Listen, the Snow is Falling

In the 1970s, when Christmas decorations tended to consist of paper chains and lanterns made of tissue honeycombs that would decompose in the loft before they were needed again, my sister and I started making paper snowflakes to stick on the windows. 

She was pretty nifty with the scissors, so hers were delicate with intricate shapes. I was a few years younger and not yet fully in charge of my hands, and my efforts were more like squashed snowballs with a few holes poked through. The memory of us sitting together, concentrating with scissors and covering the floor with little flecks of paper still cheers me.

Now we are in our forties, still making snowflakes.  There were none for several years when our respective paths wandered onto separate maps. But now, every year she sends me new ones to hang up at Christmas. I still have a quite a few from previous years.

This year I was organised enough to make and send some to her while she has a year off from the scissors and paper. It was a nice thing to do whilst watching the telly, although you need a bag on your lap to catch the confetti.

I also made some for our house. This is the sum total of my scissor-work this month:

This one got a bit mangled after being left on the sofa

Far right: one of my sister's snowflakes

These, along with some lights in the birch tree in the garden, are all we have in the way of Christmas decorations. It's our first Christmas as a smaller family; one of us is missing so it will be a quiet, reflective time. 

Little Creature is so excited about Santa; he and Mr K sent a letter up the chimney and received a confirmation text from an elf administrator at Santa's HQ. Things have changed a bit since we used to write our Christmas letters. 

From Burdastyle July 2012

December is hurtling by and I haven't even traced the pattern for this month's project.  I will be doing a short sleeve blouse pattern from Burdastyle using some printed lawn from stash. It looks easy enough; I think tracing the pattern will be the most time consuming part of the project as it's from the magazine (lots of different pattern pieces overprinted on one sheet).  Not very festive but there's not much fabric and this will come in handy at some point next year.

I've got under a week to do this to complete my year-long challenge....