A Catskill Christmas & More

My friend, Thomas, has started a new blog, A Catskill Christmas. He has a 9' tree to decorate this year and is making many of the huge number of ornaments he'll need. He grew up in the Catskills and writes:

Part of living in "the country" as it was called, was being resourceful and using items that nature seemed to provide for free. I know nothing is free, even in nature - you have to be its caretaker - that is the price for nature to keep providing for your needs. Growing up it was easy to find flowers and leave for drying, nuts and seeds, twigs and vines.

He is sharing his ideas and step by step instructions. Be sure to check out his Cabinet Photo Ornaments! I don't have room for these on my tiny tree but I can picture 3 or 5 of them attached to a wide ribbon as a wall hanging, similar to a bell pull. Finally a reason for me to attempt growing roses again!

He's also hosting a Christmas Advent Calendar for bloggers on his genealogy blog, Destination: Austin Family. I know most of you who stop by here aren't genealogists but this is a way to record and share some of your memories of Christmas.

We all know that it is often much easier to write about something when you have a topic or a prompt. Below you will find the prompts for each day leading up to December 25th. Topics cover Christmas trees, holiday foods, travel, religious services and more. We want to know how your family celebrated or continues to celebrate these traditions.

This is very similar to what I did last year with my Christmas Countdown. I've been having fun going through old pictures, flipping through my recipe box and recalling old memories. The best part is that I can write now, save everything as a draft and post on the appropriate day. This year my posts will be at Apple's Tree. The widget on my sidebar here will have links to each days post.


There is a new Carnival in town! Check out the Cabinet of Curiosities at Walking the Berkshires.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Cabinet of Curiosities, the blog carnival the celebrates the stories behind the notable stuff that clutters up our lives and living spaces, and most especially those oddities of natural history, relics of bygone days, mementos, talismans, specimens and ephemera that you and I have kept for all these years. It's just an old jar of sand unless you know that it came from Utah Beach, so here is your opportunity to say why it matters - at the very least why it never made it into a dumpster long ago.

There were a wide range of topics covered. I wrote about my broken watch collection. My two favorites were Tim's story about his Aunt Het's gavel from National Women's Sufferage Day - 1914 and anyone who gardens needs to check out Denise's Alien Signal Receptor. I want one!