Christmas Trivia

5 days to Christmas! Is everybody ready?

 

The shop is now on a short break for Christmas. It is too late to post anything and I need to concentrate on organising our festive preparations. I am so looking forward to Christmas!

Since there is not a lot happening on that front, I thought it might be fun to do something different today. Most of us like trivia of one kind or another, and many of us like Christmas, so how about a little compilation of Christmas Trivia?

The Three Wise Men – A well-known aspect of the Christmas story, except that the bible never actually states the number of wise men.

Jingle Bells was written by James Lord Pierpont. It was originally called 'One Horse Open Sleigh' and was actually created for Thanksgiving entertainment for a Sunday school in Georgia. 

 

Mince pies – these were originally made from minced meat, fruit and spices. Back in the time of the Tudors, these used to be called 'shred' or 'shrid' pies. It doesn't seem to matter much what the meat was, either. Rabbit, mutton, and beef were all used, and in the 16^th century many recipes used 'neats' or beef tongue. 

 

Boxing Day traditionally gets its name from the practice of giving money (or sometimes gifts) to the needy, or those in service jobs. Priests used to open the church's Alms (or charity) boxes on December 26 and distributed funds to the poor. 

 

'Good King Wenceslas Looked Out On the Feast Of Stephen' - The Feast of Stephen is another name for Boxing Day. St Stephen was the first Christian martyr, who died in 34 AD.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Last ordering dates for Christmas 2016

I now have my cut-off dates for Christmas orders. The dates are as follows:

Australia - Wed 7^th December

USA, Canada, Europe and all other non-UK destinations - Mon 12^th December

United Kingdom – Monday the 19^th December

After last orders I will be closing the shop on Tuesday 20^th December so that I can concentrate on organising our festive festivities, but will re-open again after Christmas, all refreshed and raring to go!

December already!

It is only 21 days to Christmas!

I have now made 350 posts in my Instagram account! Not bad for a technophobe, is it?

How's about some purty earrings? Czech glass, Indian glass, Steampunk, Christmas – lots of different ones!

Check them out in my Etsy store!

I've got some Christmas Trivia coming up for you on the run-up to Christmas, but for a bit of fun today, how about a Christmas Alphabet?

Christmas Alphabet:

Advent, Angel

Bells, Bethlehem, Blitzen, baubles

Camels, candles, carols, Christmas, chimney, child, cranberries, cake, crackers, cards, chestnuts, Chrimble,

Dasher, Dancer, Donner, decorations

Elves, Ebenezer, eggnog,

Fireplace, festive, feast, Frankincense, frosty.

Garland, gifts, goose,

Holly, holiday,

Ivy, icicles, infant, inn

Joy, jingle, Jesus, jolly,

Kiss

Lights, Lapland

Magi, manger, mincemeat, myrrh, mistletoe

Nativity, noel, Nutcrackers,

Odin, oranges

Partridge, Prancer, presents, pudding

Quantity,

Reindeer, Rudolph, religion,

Stocking, Santa, Scrooge, shephard, sheep, snowman, snow, sleigh, spirit, solstice, star

Tree, tinsel, tidings, turkey, toys,

Unwrap

Vixen

Winter, wonderland, Wassail, Wenceslaus,

Xmas

Yule

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all those of you who celebrate it!

 I hope you get to spend it with family and friends!

Thirty-four days and Jade

Is everyone well? Staying warm? Of course, if you're in one of those countries that are sweltering right now – can I come and stay with you?

So... yes. It's been cold and windy. Not bad for November, really, but I'm a bit of a wimp these days.

I have, however, been reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal busy making things. Christmas stuff, pretty stuff, fun stuff... did you realise that it is only...

34 Days to Christmas!

Isn't that exciting?

Here are some of my current range of necklaces:

A bit of variety there, huh?

I mentioned this bit of news on my Twitter, but they discovered a HUGE jade stone in Myanmar. It weighs a staggering (in more ways than one!) 175 tonnes! That would make one hell of a necklace...

Read about here.

Happy Halloween and the Reculver babies

Happy Halloween!

And, because of the date, I thought I'd share a local ghost tale with you. Some of my Rose Bay pictures show the ancient Roman ruins at Reculver. Here – have another one!

There is a legend that at night, especially stormy ones, you can hear the pitiful cries of babies. Well. When they were investigating the site back in 1966, they discovered infant skeletons hidden the walls – apparently some kind of Roman sacrifice ritual.

You can read about it here.

Have a great evening, everyone!

Feeling jaded?

And now for something a little different – my new sari silk and jade necklace. 

I call it Jade Garden

The beautiful sari silk comes from India, where it is produced by women's co-operatives and sold through a fair trade supplier. The sari silk is hand-dyed and made from the offcuts of leftover sari silk fabric and is truly georgous.

I am increasingly trying to use fair trade and other ethical suppliers in my products, and some of the materials I use are:

Sari silk from India, leather cord, hemp and beads from Peru, Ceramic focals from Africa.

Also included in my necklace above are pretty yellow jade beads and jade heart pendant. If you like jade, you might be amazed by the massive size of the jade piece just found in Mynmar (Burma).

The stone is 4.3m (14ft) high and 5.8m (19ft) long, and is reportedly worth an estimated $170m (£140m). See the report here.

Christmas countdown:

68 days!