A holiday greeting to you all!

Tomorrow it will be Christmas Eve!  Is everyone ready?  It will be Christmas Eve whether you are ready or not so just relax and enjoy the day.

What are your Christmas Eve traditions?

In parts of the southern United States it is customary to say "Christmas Eve Gift" to someone you see or speak to.  The first one to say it supposedly receives a gift from the person they greeted in this way.  In our family we don't give the gift but there is always a spirited competition to be the first to say the phrase.  When my phone rings on Christmas Eve I answer "Christmas Eve Gift!"  Often those words are spoken at the same time the caller is saying them causing much laughter. 

My family opens most of their gifts on Christmas Eve.  Some people open their gifts on Christmas Day but we opened ours Christmas Eve and then my Dad would plan this elaborate hoax in which he supposedly heard some noise outside and when he would go out to investigate he would come back and say "Look what I found in the back yard -- Ol' Santa left these gifts out there.  Wonder who they are for."  Of course, we always found our names on the gifts. 

After our children came they would question me about whether or not Santa Clause was "real."  We always said that as long as they believed Santa would bring them a gift.  My Sweetie told me that we would have the only 30 year old kids in America who still got a gift from "Santa."  I finally cut them off about age 18.

We go to church before the meal and gifts -- years ago I fixed a buffet supper and it was eaten by whoever showed up -- several people were working until 9 PM or after, so they ate when they arrived.  One brother worked with some people from Argentina and when he arrived from work he would bring some Argentinian delights -- including chimmichuri sauce, which I loved!  Our buffet would otherwise be a mixture of American and Mexican dishes.

Now that the children are grown and living separate from us our Christmas celebrations are quieter. Our Granddaughter, Victoria, is still a "believer" and still gets very excited about opening gifts.  It is more fun to watch her than it is to open our own gifts.  Sometimes we wait until Christmas morning -- put a fire in the fireplace, if it is cold enough, and we sit together -- my Sweetie and I.  We don't make a big deal about gifts these days -- we have most everything we need so often our "gifts" are trips.  This year we are planning a trip over New Years and are looking forward to that.

Please drop me a line and tell me about your Christmas traditions.

So, Merry Christmas to all and a very happy new year -- may 2013 bring you much peace and happiness.

Things are looking better!

I am gradually restoring accounts and replacing things -- the hacking I endured Tuesday morning will mean some permanent losses but I am back in business on this blog.  Thanks to people who contacted me. 
Meanwhile, we are doing our drive-thru Life of Christ at church -- this is our Christmas gift to the community.  It was enormously successful last night and was warm enough out that we didn't need coats.  A big change for how it usually is.  Tomorrow night may be colder but tonight should be great.  Wish you all could come and see it!

continuing

Still working on getting full control of my blog back. 

Getting hacked is a very upsetting thing!

Hooray!

I just got back into the part of my blog where I can post a new entry...
OK, here is my situation.  My e-mail account got hacked.  I had to change my e-mail address.  But, under the new address I can't access the post page.  That is a real problem.  I can set up a new blog but I don't want to -- I want to keep this one. 

Does anyone have any suggestions as what I can do?

How can I....?

I am getting comments from someone named Anonymous.
These "comments" seem to be advertisements for UGG shoes.  Nothing to do with my blog.
Does anyone else get these "Anonymous comments?"  How does one get rid of them?

Back on board...I think

In September my main computer hard drive crashed!  I was not a happy camper!!  September was already challenging enough without that happening so we just decided to wait until we got other activities over with. 

Well, my surgery/healing has happened and Thanksgiving is over and on Black Friday I broke all of my usual resolutions and I shopped (on line) and ordered a new computer.  It is here and I am using it.

The new computer has Windows 8.  UGH!!  It is so different that I am struggling to learn it.  I actually found my blog, however, so there are some small steps in the learning process that have been taken.  Successfully.  My oldest daughter was here for 1-1/2 days and she helped.  She is doing the same thing at her house -- new computer, new Windows 8.  We learned together.

So, perhaps I will be around a little more  ... well, of course Christmas is right around the corner and my Mom is having health issues to I will be very busy, as will most of you.  Take care, everyone, and drop by when you can.

Promises.....

I am so happy to announce that my tongue is now about 95% healed.  There is just a small portion that has not closed.  It is still sore but that will go away after time.  Eating is easier but I still have some problems, partly due to the fact that my tongue is still numb on the end and that has been since the biopsy.  It will probably stay that way.  I'll get used to it!

Stars of the Quilting World

I posted earlier that one of the nice things about going to the quilt show was seeing the "stars" of the quilting world.

This year we saw Eleanor Burns -- she demonstrated a new kit/ruler/pattern (which I bought) and was fun and funny to watch.  She also did a class/demonstration but we missed all but the very end of it.  It was definitely standing room only!

We also saw Alex Anderson -- since Alex's show is now subscription only I feel that her over-all popularity has wained.  There were very few people at her booth.

I enjoyed seeing Sandra Dallas, also.  Do you know who she is?  Sandra Dallas writes novels based on quilting.  I love her books and enjoyed talking to her.

Overall, the 2012 quilt show was great!  

Pictures from Houston Quilt Show, 2012

Hexabee3  by Dorien Weijtmans, The Netherlands.

This was a 3-D quilt -- sorry, I didn't get the maker's name or country.

This quilt is titled "Viva Quilt" and it was made by Noriko Nozawa from Chiba-City, Chiba, Japan.  It reminded the maker of a quilting "bee."  Below a close-up shows the quilting details.