The Christmas Stories of Louisa May Alcott

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I wanted to round out my year of audiobook listening with something warm and homey. I considered listening again to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, but then I came across a collection of her Christmas stories and thought that sounded perfect. The stories recorded here are:

“Gwen’s Adventure in the Snow”: A group of children of varying ages go on a sleighing expedition to their country house and end up getting caught in a snowstorm with their horses running off. The children take refuge in the house and have to try to come up with food and a way to get warm.

“Rosa’s Tale”: Children discussing the legend that animals can speak for an hour after midnight on Christmas hear their horse’s life story.

“What Polly Found in Her Stocking”: a poem about a girl’s stocking presents.

“A Hospital Christmas”: a warm and caring nurse makes Christmas brighter for patients in a military hospital during the Civil War era.

“A Country Christmas”: A girl staying with her aunt in the country invites two city friends to spend the holidays with them.

“Mrs. Podgers Teapot”: A woman who feels she is making her dead husband happy by not remarrying falls in love.

“Peace From Heaven”: Another poem.

“The Quiet Little Woman”: A girl in an orphanage is taken in to a home as a servant and longs for family love.

“A Christmas Dream and How It Came True”: A spoiled little girl has a sort-of Christmas Carol experience.

“A Song”: Another Christmas poem

“Kate’s Choice”: A teenage girl in England has lost her parents and is sent to live with each of her American uncles in order to choose which one to love with.

“Bertie’s Box”: A little boy overhears his mother and aunt talking about a needy family that they might try to do something for if they remember after getting their own plans done, and he decides to take matters into his own hands.

“What Love Can Do”: As two young girls lament the meager Christmas they are facing and share their wishes, a neighbor overhears and puts a little Christmas surprise in front of their door. Another neighbor sees this and adds his own, and so on.

Tessa’s Surprises: Tessa is the oldest daughter of a poor Italian family whose mother died. As she tries to come up with a way to provide a little something for her siblings for Christmas, she decides to go with an older boy who plays a harp to various places in the city to sing and see if she can earn a few pennies.

A Christmas Turkey: A father demoralized by work problems neglects his family.The children want to do various tasks to earn money at least for a nice Christmas dinner for the family and meet with various benefactors in the process.

Becky’s Christmas Dream: Becky is a 12 year old orphan from a poorhouse bound to work for a certain family until she is eighteen. She is sad at being left behind to tend the house while the family goes out to celebrate Christmas. As the clock strikes 12, either the animals and household items start talking or Becky starts dreaming, but either way they tell how they learned contentment in their assigned tasks.

A Merry Christmas: A section from Little Women where the girls give their Christmas breakfast to a poor family and put on a play in the evening.

A New Way to Spend Christmas: An assemblage of people visit an orphanage, touched by the plight of the children and heartened by the example of one ministering to them..

Tilly’s Christmas: A poor girl rescues a bird and is rewarded by an unseen benefactor with a special Christmas.

My favorites were Kate’s Choice and What Love Can Do.

I actually have “The Quiet Little Woman” in book form – it’s been on my shelf for years, and I thought I had read it, but as it started, it did not sound at all familiar to me. The book contains that story as well as Tilly’s Christmas and Rosa’s Tale.

All of the stories are in much the same spirit as Little Women: there are morals; encouragements to be brave and good and kind and to work hard and to remember and give to the poor; the simple and homey is revered above the showy and rich. In some places, like Aunt Plumey’s frank opinions in “A Country Christmas, the moral comes on a little strong by today’s standards, but was well received by the hearers in the story. Some of the stories seem more steeped in sentimentally than her books – maybe because the books have other events or maybe because Christmas stories seem to bring that out.

I didn’t look up the dates of all the stories, but the ones I did search out were written after Little Women, some of them published in magazines.

I’ve seen several collections of Alcott’s Christmas stories in print form that contain some combination of these, but I don’t think there is one that matches up exactly with the audiobook. The text of some of them can be found online by searching for the story title.

The narrator gave a valiant effort, even adding a little bit of a whinny to a horse’s voice, but I didn’t quite warm up to her.

