2021 Online Advent Calendar

Welcome to my Advent post, this 6th day of December! As most of you will know, Jo at Serendipitous Stitching hosts this calendar, and her blog is where you can go to open doors each day to visit. She's the hostess with the mostest! https://serendipitousstitching.blogspot.com/2021/12/2021-online-advent-calendar.html

Here is one of my creations called Noel, finished into a cube..

Designed by Raquel Blanco who does not design cross stitch anymore due to illegal uploading. I, however, lucked out when I bought one other design of hers and downloaded a freebie before she closed it up. Noel turned out so sweet, with her see through green and red wired ribbon.

My memories of the Christmas Tree! We've had so many throughout the years. First in my memory is the aluminum tree we had when I was 5-9 years of age. My mom was the big holiday preparer in the family. We had the colored wheel that sat on the floor and rotated through the red, white, blue, and green panels, turning our aluminum tree into something spectacular! What I would give to have that colored wheel again!

When we moved to Arizona, my parents bought Christmas tree permits from the local national forest office. Trees in my part of the state usually were Juniper and the Pinon pine. The pinon nut comes from the Pinon pine. The pines grow here but the actual pinon nut grows only every other year or two years. You may know they're expensive packaged in the grocery store but they're even more expensive gathered from the actual tree, and roasted and salted. Delicious! But they sell at $30 a pound from roadside sellers here in Arizona and New Mexico.

Another tree we had for Christmas was for the first Christmas without my mother. She had died earlier that year. I was desperate to get some normalcy into the house. This tree was a Pinon pine, pretty scraggly but it was perfect! I decorated it with the bad side to the wall. I soon took on the role my mother had as the main holiday tsar. My daughter now does it. 

For the last 8 years, we've had fake trees. I like real trees but I had destroyed about 3 vacuum cleaners cleaning up the needles! So fake tree it is! I'm now down to the 3ft or 4ft trees, one green and one white. They get decorated with all the stitched Christmas ornaments I've made through the years or received as gifts and from exchanges. 

Those are my Christmas tree memories! Thank you Jo, for hosting the Advent Calendar and for the bloghops throughout the year. I will leave you with another Christmas cube I made. Unfortunately, I can't remember which Primitive Punchneedle and Prim Stitcher issue it came out of but it turned out very nicely..

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!