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It's Time to Say Goodbye

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Well, my blog has been a little quiet so far this year.

Lots of things going on behind the scenes. Exciting things coming up for 2013!

Authors in the Park is growing fast. We are planning an event for March 30th. If you have not already, please give our page a "like" to stay informed.

Besides event planning and booking my calendar for the whole year, I got to spend a week visiting classes at a local elementary school. We celebrated National Literacy Week by reading from some great books (including mine) and talking about how a young avid reader became an author (me).

Oh, and I've done some writing too.



I am having fun with this series and I think it is starting to take on a life of its own. Maybe I'm not an Amish author, but I am learning fast. My approach to this is taking the POV of the G-Man, a non-Amish, who befriends and Amish blacksmith. It is an outside look at the Amish and their special way of life. I like that the reader can travel along with the main character as he walks the line between a worldly path and a spiritual path.

T’was the night before…wait, that’s not right. But you know Dash…no, you probably don’t know him.
Put it this way, a repentant fixer, an Amish blacksmith with a mysterious past and a Christmas party. That is a recipe for fun on any holiday!

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Who gives heavy, blunt instruments to toddlers for Christmas?
I'm pretty sure this is what inspired "The Lord of the Flies."

My Making-Merry-on-the-Mini
Geoboard Kits are a hit.

And as far as homemade gifts go, how simple is this?
A block of sanded wood.
A bag of screws and nails.
Yarn and rubber bands.
All packaged up and ready to be assembled.



We wrapped a hammer and screwdriver kit for Sugar Snack, too.
He's in Fix-It Heaven,
stomping around the house,
adjusting all the screws.
I keep waiting for the doors to fall off
with the next
ACHOOO!

I don't know how safe a gift of nails
and screws is for the preschool crew.
I've tried to remind them to keep the sharp points
away from mouths, noses and electrical openings,
but you never know.
It helps to have ample adult supervision
when you're dealing with all those hammers.

So, let's just have a proviso here:

For crafty, writing, or artsy tips,
visit me with gleeful abandon.
For safe parenting tips,
go to
someone else.

Happy New Year, my friends!
May it be gloriously rich in the simple joys
and surprisingly glad in all the rest.



Books:



Tools by Taro Miura 
Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann (Safety tips AND cuteness)

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happy new year to all print & pattern readers and i hope you have all had a good christmas/holiday break. print & pattern will be back 7th january 2013 with lots more design, inspiration and showcases. these images were of the graphics spotted at my local garden centre and represent the last of the festive design season. see you in the new year !

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!  I was blessed this year with the means to purchase a new camera - nothing too high-tech, but my other camera was completely dead.  So, now I can take pictures of things I've been working on again...

There hasn't been as much time as I'd hoped during this vacation period to pursue any projects - the week before Christmas was spent preparing, baking cookies, etc. and the week after has been recovery of the house and things like that.  But, I have at least given some thought to new projects that I hope to complete in the next several months.  The above picture is a sketch from a photo of my daughter - a pose that I always liked.  It fits well with the concept I have for a painting.  And, it's exciting for me to be going in a different direction than I have in the past - inspirations from the mural project.

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CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH

Let’s see if there are any HoHoDooDa Doodlers still going as we toddle on over here.

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i wanted to a final round-up of festive design as i had run out of time before i could post some of the submissions before the big day. the round-up starts with this beautiful and colourful designs from victoria johnson an english designer living in rome. victoria used to own and run a design studio in new york/london specialising in womenswear and paper product design but is now producing her

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Our generous employees have been snapping away at our office decorations and we’d like to share them with you.



• Oxford quad on 12 December

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/silvareader.jpg

  Courtesy of Anna Silva

• Oxford Quad in December

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/kspencer-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Katie Spencer.

• Oxford quad at night

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/oupmusic-anwen1.jpg

  Courtesy of Anwen Greenaway

• A christmas tree at the OUP Oxford office

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/oxtree-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• Office decorations at OUP Oxford

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/door-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• Program for the OUP Oxford Choir

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/choir2-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• The OUP Oxford Choir performs

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/choir-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• Mince pies in the OUP Oxford Fairway for the choir singing.

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/meatpies1-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• Mince pies and mulled wine in the OUP Oxford Fairway for the choir singing.

