Christmas Past. . .

The Dogwood Wreath, closeup

 A friend of mine had said that this Christmas would be memorable. It was. We felt fortunate that everyone was healthy, and calm and bright; even if distant. We have spend Christmas's without any of our kids home before, but this one did feel distinctly different. Neither John or I were inclined to travel, or go skiing, as we have in the past. We did have a lovely day, brioche for breakfast, and a long hike with Jasper. Ha. As usual. And now I can post what I was working on for so long. . . porcelain candle wreaths for the Daughters: A four-candle advent wreath for Beth, and a 5-candle not-advent wreath for Sarah. I was so pleased with the outcomes. 

 

The Dogwood wreath

Two things to note, though. One is that I completely underestimated what it would take to pack and ship these puppies. I am still astonished that they made it to their cross country destinations in one piece. Kudos to Federal Express.The second is that their success may have made me a little overconfident with porcelain; possibly explaining the disaster in the previous post.

The Dogwood Wreath  with candles

Christmas has always been important to me, in spite of my devout agnosticism. I was raised Christian, of course, but even after my spiritual awakening, I have continued to appreciate the themes that Christmas celebrates. Generosity and a coming together being topmost.  The notion of lighting the dark is so strong for me that we never eat dinner during the dark months without candlelight. Nothing celebrates this quite as brightly as Christmas. Unless it's Hanukkah. 

The Poppy wreath with candles

This year, though, a new word kept coming into my mind and my annual End-of-year card writings. It was "hope". I realized the degree to which hope figured into a this now-famous baby being born into and embraced by a fraught world, representing hope for something kinder, gentler, more humane, and enlightened.

 

The Poppy Wreath

Honestly, it feels naively optimistic to hope these days. But there you find yourself on Christmas day, talking to friends and loved ones, and feeling hope in spite of yourself. You do so knowing that you're setting yourself up for disappointment, but you do it anyway.

The Poppy Wreath, closeup

Next?  The porcelain experiments (using white stoneware in tandem) will begin next week. . .when I get a little of the studio Christmas chaos under control. 

Wishing everyone in the world a promising and hopeful 2021.