But I am glad to have come across these and familiarized myself with some of Alcott’s stories that I hadn’t known before.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2016 by Barbara Harper

As I think of my blog friends this morning, some are in very joyous circumstances while others are in difficulty. I pray each of you will know the love of Christ our Savior, rest in Him, and have a very special day.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Barbara Harper

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

It’s Christmas Eve Eve! 🙂 Ready or not, here Christmas comes! Hope you’re having a good time with the things you need to do. I think we’re just about ready except for a little pie baking on Saturday. Our goal was to get done by the time my oldest son got here rather than by Christmas. In the midst of all the happy activities, I’m thankful for a few minutes to sit down and recount the blessings of the week.

1. My husband would be a favorite every week, of course, but this week I have so appreciated his pitching in to cook, wash dishes, do all the “before someone comes to visit” cleaning while I’ve had to be off my foot because of a broken toe. I hate that he’s having to spend his vacation that way, but I’m grateful he was on vacation to do so. Thankfully the cleaning is caught up so we can relax and enjoy the next few days, and I am starting to be able to hobble around a bit more.

2. Our 37th wedding anniversary was Wednesday. My husband brought me flowers, candy, a sweet card, and took me out to a very nice dinner, plus we had a little more time to talk than we normally do.

3. An anniversary dinner made by my daughter-in-law a few days before our anniversary. Plus cake!

4. Christmas cards and family newsletters. It seems like fewer people do this each year, but I love receiving them.

5. Our oldest son coming home for a much-anticipated visit. 🙂

I hope each of you has a special, meaningful Christmas. The first Christmas wasn’t “perfect” by our standards today, but it was just the way God planned it. No matter how many people are there (or not) and what’s under the tree (or not), we can celebrate the best gift of all: the Son of God who willingly came to Earth to keep God’s law perfectly in our place, to atone for our sins, and to make a way for us to be reconciled to God and experience His presence. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, (which means, God with us)” (Matthew 1:23). God with us! In the forgiveness of our sins, in our everyday needs and fellowship. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

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Book Review: From Heaven

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I like to read a Christmas devotional during December, so I got From Heaven: A 28-Day Advent Devotional by A. W. Tozer when I saw it on a recent Kindle sale for 99 cents since I have enjoyed what I have read of Tozer in the past.

Compiled by unnamed editors at Moody Publishing from Tozer’s various writings and sermons, it is probably different than a book like this that Tozer would have written himself. There is not really a logical progression from point A to point B or developing and building on truths throughout the book. It’s just a series of isolated bits somewhat on the theme of Christ’s coming to Earth in both His first advent, which we celebrate at Christmas, and His second advent, when He returns. That lack of progression or development plus the entries’ being taken out of context from their original sources are the book’s greatest weaknesses. Introductory remarks convey that profits from the book sales will go to help Moody students, so this may have even been assembled as something of a fund raiser.

But it is Tozer, after all, who is a deep thinker and often has something noteworthy to say, which is the book’s greatest strength.

Some of the chapter titles are What the Advent Established, The Meaning of Christmas, The Logic of the Incarnation, Three Truths Behind Christmas, Light and Life to All He Brings.

Some of the quotes that stood out to me:

Even though you may still be unconverted and going your own way, you have received much out of the ocean of His fullness. You have received the pulsing life that beats in your bosom. You have received the brilliant mind and brain within the protective covering of your skull. You have received a memory that strings the events you cherish and love as a jeweler strings pearls into a necklace and keeps them for you as long as you live and beyond. All that you have is out of His grace. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, who became flesh and dwelt among us, is the open channel through which God moves to provide.

We must love someone very much to stay awake and long for his coming.

Another reason for the absence of real yearning for Christ’s return is that Christians are so comfortable in this world that they have little desire to leave it.

All of the mercy God is capable of showing, all of the redeeming grace that He could pour from His heart, all of the love and pity that God is capable of feeling–all of these are at least suggested in the message that He came!

All of our hopes and dreams of immortality, our fond visions of a life to come, are summed up in these simple words in the Bible record: He came!

The idea that the Old Testament is a book of law and the New Testament a book of grace is based on a completely false theory. There is certainly as much about grace and mercy and love in the Old Testament as there is in the New. There is more about hell, more about judgment and the fury of God burning with fire upon sinful men in the New Testament than in the Old

The only contrast here is between all that Moses could do and all that Jesus Christ can do. The Law was given by Moses—that was all that Moses could do. Moses was not the channel through which God dispensed His grace. God chose His only begotten Son as the channel for His grace and truth, for John witnesses that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. All that Moses could do was to command righteousness. In contrast, only Jesus Christ produces righteousness. All that Moses could do was to forbid us to sin. In contrast, Jesus Christ came to save us from sin. Moses could not save, but Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior.

