Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Happy Holidays

 It's that time of year again (hurrah!).
 
 
And so the tradition of the cardboard Christmas tree continues.... 
 
This year, the girleen broke away from standard flat-tree format and went all 3-D.  She also (making use of a feature in the recycled ballot box that we were using as base material) incorporated a secret door in the design....
 
We fashioned a secret shelf in the middle of the tree, making it a cupboard...
 
...in which to hide the handmade Christmas crackers (another emerging tradition of ours, it seems).
 
 
The last week of downtime makes all the madness of the previous few weeks seem like a million miles away, as it should. 
 
(Here's a bit of design college humour from the last few weeks at work.)
 
 
It has been a time of winding down, going to craft markets and kicking back with my girl and with friends. It's a time of al fresco dining and drinking and talking.
 
 
Sometimes, we've even managed an accidentally-colour-coordinated theme for the evening.
 
 
The garden is rewarding us with harvests of spuds and salads and vegetables. There have been apricots (and there is now a larder full of apricot jam).
 
 
My Christmas surprise this year was the arrival of a copy of The Better Bagmaker in French!

 
 
To celebrate both birthday and Christmas this year, I broke with tradition and bought some fun red shoes... because a girl sometimes needs to step outside the practicality of functional black sandals for summer.   

 

I wish you all a very happy holiday season, whatever you may be doing to celebrate or relax.  See you in 2015.
 

9 comments:

Vireya said...

Happy Christmas, Nikki!

Annie said...

Loved reading all your news...love the cardboard tree idea...and the work song!

Lola Nova said...

Merry Christmas to you and your girl from us! xo

Unknown said...

Merry Christmas to both of you and a happy, safe and rewarding 2015! Xoxo

A Peppermint Penguin said...

can't believe you've never had red shoes before! you need red shoes.

happy whatever, to you and yours.

Liv Aagot's Quilt Blog said...

Merry Christmas to you and you Family! I love Your Better bag maker book!

pandchintz said...

What a great way to wind down for the year. Love those red shoes!! Enjoy your holiday.

Tas said...

Hope you and yours have had a great Christmas. How could you now in those gorgeous shoes?

Santa brought me a copy of your book, thankfully in English because my French sucks ;)

xx

Katy Cameron said...

Everyone needs a secret door in their tree I find, awfully Narnia :oD

Hope you all had a great day, and have a fab new year!