Scarlet Stars

Today may just be my favorite day of the year. It’s the day I stop buying and wrapping gifts. As of today I’m through baking cookies, decorating trees and addressing cards. Any holiday errand that I haven’t checked off my list will just stay unchecked. Today I stop obsessing about getting everything perfect, and just enjoy the season instead. I have only one more afternoon of piano lessons, and then I’m finished until after New Year’s Day. By a happy coincidence, I’m not playing the organ in church this Sunday. I have until January seventh to prepare my next Young Women's class. What will I do instead? Whatever I feel like doing. Maybe I’ll go for a long, rambling walk. I may sit by the fire and read a WHOLE book. I might listen to Christmas music, or put a jigsaw puzzle together, or WATCH a Christmas movie. Anything could happen.

Four Dutch Tiles

“It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one.” – Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

Nine Scarlet Stars

Kyla Robertson was opening mail in the Riverton Elementary School office when she ran across a $50 bill. Enclosed with the cash was the following note: “I was in sixth grade during the 1969-1970 school year. I took some paperback school books from my teachers. I know I can't pay them back, but take this and get some more books with it. Sorry for what I did.” Robertson confirmed the school will use the money to buy books. “No matter how old or what your situation in life is,” she said, “if you’ve done something wrong, even if it takes you years, you can ask for forgiveness.” I attended Oakwood Elementary (15 miles away) part of that year, before we moved to New York. In all honesty, I don’t remember if I took anything that didn’t belong to me. I’d like to think if I had, I’d have found the courage to make amends.

Dutch Tile Block

“As a boy I would gather with my family around our piano, now more than a hundred years old. That piano still is a precious heirloom because it was dear to my mother as a gift from her husband when they were poor. My parents had known poverty and so were frugal. The Christmas gifts we received were modest. But my mother had a rich soprano voice. She played her piano at Christmas as she led us in singing familiar carols and sacred hymns. Even as a young boy, I felt inexpressible joy in singing those songs. The music filled our small home with a spirit of peace. I could feel not only the love of my mother and father and two brothers, but of my Heavenly Father and the Savior Jesus Christ. I wanted to live so I could return to our heavenly home, where I knew Heavenly Father and the Savior would be waiting.” – President Henry B. Eyring

Four Scarlet Stars

I have a few friends who like to celebrate what they call the twelve days of Christmas by giving someone special a small gift every day between December 13 and Christmas Day. There’s this tiny part of me (the part that reacts to superfluous apostrophes like fingernails on the blackboard) that wants to shake these people and scream, “That’s not the twelve days of Christmas!” The REAL twelve days, or Twelvetide, begin Christmas Day and end on the Epiphany (January fifth). They commemorate the time between the birth of our Savior and the arrival of the three wise men bearing gifts. Of course, anyone who studies scripture can tell you they say nothing about the number of the magi: only the number of their gifts. And they probably didn’t visit the holy family until Jesus was walking and talking. You know what? Never mind. Go ahead and celebrate your twelve days whenever you like. You’re not hurting anyone.

Faithful

The top from the second Moda Frivol tin is done! It only took a few days, following the pattern TO THE LETTER! If I were to use one word to describe this pattern, the word would be “elegant.” Not elegant as in “ornate, stylized or fussy,” but more the mathematical definition: achieving the desired goal with the least amount of wasted materials or effort. There are only four 7” squares of fabric left in the tin. (Two light, two dark; I’m sure to find a use for them.) All that went into the bin were the tiny crumbs I trimmed off the blocks. I had some trouble lining up the sides of each block, but the corners clicked right into place, forming nine little red-and-white “on point” pinwheels. This whole fabric line is at my nearest quilt shop, so there won’t be any trouble finding back and binding. The only difficulty will be deciding which one.