The big thing is to be sure we are not lulled to sleep by a false hope, that we do not waste our time dreaming about days that are not to be ours. The main thing is to make today serve us by getting ready for any possible tomorrow. Then whether we live or die, whether we toil on in the shadow or rise to meet the returning Christ, all will be well.

[This one really helped me with the concept of “of His fullness have we all received” in John 1:16]: If you could ask the deer that goes quietly down to the edge of the lake for a refreshing drink, “Have you received of the fullness of the lake?” the answer would be: “Yes and no. I am full from the lake but I have not received from the fullness of the lake. I did not drink the lake. I only drank what I could hold of the lake.”

Christmas as it is celebrated today is badly in need of a radical reformation. What was at first a spontaneous expression of an innocent pleasure has been carried to inordinate excess.

In our mad materialism we have turned beauty into ashes, prostituted every normal emotion, and made merchandise of the holiest gift the world ever knew. Christ came to bring peace and we celebrate His coming by making peace impossible for six weeks of each year. Not peace but tension, fatigue, and irritation rule the Christmas season. He came to free us of debt and many respond by going deep into debt each year to buy enervating luxuries for people who do not appreciate them. He came to help the poor and we heap gifts upon those who do not need them. The simple token given out of love has been displaced by expensive presents given because we have been caught in a squeeze and don’t know how to back out of it.

So, we live between two mighty events—that of His incarnation, death, and resurrection, and that of His ultimate appearing and the glorification of those He died to save. This is the interim time for the saints—but it is not a vacuum. He has given us much to do and He asks for our faithfulness. In the meantime, we are zealous of good works, living soberly, righteously, godly in this present world, looking unto Him and His promise. In the midst of our lives, and between the two great mountain peaks of God’s acts in the world, we look back and remember, and we look forward and hope! As members of His own loving fellowship, we break the bread and drink the wine. We sing His praise and we pray in His Name, remembering and expecting!

Tozer is not one to leave you with warm fuzzy feelings, but he does make you think. And though the chapters seem a little disjointed, there is much good food for thought and conviction here.

Genre: Christian non-fiction
Objectionable elements: None.
My rating: 8 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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Book Review: Finding Father Christmas and Engaging Father Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Barbara Harper

After reading Pam’s engaging post on the difference between the Hallmark and written versions of Robin Jones Gunn’s Finding Father Christmas, the novella sounded so charming I had to look it up. I found it bound with its sequel, Engaging Father Christmas. I’ve enjoyed some of Robin’s Sisterchicks novels and I think maybe one or two others, so I was glad to read her again.

In Finding Father Christmas, Miranda Carson is a single working woman who grew up as the only child of a single actress. She knew nothing of her father: in fact, in her youngest years her mother told her fairy tales of how she came to her, so she didn’t think she even had a father. Miranda had an unconventional childhood hanging out around theaters while her mom practiced and performed, and they lived in cheap hotels. One day Miranda discovered an old blue velvet purse of her mother’s and opened it to find her birth certificate, a photo of a boy sitting on the lap of Santa Claus, and a playbill for The Tempest. From that time on, realizing that she had been deceived by her mother, she lost any love for fairy tales and vowed never to go to the theater again.

Miranda’s mother died when Miranda was 11, and she was taken in by a friend. When that friend died, Miranda falsified her age and struck out on her own, choosing an accounting career because numbers were more reliable than words.

But the longing to know her father caused her to take vacation time in England, where the photo in her mother’s purse had been taken. She only had the name of the photo studio and a street to go on, but arriving in the village of Carlton Heath, she entered a shop called the Tea Cosy and met its proprietors, Andrew and Katherine MacGregor, and started from there. Once she found the information she was looking for, she then had to decide the best way to deal with it.

I can’t say much more without revealing too much of the plot, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. The setting, the characters, Miranda’s journey all were every bit as charming as Pam made them sound. I very much appreciated that Robin was not afraid to deal specifically with Miranda’s spiritual journey as well: Miranda had little to no spiritual context and didn’t even realize her need of or longing for God as her Father until she encountered Him. In a day when so many Christian authors handle spiritual matters lightly (if at all) lest they come across as “preachy,” Robin proves that you can deal with them realistically and naturally within the context of the story. I loved the many literary references as well.

