Here’s another sweet vintage card from the 50’s for your enjoyment.
The inside of the card with some fun dot to dots for little ones to enjoy.
I’m leaving the country today, traveling to Canada for the annual Mennonite Girls Can Cook Christmas dinner. Hope to share some of the fun with you later. Lots of happenings at this old house this week if we can stay on top of coughs and colds…ugh.
Oh, Come, Little Children
Oh, come, little children, oh, come, one and all,
To Bethlehem’s stable, in Bethlehem’s stall.
And see with rejoicing this glorious sight,
Our Father in heaven has sent us this night.
Oh, see in the manger, in hallowèd light
A star throws its beam on this holiest sight.
In clean swaddling clothes lies the heavenly Child,
More lovely than angels, this Baby so mild.
Oh, there lies the Christ Child, on hay and on straw;
The shepherds are kneeling before Him with awe.
And Mary and Joseph smile on Him with love,
While angels are singing sweet songs from above.
Words: Christoph von Schmid, 1794
A friend of ours faxed me the music and words for O Come Little Children in the Russian language. I learned this song by heart in Russian and it’s been fun to sing it this week. We have started the Advent Season and I’ll be posting Christmas Music for the rest of the month. Some of the words in Russian translate different than the English version.
Been having fun scanning these old Christmas cards from the fifties that are from Dear’s early days. Look at the inside…
I’m glad Verna kept the card intact. If you can print it off and copy it for your little ones to enjoy feel free.
I’ll be cutting down on the memes I enjoy because it’s been hard to get around and visit participants this time of year. I’ll keep visiting my regulars that pop up in my Feedly. All the Christmas boxes/bins are down from the attic and all I need now is the Christmas decorating bug to motivate me. We will continue our tradition of the Mystery Tree and hopefully buy it next Wednesday so I can decorate it before our Small Group Christmas party on Thursday. Hope all is well in your corner…
Oh, the wonder of it all…
To remind me to pray for the people of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge I’m re-posting about one of the days from Katie and my road trip from Seattle to Jacksonville, North Carolina in May of 2014. We were driving her and a lot of her stuff back to Camp Le Jeune in anticipation of Andrew’s return from Afghanistan.
Praying for this area of our country that is burning. Praying for rain and containment. Also praying for the people who have lost everything. Not forgetting to pray, too, for the Firefighters and First Responders.
From May of 2014…
We left Hendersonville, Tennessee after a stop at Starbucks and filling up our gas tank at a Kroeger Grocery store Station. Kroeger in Washington is either our Fred Meyer stores or our QFC stores.
Right about here on the road our clocks turned forward an hour and we were now in the Eastern Time Zone!
We really weren’t prepared for our drive through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge and the strange sights we would see.
This was promising but then we drove into the bizarre world of Pigeon Forge.
What!?
The Hatfields and the McCoys!
The Titanic?
We weren’t able to make it to Rushmore and this did not make up for it!
A Bavarian Denny’s? This town had an amazing amount of dinner theaters of different genres to experience. There were some great looking miniature golf properties but so many other tacky unusual properties.
We did not divert our path further to go to Dollywood.
Now this was more like it. This was the scenery we were expecting on our Smoky Mountain Detour.
This was in the town of Gatlinburg. This town had a lot of candy shops, donut shops, fudge shops, taffy shops and Whiskey shops.
Ripley’s Aquarium was also located here. I’m scared to think of what kind of creatures you would see in there.
We bought a sandwich here and headed out to our destination on this day which was Asheville, North Carolina.
We laughed real hard when we crossed this river 8 times during our detour!
We made it to Asheville at 5:30, checked into our hotel and then got ready for our dinner reservation at the Omni Grove Hotel on their Sunset Terrace. That experience will be a future post!
We are so happy to be here in Asheville for a two day stretch. We spent most of the day at the Biltmore Estate properties today and walked our feet off. We are chilling in our hotel room tonight having a picnic in our room instead of heading out to eat. The weather was beautiful today. Tomorrow we drive our final miles on this road trip across the U.S.A.
Thanks to all of you bloggy friends for following along with us on this journey across the U.S.A.
Now back to 2016 I’ll be linking this post to signs, signs with Lesley.
This empty space in our basement was not very usable and Dear had a plan to transform it from ugly to nice.
Dear set his plan into motion. After taking measurements he built the sides and back and shelves to fit.
After seeing if the pieces would actually fit he primed the wood and then painted the side and back pieces and stained the shelves. He set the pieces in using his fancy nail gun.
When the stain was totally dry he slid them in and they fit perfectly and firmly.
His work was level but the existing walls weren’t so he added trim to cover up the crooked space.
He primed the trim and installed it. He then gave the trim it’s final coat of paint.
All finished and ready to load up the shelves.
These shelves are sturdy and can hold lots of weight. Now I have a very useful, usable space.
U is for Usable, Useful space. From Ugly to Nice.
