It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

My Christmas-season place mats

Now that I’ve no little children in the house, I’ve severely edited my Christmas decorating and obligations.  Still I do cherish and enjoy the few Christmas-y moments I’ve sought out this year, starting with having my red and green log cabin quilted place mats handy for our dining room table this month.  I’ve already written about my single string of outdoor lights over our front door, my makeshift garden trellis tree, my snowflake tree, driving to Bothell to see the Christmas lights at Evergreen Church, and painting a few Christmas cards.  In recent weeks I’ve also enjoyed a Christmas play at the Taproot Theatre and listening to Brad Craft, bookseller, reading aloud Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” at the University Bookstore.

Still to be enjoyed is a new Christmas book, Family Christmas Treasures, an anthology of stories about Christmas excerpted from literature and color plates of art celebrating Christmas.  I like that there are new-to-me stories, like “The Montreal Aunts” by Maureen Hull as well as some lovely art that I had not seen before.  For example, I really like these two Christmas prints by Andy Warhol:

Poinsettias by Andy Warhol, 1982

Untitled (Fairy and Christmas Ornaments) by Andy Warhol, 1953 – 1955

They inspired me to paint some of my own Christmas ornaments:

Christmas ornaments