Merry Christmas!!

My feelings about religion are shaky at best but I love the Christmas hymns and this one in particular. The harmony is beautiful and I like the idea of light in the darkness. (I also have a strange connection to the shepherds - maybe due to my love of sheep - my favorite phrase in The Messiah is "And there were shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night".)

Merry Christmas all!!

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming,
as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright,
amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
the Rose I have in mind;
Mary we behold it,
the Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love aright,
she bore to us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

The shepherds heard the story
proclaimed by angels bright,
How Christ, the Lord of glory
was born on earth this night.
To Bethlehem they sped
and in the manger they found Him,
As angel heralds said.

This Flower, whose fragrance tender
with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
the darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God,
from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.

It is indeed a Christmas miracle

The New Jersey State Council on the Arts has unfrozen arts funding.


Merry Christmas you old Building and Loan!!!

When the Merry Hand-made Christmas rush is over...

I may just try to knit up Mrs. Roosevelt's mittens!!! How exciting - I did notice her knitting bag when we went to visit Val-Kill and was a little jealous because it's totally cute.

On the second day of my holiday meltdown my true love gave to me...

....the final piece of a vest pattern that doesn't make up right (I'm not even sure that anyone will understand what that means but there it is!)

So many lovely things have happened in the last couple of weeks! But A Very Merry Hand-crafted Christmas is mere days away so I have to get back to my sweatsho-I mean project bag, instead of drooling over all of the fabulous things that have been going on.

But coming soon:
1. You're Making Me (Girl) Crazy
2. Why I love Jan Maxwell in 100 words or less
3. Sparkly Shoes: a Kate Baldwin Tale
and last but not least 4. An Oscar Wilde Cream Puff for Christmas

Sound exciting? Well, it was! And I can't wait to (proverbially) wave my arms around about it all. But first? CRAFTING!

Help!

"The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling."

- E. Eisner, The Arts and the Creation of Mind

SarahB was nice enough to post all of this on her blog but I will re-post in case anyone missed it! The State of New Jersey has frozen the 10 million dollars that it promised arts organizations including several that are near and dear to my heart. If you've stumbled across this blog and have been reading, then I don't need to shout at you about the importance of arts in our society. This freeze is already having a devastating effect on organizations throughout the state and will only continue to close doors.

I would so appreciate it if anyone has the time to follow the directions below - maybe, maybe, maybe if we deluge our state government with letters they will listen!!!!!

Here's what you need to do as a member or supporter of any arts organization effected by this freeze:

1) Visit www.artpridenj.com

2) When the homepage comes up, please click on the flashing box on the left top that says Action Alert and has stars on it (red, white and blue).

3) It will prompt you for a zip code, so please enter your home zip code (here's one if you need a Jersey zip - 07042).

4) Then you will select the top item called, "state funding freeze impact on cultural community."

This will automatically create several emails that will be written on your behalf to state officials.

5) All you need to do is to enter your name after the word Sincerely and then enter your address (if you need a Jersey address, email me and I'll give you one) and email address and then click on the box that has an automatic check mark that would put you on their mailing list and this will remove the check mark so that you are not signing up for anything at all and simply sending emails to the state officials.

6) Then click send.

Your message will be sent to Governor Corzine AND your local legislative district.

I thank you, the Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts thanks you, and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey thanks you!!

Words of the Week*

Deciduous
Function: Adj
Etymology: Latin
Date: 1688
-Falling off or shed seasonally or at a certain stage of development in the life cycle.
-Having deciduous parts
-Ephemeral

Ephemeral
Function: Adj
Etymology: Greek
Date: 1576
-Lasting one day only
-Lasting a very short time

Meiosis
Function: Noun
Etymology: New Latin
Date: 1550
-The presentation of a thing with underemphasis especially to achieve a greater effect; understatement.
-The cellular process that results in the number of chromosomes in gamete-producing cells being reduced to one half and that involves a reduction devision in which one of each pair of homologous chromosomes passes to each daughter cell and a mitotic division.

Lotos
Function: Noun
Etymology: Latin and Greek
Date: Circa 1541
-A fruit eaten by the lotus-eaters and considered to cause indolence and dreamy contentment; also; a tree reputed to bear this fruit.

*"What week?" - you may ask. I don't know.

"There's something hypnotic about the word tea" - Lord Peter Wimsey, Gaudy Night

And there is something marvelous about a cup of Harney and Sons English Breakfast tea being savored in the beautiful naturally lit cafe in the lobby of the Morgan Library before one sees a Gutenberg Bible and letters written by Jane Austen...

...Or about a pint of cider savored in a pub on a rainy afternoon whilst one is devouring a delicious stuffed potato...

...Or (several) gin and tonic(s) that helped one power through nine glorious hours of the Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries complete with breaks for both stretching and reading aloud...

...Or a cup of Irish tea the next morning while one is indulging in breakfast in bed and watching a Harriet Walter double feature (well, triple if you count that second viewing of Sense and Sensibility watched with the audio commentary on)...

How is it that I got so lucky?