we had a Christmas party that really helped me get in the Christmas spirit. I haven't put up any decorations yet. We have decided not to have a tree this year, because of the kittens. My tree skirt, with beautiful cross stitch, usually hangs down from the small table we usually put the tree on, and I can just picture kittens scaling it with their claws. I'm afraid if I saw them doing that, I would loose my cool, so for now, no tree.

So it was a real pleasure to enjoy time together with friends, good food, and singing Christmas carols. We were going to sing at a retirement home, but they were on lock down because of the flu, so we stayed away from there. We played a silly game that was quite a bit of fun.

We divided up into a red team and a green team and built balloon towers that were supposed to be free-standing. Here is the red team getting started:



And here is the green team:



Here's the result, and you can see why the red team won, the green team needed a helping hand to stay standing.



(DH was on the red team, I was on the green team.)

As we were visiting and moving from room to room in the house I started to notice beautiful hooked art, a pillow and a wall hanging in the den, a floral rug in the bathroom, a mat in the living room and this wall hanging. Our hosts were very proud of their daughter's art-work and gave me permission to share. She lives in Canada, and her name is Lou Ann Sybenga. She started out with purchased canvases, but now designs all her own work.



I think the work in this piece is amazing. The rug is beautiful, the stones in the fire-place look real, and the paisley chair is amazing. The name of the piece is "Marriage Mirage" and I will leave the interpretation to you.

I have always thought I would take up either basketry or weaving in my second life-time, but the more hooked rugs and wall hangings I see the more I like them. Maybe in my second life-time I will have to be a hooker.