In Engaging Father Christmas, Miranda comes back in England for a visit about a year later. A romance blossomed with a man she met right at the end of the first story, and she’s hoping this visit will result in an engagement ring and the making of Carlton Heath her longed-for home. But her idyllic Christmas plans are threatened by serious obstacles.

One of my favorite passages occurs between crises as she views a beautiful nighttime scene:

Was everything around us more or less a fixed snapshot that alluded to a greater beauty? A deeper mystery? A hint of what was to come? How many unknown layers were there to life–to the eternal life that was hidden in Christ? What glorious surprises awaited us in the real land of which this earth was only a snapshot? Let heaven and nature sing…

These novellas were the perfect Christmas reads: clean, warm, lovely, and heart-stirring. There is a third in the series just out recently, Kissing Father Christmas. I’ll have to look out for that one next year.

Genre: Christian Christmas fiction
Objectionable elements: None.
My rating: 10 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carole’s Books You Loved)

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Laudable Linkage

Posted on December 17, 2016 by Barbara Harper

It’s a busy time of year, but I’ve discovered several thought-provoking reads online the last couple of weeks. Perhaps some of them will pique your interest as well.

Weep, Groan, Wail: The Need to Lament. “How is it possible to grieve, mourn, and wail but still know God is good?”

Even If He Doesn’t. “When the bad things come, when the kind of rescue we think we need just isn’t part of our story, will we be able to testify before a watching world that God can do it, that He will do it, but even if He doesn’t, we won’t turn away.”

Immanuel. From a friend’s whose 25 year old daughter is fighting yet another setback in her cancer battle. God is with us, even in the hard places, even in bad news.

5 Reasons to Read the Bible When You Feel Absolutely Nothing. I kept thinking Yes! all throughout reading this.

Jesus Isn’t Threatened by Your Christmas Gifts. Loved the practicality and balance in this. “The implicit messaging is that Christmas is a kind of either/or proposition in which we can either emphasize Jesus or emphasize gifts. But one always threatens to displace the other. I disagree with this.”

Miracles at Midnight.

5 Ways We Stunt Our Spiritual Growth.

Seekest Thou Great Things For Thyself? HT to Challies.

It’s Time to Take Your Medicine. “As we read the letters of Paul we find he always frames things this way: ‘God has done this for you in Christ, therefore you should respond in the following ways.’ ‘Thus the motivation, energy, and drive for holiness are all found in the reality and power of God’s grace in Christ.'”

Words That Shimmer. “For Christians, isn’t it amazing that our gracious God chose something as powerful as words to communicate to us His glorious truth? Everything pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). What a gift! What a treasure! Collectors of words take heart:”

Praying Biblical Prayers.

(Re)Remembering What We Mean. “Fairy tales employ the tool of the fantastic to jar us back to a truer vision that sees that all things are fantastic. Wonder is an appropriate response to all things because all things are wonderfully made.”

On parenting:

Should Parents Lay Down The Law Or Give Grace? “Grace is not rejecting authority. Grace is not walking away from the need of my children to have boundaries in their life—grace is about the way that I do that.”

My Changing Thoughts On Being a Mother. I wrestled with many of the same things mentioned here.

On writing:

Why Backstory Is Better Than Flashbacks.

And finally, I loved this video of a deer and rabbit playing. At least the deer is playing – it takes a while for the rabbit. Someone posted this on Facebook with the caption “Bambi and Thumper are real!”

Happy Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 16, 2016 by Barbara Harper

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

I’m grateful for a regular time in a busy week to count blessings that I might otherwise overlook or forget. Here are a few from the past week:

1. Making Christmas cookies with Timothy. I’m not sure why we didn’t do this last year, but he was full-fledged into it this year. He liked the rolling out better than the cutting, but he seemed to like the star cookie cutter best of the choices. And he enjoyed the icing and sprinkles as well.

Sugar cookies aren’t my #1 favorites (that would be anything with chocolate chips, and with both chocolate and peanut butter, all the better!), but sometimes they hit the spot, both the ones we made from a gluten-free mix (Pillsbury, I think) plus some store-bought ones Jesse had leftover from an event he went to. I didn’t grow up making sugar cookies at Christmas, and did them off and on when my kids were little, but now they seem a definite part of the season.

