Pip Speaks! Holiday Tip #2 - Christmas Cards

Hello everyone, it's me, Pip, again!  My Ma told me that you liked my earlier post, and read me your comments, and it made me so happy.  Because unlike a lot of other kitties, I'm a talker, and love to have people (or anyone else!) listen to me.

So now I want to talk to you about these:

Christmas cards!  Or, if you don't celebrate Christmas, Holiday cards!  We love getting them at our house, and after we've gotten quite a few, my Ma likes to hang them on our garden door as part of our decorations.

(Us kitties like to bat at them, which is not really something our Ma and Da like, but that's another story.)

Anyway, my Ma was annoyed the other day, because someone told her that she should not be sending out Christmas cards, because it was a waste of paper, and not good for the environment.  She was telling us that a lot of cards nowadays are made of recycled paper, and they can also be recycled, so there is that.  But mostly, she was reminding us that Christmas cards can have a life beyond the one they have on one Christmas when you get them.  Here is how it works at our house.

We always send out Christmas cards to our relatives and friends, and it's marked as being from all of us.  Which I think is nice, because sometimes we get cards from people we know have animals in their families, but the don't sign their names.  I think that is mean.   But that too, is another story.

Anyway, when we take down our decorations after Chrismastime and put them away, my Ma takes the cards and puts them together with a rubber band with the other things.  Then the next year, she pulls them out when she is getting ready to send cards again, to see who sent cards and who will still get cards.***  Then she takes any that are not pictures of people we know, and she separates the front of the card from the inside where people have signed their names.  Any that have writing on the inside of the front of the card just get recycled, but otherwise, she collects the fronts, and sends them to a place called the Seamen's Church Institute of New York and New Jersey for their Christmas at Sea program.  The people who are in charge of that program use the fronts of the Christmas cards as gift tags for the presents they give out.  I think it must be nice to not only get a present like a scarf or something when you weren't expecting it, and then have a pretty gift card on it as well.  My Ma says that it probably makes some people feel extra special on Christmas (and that makes me feel good too, since we usually help her get things apart and ready to send).

So my tip for today is to think before your say to someone else that they shouldn't send out Christmas cards, or that they are doing something bad for the environment.  Because you can see from what I wrote that you can enjoy sending and getting cards and still be recycling them in a way that gives others a smile on Christmas Day.

Everyone at our house smiles a lot on Christmas Day, and all through Christmastime.  But if we couldn't be together, I would like to think that we would have a reason to smile because we knew that somewhere, someone was thinking of us.

My Ma just told me that this post was long enough, but I have two more things to tell you.  One is that there are only EIGHTEEN DAYS left until Christmas Day!!!! and, the second thing is that some people who get cards from us will see my picture on their stamp!

Me dressed up like Santa!

OK, bye until next time.  Love, Pip

***Like so many things our Ma does, she has a "system" for Christmas cards.  She is also the only one who understands it.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Exactly three weeks from today, it will be CHRISTMAS DAY!!  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that Christmastime is my favorite time of year.  Along with that goes my love of Christmas music,  So when Favorite Christmas Albums was the topic for this week's Ten on Tuesday, I thought it only appropriate that I shared my favorites.

Needless to say, these are not my only favorites, but these are some that I thought of, and have been listening to already, so here you go in no particular order.

Top Ten  Favorite Christmas Albums

1.  A Christmas Heritage - this truly is a favorite, with some beautiful renditions of some classics, and some new ones I hadn't heard before.  Plus, one of the musicians is someone I went to elementary school with, and whose father was my brother-in-law's first law partner!

2.  The Sound of Christmas - Julie Andrews.  This is one that we got years ago, when Hallmark used to produce CDs or tapes for the Christmas season.  

3.  Christmas with the Cambridge Singers - I'd never heard of the Cambridge Singers when I bought this CD, but I liked the cover, I enjoy choral music, and there were songs I liked on it.  This almost immediately became a favorite, and there are two songs on it that always nearly bring me to tears.

4.  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer "soundtrack" - This is a cheapo, cheesy CD with the songs from the Rankin-Bass version of the story of Rudolph (with which I am obsessed).  There are really only one or two that are actually recordings from the TV soundtrack - most are covers - but since I like the show and the songs so much, I enjoy this one.

5.  Just in Time for Christmas - Nancy LaMott.  We saw Nancy LaMott in concert a couple of years before her untimely death, and it was great, so when I saw this, buying it was a no-brainer!  It's definitely a good one.