Linking up to ABC Wednesday started by Mrs. Nesbitt and continued by Roger and the ABC Team!
Maybe in the future I’ll show you what I decided to fill these shelves with.
I’ll leave you with one of my first Christmas items that is now on the wall and let you find the 2 words starting with U!
Twenty Six more days and if you read this tomorrow it is Twenty Five days till Christmas!!
On Saturday while the guys held the fort and watched over the turkey on the Traeger grill my girls and I took a quick shopping trip to World Market and then to Molbak’s. Molbak’s is a local garden and gift shop that has an amazing array of poinsettias this time of year.
Katie chose a small variegated variety to take home.
There were many displays of Christmas trees decorated in different themes.
There is always a huge poinsettia tree for photo ops. Our girls…Laura, Jamie and Katie.
After we got home from shopping the kids had time to play a board game together before the rest of our dinner guests arrived for our 2nd Thanksgiving meal.
We took the ottomans out of the family room to add a round table for the older ones of us to sit. The younger ones sat at the dining area table.
The turkey on the Traeger grill was a hit. It was moist with a subtle smoky flavor. We had the regular sides our family enjoys, mashed potatoes, stuffing dressing (we usually have stuffing but since the turkey went on the grill we stuck with dressing), candied sweet potatoes and Sarly brought a delicious spinach salad. My sister Lana brought an appetizer tray. Our DIL Jamie made a pie with her delicious home canned apple pie filling.
Raelynd, Sarly, Jamie, Laura and Katie. There’s a 6th little girl who is not visable in this photo, yet.
Rayna (Dan & Jamie’s dog) Katie and Andrew.
Our dear friends Jamie, Sarly, Raelynd and David Daniel. Many of you have been praying for our little warrior, David Daniel. He is now 16 months old and getting stronger every day. Please keep praying for his development. We enjoyed watching him crawl and pull himself up. We enjoyed a group game of hangman with Raelynd, ending with a rip roaring Sunday School song “I’ve got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart!”
We tried a huge group selfie with all our guests for the evening. Friends and Family all together.
This morning Dan, Jamie (with our developing granddaughter), and their dog Rayna packed up to head back over the mountains and onward to the far eastern part of our state.
We are now laying low after emptying the dishwasher and putting away the extra chairs and tables. We also put away all the Thanksgiving decor. Dear vacuumed for me and I’m grateful for that. This week I’ll start thinking about bringing all the Christmas boxes down to make this old house look a lot like Christmas…
Linking to Mosaic Monday with Maggie at Normandy Life.
O Son of God, we wait for Thee,
In love for Thine appearing;
We know Thou sittest on the throne,
And we Thy name are bearing,
Who trusts in Thee, may joyful be,
And see Thee, Lord, descending,
To bring us bliss unending.
We wait for Thee ’mid toil and pain,
In weariness and sighing;
But glad that Thou our guilt hast borne,
And canceled it by dying;
Hence cheerfully may we with Thee
Take up our cross and bear it,
Till we relief inherit.
We wait for Thee; here Thou hast won
Our hearts to hope and duty;
But while our spirits feel Thee near,
Our eyes would see Thy beauty;
We fain would be at rest with Thee
In peace and joy supernal,
In glorious life eternal.
We wait for Thee; sure Thou wilt come;
The time is swiftly nearing;
In this we also now rejoice,
And long for Thine appearing.
Oh, bliss ’twill be when Thee we see,
Homeward Thy people bringing,
With transport and with singing!
Words: Philipp F. Hiller, (1699-1799)
…where to hang my new sign.
But before I move on to decorating for Christmas we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving again today with turkey, stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and some pie.
This time we’ll have the meal and our loved ones under our roof. This old house will be full to the brim. There will be 16 of us. I hope to remember to take some photos, too.
Do any of you still have one of these vintage nut bowls? This was Dear’s mothers.
We had a full day with our kids yesterday. Dear made Swedish pancakes for brunch and we celebrated Laura’s birthday early. The guys went to see a movie while the girls watched the new Anne of Green Gables on PBS. When the guys got home we enjoyed chili and some episodes of The Crown. My dishwasher is getting a good workout.
We also have a four legged visitor, Rayna, right now and she gets very excited to see anyone coming to the door. Her tail is wagging as she see’s Dear coming in from gathering some rosemary for the turkey. We’ve enjoyed some walks during breaks in the rainfall. Animals are not the norm at this old house but Rayna behaves herself and is a mostly silent visitor. The swish of her tail hitting furniture and the click of her paws are the only noises she makes.
Happy Saturday to you all.
I’m typing this before the sun rises. Hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a good day. We had a wonderful celebration with old friends. The oldest being 90 and the youngest just one year. We are moving on to thoughts of December and all there is to celebrate. This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. Do you do anything special on Advent Sundays? When do you put up your tree or start decorating for Christmas?
All of our kids will be here this morning so I’ll be off line for most of today. Have a good Friday and don’t spend all your money in one place!
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 