'Tis THAT season

Since teaching my class at Linda Van Alstyne's house I have been doing holiday things.
Of course there was the yearly 'packing up of the studio so we can use the dining room for it's intended purpose' chore. And then the Holiday itself with about 20 humans and 3 large dogs filling the house. We were lucky to have the youngest family member come to visit. Here she is helping out in the kitchen.

She and her great grandpa got some quality time together while the adults played a card game.

It was nice to see the dining room clean and I might have stopped felting until after Christmas but stuff had to come back out since I had a show coming up (and I am planning a few felt Christmas presents). I am not a big fan of the holiday season. I usually get depressed at this time of year anyway and the added pressure and stress make for a bad combination. Also there have been several deaths in our family that occurred around this time of year. Many of those were old relatives that used to make the holidays special by coming to visit. My mother died on Dec. 19th 2005.

Thankfully I have been so busy with felting and teaching this year that I have not had much chance to think about holiday things. It helps that I do not watch TV, listen to the radio, or even go out in public much, so I am not bombarded with all the advertisements that push the ideas that we should NEED, WANT, and GIVE more and more STUFF. I try to do what I can to not BUY into all that and make Christmas what I believe it should be about and to DO the things that bring joy.I know that part of the reason I don't really like Christmas is the commercialism that many of us hate. So I was somewhat uncomfortable taking part in a Christmas craft show this weekend, but money is necessary, the booth fee was low and my daughter thought we should do it. So after Thanksgiving I got into production mode and actually made some Christmas stuff.

Like this Santa.

I needle felted the head but wet felted the rest of the doll.

My daughter also helped me make some Christmas ornaments. She did some cookie cutter needle felting and beading. She also helped with finishing the snowmen. I love having her work with me and especially her help with the business part of this endeavor.

I also made a hat...

and a purse...

and a couple of scarves...

And the show was definitely worth the work as I sold another of my paintings. One of my older pieces but one of my favorites.