6.  A Christmas Album - James Taylor.  What can I say?  I'd listen to him sing a grocery list.  His version of "In the Bleak Midwinter" is one of my favorites of all time.

7.  The Christmas Album - Libera.  We have several CDs by this choral group of young boys, and the sound is so clear and beautiful, I was excited to see they had a Christmas album.  It's all good, but their addition and cover of Billy Joel's "Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)" is truly stunning.

8.  Christmas Classics - I think we have several versions of these CDs, with mixes of old standards performed by Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin - you get the drift.  It's not Christmastime to me without them.

9.  Christmas  - Michael Buble.   I like this because it is evocative to me of the old-time Christmas albums that my parents had.

10.  Christmas Songs - Diana Krall.  I love listening to her, and love Christmas music - you do the math! 

Happy listening and singing along!

Here We Go!

Today whether you like it or not (and I LOVE IT!), is the first of December, meaning that Christmastime has officially started, at least in our house.  Thanksgiving got some extra time this year to kick things off, but now it's getting serious.

This year, I am completely scattered for whatever reason, and have not knit a single gift, though there is one thing I'm hoping can become just that.  However, since I started late, I'm not going to worry about it.  And who knows, there may be a hat or mittens or something else small in someone's future.  I'm just going to see if the spirit moves me, so to speak.

The Tim did pull the boxes o' stuff out of the basement the other day, and today we opened up the holiday mugs, glasses, and that kind of thing, as well as the Christmas linens (you know, tablecloths and such).  Those are always first in our house.  I don't know if it's because they are easiest, or if for both of us it just makes sense.  I know growing up, we got started on Christmastime once the calendar showed December, but since my mom's birthday was December 2, the heavy duty decorating started after that.  It's probably just something that has stuck with me.

Jetsam, Pip, and Dug all thinks it's very interesting, of course.  Milo isn't quite sure what to think of it.  I'm sure that will change once boxes open and there are shiny, small, hanging things to investigate.  This may be a minimal decor holiday, unless he can be convinced that Santa really does care about his behavior!

Tomorrow, I'm teaching a Basic Sock Class at Rosie's, and I have four students signed up, so I'm kind of excited about that.  I just hope that I can convince them that it's not going to seem easy or maybe even worthwhile at first.  I know when I first learned, I sort of wondered what I'd gotten myself into, but now socks are one of my constant things on the needles.  Will I be able to create new sock knitters?  I sure hope so!

That's it for now.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and for those who celebrate, I hope your Christmas spirit is starting!

So Let's See ...

Well, last week was a really busy one, but in a good way.  I love Thanksgiving, so getting ready for it was just fine with me, even if there was a lot of running around involved.  We ate too much, relaxed, and then ate more.  It was nice and chilly, but also sunny, so it felt like it was actually November.  As of today, all of the leftovers are gone, and I took down our Thanksgiving decorations today and put them away for next year.  Another successful holiday, which leads into Christmastime, so it's win-win as far as I'm concerned.

I have still not been able to get a decent picture of The Tim's Turn a Square hat that I knit him for his birthday, but he has been getting a lot of wear out of it.  Hopefully I can get a picture this weekend, outside.  By the time I get home from work in the evenings, it's already dark, and my indoor pictures of it have been crappy to say the least.  Of course, he then gave me his original Turn a Square and asked if I could fix it - it's about 30% unraveled, mostly because he pulls it on with a ginormous tug when he wears it.  I asked him why he didn't give it to me sooner, and he said, "Well, I figured it wasn't that bad."  I'll see if I have some yarn that will work with it - I know I don't have any more of the original yarn.  I guess it just proves that he really likes the hat!

The only real surprise last week was the day before Thanksgiving, when I went to brush my teeth before leaving for work, and found out that our bathroom sink was clogged.  Of course it would happen the day before a holiday, right?

Fortunately, the clog was easily removed and I wasn't late for work ...

I also realized that I had a picture I'd meant to share with you at Halloween time, and kept forgetting.  My niece in San Francisco sent me this picture of Parker in his Halloween costume:

This picture just cracks me up!  I especially like his fake tattoo on his arm.  I showed it to a couple of people I work with, and my boss actually printed out her own copy and framed it, because she said she wanted something to make her happy every time she saw it.  Apparently, Parker loves to get his picture taken, and when he sees a camera, starts to smile.  But this particular picture just really gets me every time I see it ...

Until next time, I hope any clogged sinks you may have are as easy to fix as mine was, and that you have something to make you smile and laugh every day.  Happy last week of November!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Some people complain because God put thorns on roses, 

While others praise him for putting roses among thorns. 

-- Anonymous