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/meatpies2-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• The OUP Oxford Holiday Party

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/masque-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• Ceiling of Oxford Town Hall where OUP Oxford had their holiday party.

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ceiling-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• OUP Oxford Holiday Party decorations

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/holidaypartydecor2-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• OUP Oxford Holiday Party decorations

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/holidaypartydecor-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Lizzie Shannon-Little.

• New York office window

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/IMG_3994-e1355934864164.jpg

  Courtesy of Jeremy Wang-Iverson

• New York office window

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/IMG_3991-e1355934833992.jpg

  Courtesy of Jeremy Wang-Iverson

• New York office window

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/IMG_3982-e1355934799224.jpg

  Courtesy of Jeremy Wang-Iverson

• New York office window

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/IMG_4000-e1355934970454.jpg

  Courtesy of Jeremy Wang-Iverson

• New York office lobby

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/jwitree-edit.jpg

  Courtesy of Jeremy Wang-Iverson

• New York office lobby

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/IMG_4005-e1355935021203.jpg

  Courtesy of Jeremy Wang-Iverson

• New York office lobby

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/oupmusic-alyssa1.jpg

  Courtesy of Alyssa Bender

• New York office lobby

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/menorah-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Alice Northover

• The Cary, NC office lobby

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/tree-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Dan Poindexter

• The Cary, NC lobby tree

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/tree2-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Dan Poindexter

• The Cary, NC canteen

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/snowman-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Dan Poindexter

• Figurines in the Cary, NC office

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/characters-ss.jpg

  Courtesy of Dan Poindexter

• Christmas tree in our Mexico office

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/oupmexico1.jpg

  Courtesy of Mariana de los Rios

• But OUP is always where its authors are.

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/author1.jpg

  Stefan Fafinski poses with Legal Skills, 3rd edition, which he co-authored with Emily Finch. Photo courtesy of @FinchFafinski.

 

 

 

The post Photos from Oxford University Press offices around the globe appeared first on OUPblog.

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Angie is a good model. She stays still for a long time. (Note: Her bed does not really look this much like a peppermint)

We just got back from a brief trip to Kentucky to visit Troy's parents at lake Barkley. We had hoped to stay till the 26th, but the blizzard warning forced us home a day early. We worried about getting trapped in the storm. Snow clearing is not good in KY...

So I am posting this on "storm watch"... Soon we will know if our caution was justified.

Anyway, I did some little sketches of Angie, my in-laws' dog.

Ahhhh....The humiliation continues...

Here is a view of the lake... The sunsets are beautiful.

I also sketched my mom, brother and sister-in-law's pets on Saturday while we celebrated at her house.

The full menagerie!

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I am a member of Jacquie Lawson's ecard community.  (I forget what the subscription costs. ) For the past three years the Jacquie Lawson folks across the pond have offered a digital Advent Calendar.  Download it once and enjoy it for 25 days. Last year, the calendar took us to London where we enjoyed the sights.  This year, we visited an "Alpine" village.  But, best of all, we all got the same cottage living room where we could each decorate the tree, design a wreath and hang stockings.  Here is a photo of my cottage.

As the real world goes crazy, I retreat into this safe digital haven where everything is pretty, peaceful and joyous.  And I think of the friends who might be hanging their stockings in their own digital cottages and it gives me relief and calm.  Thanks, Jacquie and your team of artists and techies, for creating such a lovely diversion.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Wonderful Winter to everyone who stops by this blog and to all their loved ones.

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Santa may have been busy this holiday season but that didn’t stop him from visiting Los Molinos Unified School District to deliver books to many kids.

Students from Los Molinos Elementary School and four other schools in the Northern California area all participated in a yearly breakfast with Santa event.  In past years, students received little gifts from Santa and his elves. This year, students received the gift of reading.

Los Molinos Unified School District is an area where 85% of students are on free and reduced lunch and are Title I. This is an area where most families live in extreme poverty so getting books to give out at this event seemed challenging. That’s when Los Molinos turned to First Book. Since books are available at such affordable prices, students from five different elementary schools all took home brand-new books to call their own.

“Parents, teachers and children could not believe that Santa would bring them such a gift”, said Jill Botts, LMUSD Board of Trustees President.

Holiday cheer was spread to many children this year as they turned through the pages of their new books with much spirit this season.

Anyone who works with kids in need is eligible to get books from First Book. To sign up, visit First Book on the web.