2. Numbing agents. I wrote yesterday about breaking and dislocating my toe. Any time on TV that you see someone having a dislocated bone reset, there’s a lot of yelling and pain, so I was glad the doctor numbed my foot for the proceeding!

3. Clinics with evening hours. Our doctor’s office has had weekday evening hours, usually with a nurse practitioner, for some time now, but I didn’t know that specialties like an orthopedic clinic had evening, walk-in, no appointment needed hours as well.

4. Warm showers. This is one of those everyday blessings we don’t even think about until we can’t have them for some reason. I was thinking about showers this week when a major character in a book I was reading was homeless and had to clean up in public restrooms as best she could. Then I skipped a shower on the day after my toe injury, and was fine that day, but the next day my skin and scalp felt awful. It felt so good to get under warm water and wash and rinse off.

5. Dinner and a sweet card. Last night Mittu sent over dinner and this card she and Timothy made.

I hope your Christmas preparations are going well and you have a few quiet moments to relax, reflect, and enjoy. Happy Friday!

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The Saga of the Broken Toe

Posted on December 15, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Tuesday evening I came out of the bathroom door – the same bathroom door I have been coming out if for 6 1/2 years now with no problem – and somehow banged my little toe on the door frame. It really hurt, and after doubling over for a minute, I looked down at it – and it was angled away from the rest of my foot. That can’t be good, I thought. I showed it to Jim, and we discussed whether we should go to the ER. He taped it to the next toes and we decided to just wait, figuring that’s probably what a doctor would do anyway since they can’t put a cast on toes.

The next morning I got dressed early so I could call the doctor and be ready to go in immediately if they had an opening. Unfortunately my doctor was not in, but the nurse practitioner had an opening at 5:15. I asked Jim’s mom’s caregiver if she could come back then, and she could. So I went in, and she took some x-rays and said I needed to be seen by an orthopedic doctor. She said it looked to her like there was a spiral fracture and mentioned the possibility of needing surgery or even pins put in it. (Yikes!) There was an orthopedic clinic that was open til 8 if I could get there. I had driven to the doctor’s office because they are close to us, but, even though the injury was on my left foot, I just didn’t feel I could drive to this place. I called Jim, and he was on his way home, so we met there, made his mom’s dinner, and headed out again.

The orthopedist said the toe was dislocated, so he numbed it up and reset it (or reduced it, as they say, but I am not sure why they call it that.) I asked if it was just dislocated or if it was broken as well. He said, “Oh yes, it’s broken – it looks like a jigsaw puzzle in there.” So he taped it up with the next toes, gave me a stylish boot to wear, told me to keep it dry and elevated and come back in a week.

He said at one point that this would “probably bother you for three months.” I told Jim I hoped he was exaggerating. He said he didn’t think he was. I don’t know if that means wearing the boot and keeping it taped for that long, or just that it will be that long before it feels completely right.

I’ve been on acetaminophen round the clock since it happened. Before seeing the doctor, it actually felt better when I was walking around and excruciating when I was lying down. I thought that was so odd – you’d think it would be the other way around. But last night I slept great. It only seems to hurt now when I’ve been on it for a while, and the doctor said that’s a sign I need to go elevate it.

It was embarrassing that every time someone at either of the clinics asked me how I hurt my foot, all I could say was that I ran into the wall. 🙂 It would have been nice to at least have had a dramatic story to tell about it.

I was thankful that both offices had evening hours, that Jim’s mom’s caregiver was available, that we got it taken care of that evening so he didn’t have to miss work today, and that the doctor numbed the area before reducing it. When I checked out and one girl mentioned the reduction, the other said, “And you didn’t scream?” I said no, it was numbed, she replied, “We have heard people scream sometimes all the way out here.” Yikes!

I’m also thankful I had gone to the store on Tuesday before any of this happened. I was thinking of putting it off til Wednesday because it was raining and we weren’t quite in danger of running out of anything for a day or so, but finally decided that since I had already planned for it, I’d go ahead and get it over with. I’m also thankful that the bulk of the Christmas shopping and wrapping was done: most everything that’s left can be done sitting down, except the housecleaning I was going to do next week before Jeremy came home. Jim is off next week, so maybe he can help me with that.