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Happiest of Holiday to y’all!

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..     MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL!   Filed under: Children's Books Tagged: Christmas, holidays, home, merry christmas

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© Holly DeWolf Merry Christmas!

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I seem to do well with deadlines, did this in a few hours today between decorating the cake and baking gingerbread for my tags to go on presents.

Have a happy Christmas everybody

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Bobo's back! That's my best gift for this festive season! Happy Holidays!

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By Neil Armstrong

In recent years German Christmas markets have been promoted to the English as the epitome of a traditional and authentic Christmas. As germany-christmas-market.org.uk suggests, “if you’re tired of commercialism taking over this holiday period and would like to get right away for a real traditional and romantic Christmas market you might want to consider heading to Germany.” If a trip to Germany is impossible, a visit to a German Christmas market nearer to home is more feasible. Beginning with Lincoln in 1982, German Christmas markets have appeared in a number of British towns and cities.

One of the largest markets outside of the German-speaking world now takes place in Birmingham. In 2006 the Daily Telegraph reported on this, commenting: “The late Queen (Victoria) would have almost certainly have been thinking of her beloved Albert, who is credited with introducing a number of German Christmas traditions to Britain, and who was famously pictured with his then young bride and children beside a decorated tree — a custom which has since become an established norm the length and breadth of the country.” The link between Christmas and Germany automatically conjures the image of Prince Albert and the persistence of the myth of his role in the making of the modern English Christmas. Even before the death of the Prince Consort, children’s books such as Peter Parley’s Annual were making unproblematic claims that the Christmas tree was “introduced” to Britain by Prince Albert. The royal Christmas tree at Windsor Castle was not the first to appear in England, though the appearance of the lithograph representation in the Illustrated London News in 1848 undoubtedly did much to promote the custom.

Pinpointing the precise moment when a ritual practice appears in a new culture for the first time is often difficult. One way of examining the cultural transfer of customs is to look at the activities of artistic and literary elites. The first reference to German Christmas customs to appear in England was Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s account of the Christmas he spent in the German town of Ratzeburg in 1798. He described a Christmas Eve custom according to which children decorated the parlour with a yew bough, secured to a table, fastened little tapers to it, and then laid out presents for their parents (the children received their presents on Christmas Day). This account was published in the periodical The Friend in 1809, and was regularly reprinted during the first half of the nineteenth century. Reaction to it varied. Whilst Thomas de Quincey dismissed the “stage sentimentality” of a description which emphasized the potential of Christmas to promote much “weeping aloud for joy” on the part of parents touched by their children’s conduct, the poet Felicia Hemans took a great interest in German customs and attempted to imitate the tree ritual.

From 1840 a number of German Christmas stories for children were translated and published in England. These books emphasized the Christmas tree as being at the heart of a family-centred celebration, though by this time children were now the main recipients of seasonal gifts. The stories served as a reminder of the German origins of the Christmas tree, a fact which was often repeated when the tree was discussed in the popular press. For example, in his periodical Household Words, Charles Dickens described the tree as “that pretty German toy.” The majority of references to the German Christmas customs were not followed by any commentary of the significance of these origins. More occasionally, writers would eulogise the Germans as a simple, domestic and sentimental people, precisely the characteristics which were increasingly ascribed the festive English hearth. Consequently, the English were able to quickly adopt and naturalize the Christmas tree by making it palatable to the national story.

Despite growing Anglo-German rivalry in the years leading up to the First World War, the English view of the German Christmas persisted at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was played out in the press coverage of the famous Christmas truce of 1914, when British and German troops exchanged cigarettes and food, showed one another pictures of their families, and organised football matches. The best known image of the ceasefire appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1915, featuring a German soldier holding aloft a miniature tree as he approached two British soldiers; this was not only a symbol of peace but also of the values of domesticity and indulgence of childhood.

Whilst the Christmas truce has claimed a prominent place in the mythology of the Great War, it was followed by an abrupt change in Anglo-German relations, which were subsequently defined by anti-German propaganda, the legacy of Nazism, and post-war football rivalry. It is perhaps surprising then, that Germany should re-emerge as a spiritual home of the authentic and traditional Christmas in the English imagination. However, this is testimony to the inherent dynamic of nostalgia embedded in the festival. As I argue in Christmas in Nineteenth-Century England, laments for the loss of Christmases past have been present in festive discourse since the early seventeenth century.

German customs play an important role in the development of the English Christmas, but this argument can only be taken so far. After all, in the nineteenth century the English were no strangers to domesticity and the romanticization of childhood. Furthermore, Christmas is a transnational festival, and all modern Christmases are the product of a multiplicity of cultural transfers.

Neil Armstrong is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Gloucestershire. He is the author of “England and German Christmas Festlichkeit, c.1800–1914″ in German History, which is available to read for free for a limited time.

German History is renowned for its extensive range, covering all periods of German history and all German-speaking areas. Every issue contains refereed articles and book reviews on various aspects the history of the German-speaking world, as well as news items and conference reports. It is an essential journal for German historians and of major value for all non-specialists interested in the field.

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The post German Christmas traditions appeared first on OUPblog.

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Just a short note to wish you


A Merry Christmas 

I'll be back on Tuesday, have a safe and happy holiday- Cynthia

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God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen certainly proclaims the jubilation of Christ’s birth, and yet, so many of us struggle to “‘Console my people, console them,’ says your God,” (Isaiah 40:1) during this emotional time of year.  Perhaps it’s time to slow down and talk with our children about the importance they hold in our lives.

Here are a few links and books that might soothe the soul and bring comfort and calmness to the hectic buildup to Christmas.

• Fostering an Attitude of Gratitude: Tips for Parents from the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
• Divorce: A Parent’s Guide for Supporting Children (NASP)
• A Peaceable Kingdom: the Shaker Abecedarius illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen
• Amazing Peace, A Christmas Poem by Maya Angelou
• Shalom, salaam, peace by Howard Bogot
• Talking Peace: A vision for the next generation by Jimmy Carter
• Home for  Christmas by Jan Brett
• The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

Originally posted 12/07/2011; updated 12/24/2012; graphic from Flickr Creative Commons License by Silver Tusk

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copyright 2012 Emily Smith Pearce

Merry Christmas! A belated Happy Chanukah! Cheers to everyone!

This is a painting I did recently on my iPad with my new Sensu brush. More on iPad painting later. Enjoy!

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Just Sweethearts, by Harry Stillwell Edwards, is subtitled “a Christmas Love Story,” but it’s not really a Christmas story at all, although it does make a halfhearted stab at the Unity of Christmastimes. It starts with a Christmas Eve meet cute, and ends the following Christmas Eve. I suspect the subtitle was mostly an excuse to publish an edition with a fancy Christmas-themed binding.

Two years ago I spent a day in December at the library and read all the Christmas stories I could get my hands on, plus this. I promptly forgot the title, but I’ve thought of it from time to time over the past couple of years, and when I finally figured out what it was, I reread it to see if I could figure out why it was so memorable, and whether it was as terrible an excuse for a Christmas story as I remembered. And it was definitely the latter, but the former still has me stumped.

The sweethearts of the title are King Dubignon, an architect, and a young woman he knows only as Billee. He falls in love with her at first sight, and thereafter alternates between talking a lot about how she’s his woman and feeling super awkward about talking about how she’s his woman. If King must talk about fate and stuff as much as he does, I like the way Edwards handles it — Billee is plausibly weirded out and then reassured.

The plot, such as it is, has to do with a young girl being rescued from drowning by a boy who kept them both afloat for many hours, and who these kids are, which…well, they are who you think they are. There are only, like, three other characters in the book.

It’s a pretty silly book, really, but there are bits here and there that seem like they’re from a more modern and self-aware sort of book. It’s as if he’s writing in a sort of Henry Sydnor Harrison milieu and then every once in a while you feel almost as if you’re reading Cosmo Hamilton. It’s weird.

I think the weirdness might be why I like Just Sweethearts, though — that and they way King’s career develops. A lot of the book is much too saccharine for me, but not all of it — its inconsistency works in its favor there. I kind of love it when a book’s badness works in its favor, and I think that’s what’s happening here. The shifts in tone and loose ends make me feel like it’s a puzzle, and I’m probably going to end up rereading Just Sweethearts again in an effort to solve it.

Maybe next Christmas.

Tagged: 1920s, christmas, harrystillwelledwards, romance

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My contribution to this week’s Illustration Friday prompt, “Glow”. The coloring is messy and ugly, but the idea was fun to try and pull off quickly.

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