Trying to figure out how to take a shower without getting my foot wet was a challenge, and the boot is annoying already (mainly because it’s a different height that any of my shoes, so my gait is uneven). But I hope it’s on the mend now with no further complications.

And that’s probably much more than you wanted to know about anybody’s little toe. 🙂

Two short Christmasy reviews

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Barbara Harper

A Sandy’s Seashell Shop Christmas by Lisa Wingate is a short novella involving some of the characters from The Prayer Box by the same author. The owner of Sandy’s Seashell Shop, a gift store on the NC Outer Banks, plays a prominent role in both. In this book, Tiff Riley had met her husband in Afghanistan when they were both in the military. She came home to have their son, Micah, but her husband died around Christmastime. In the four years since, she hasn’t had the heart to celebrate Christmas, and Micah is too young to know the difference. She takes a vacation during the Christmas season from her nursing job in Arkansas to the Outer Banks, which was special to her husband in his childhood. No one knows them there or will be aware that Christmas is just another day to them. Tiff knows that for Micah’s sake she needs to make peace with Christmas, but just can’t yet.

While at the beach they come across a flyer for a Christmas celebration at Sandy’s Seashell Shop. Through a series of events, Tiff decides to take Micah to it, and for the first time she feels her heart beginning to thaw. But the last thing she expected was her own Christmas miracle.

This was a very short but very sweet and heart-warming story.

Genre: Inspirational fiction
Objectionable elements: None.
My rating: 9 out of 10

I got The Christmas Violin by Buffy Andrews last year, not having heard of it before and knowing nothing of the author, just because the premise sounded intriguing. The story is told from three different points of view:

Peter visits his wife’s grave almost every day. At one visit, the sound of someone playing a violin draws him.

Willow was a concert violinist and a single mom. Her young son died while she was away at a concert, and she feels it’s her fault for being away.Her manager tries to talk her back into touring, but she only plays locally. She visits her son’s grave almost every day and pours her heart out through her violin playing.

A homeless old woman lives in a shed on the cemetery property and is also drawn to the violin playing. In her daily rummaging, she finds the perfect gift for the young violinist.

This being a Christmas novel, of course Peter and Willow unexpectedly run into each other outside the cemetery, strike up a relationship, and find healing with each other. The surprising part of the story for me was the old woman. The parts of the story through her eyes, both the meanness and kindness of strangers, spoke the most to me.

I wanted to love this story, and parts of it were good, but as a whole the writing fell a little flat to me, and the bad language was off-putting..

Genre: Secular fiction
Objectionable elements: A plethora of damns, one occurrence of the “f” word, a night of adultery described as beautiful.
My rating: 5 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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A few cards

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Barbara Harper

At our ladies’ Christmas party last week, we were to bring three of the same item ($5 or less each) to give away that were some of our favorite things. At the party, we each had an opportunity to share why these things were our favorites, then three names were drawn and our three things given to those three people, and we each went home with three gifts from others.

After mulling over what I could possibly share, I came up with note cards. Even though people don’t send them as much as they used to, there are still occasions for them. Making cards when I have time is one of my favorite things, and I have a stamp that says “I’m thinking of you prayerfully,” which covers a lot of situations. So I made six cards in different designs and combined them two to a package for my gifts. I thought I’d show you how they came out.

The brown above was meant to be a suitable for a man or woman, and I think it is, but the flocked butterflies make it maybe a little less masculine than I had intended. 🙂

This blue one turned out to be one of my favorites.

The leaves on this one were from one little square stamp. Some years ago someone showed me the technique of rotating it a quarter turn while stamping it in a row so it looks like the leaves are tumbling. And a multi-colored stamp pad accounts for the variety of color. Though I can see that for the phrase stamp, it would be better not to end of begin the word in the yellow part – it makes it look like it is fading out.

Part of me thought I must be crazy trying to do this in a busy Christmas season, especially when I have family Christmas cards to do (I make Christmas cards for my immediate family but buy them for extended family and friends – it would take too much time to make them for everyone we send them to). But I kept them pretty simple, didn’t use the Cricut at all, and the trim and flowers were either cut with a straight edge and glued on or were stick-on. I like how the flowers on the blue cards add some texture but aren’t over-fussy. I don’t like a whole lot of stuff sticking out from the card, but a little is nice.

They afforded a few pleasant afternoons of creating while listening to Christmas music, and I hope the recipients enjoy them.