Wendy Williams is an Australian textile artist. She has an online shop called Flying Fish Kits
where you can order kits and supplies for quilting, appliqué work and embroidery. This Christmas Tree has been hand-appliquéed and machine-quilted.
Christmas baubles by UK textile artist @NancyNicholson.
St. Georges Chapel Choir sings We Wish You a Merry Christmas!
And for anyone with some time and a yen to hear more from Natalie MacMaster, here she is a few years ago with her family. Only some of the children are hers, the others are cousins, all talented. The first and oldest girl is 12 in this 5-year old video. In the intervening years MacMaster and her partner Donnell Leahy have added more children to their family and they all dance and fiddle expertly and with great joy.
I hadn't planned to say anything more about Christmas baking, because after Beatriz Muller, what could possibly be left to enthuse about!
It turns out that professional bakers in Paris create the most unbelievably creative and wonderful Yule Logs you could imagine (see above!). L'Éxpress France featured a slideshow of 25 best Logs recently and you can see them here: Lancer le Diaporama Photos. Here are a few Logs to whet your whistle ;) but you should go to the slideshow on the website to see all the photos with full descriptions of ingredients and cost.
L'Éxpress is a French website but my browser asked if I wanted to translate to English and when I said, "yes", it did so in mere seconds. Isn't modern technology wonderful!
Librarians and library patrons around the world will relate to this creative video from the Shoalhaven Library staff who really get into the spirit of the season.
For those interested in details, Shoalhaven is in New South Wales, Australia. A coastal city on the Tasman Sea, not too far south of Sydney, it's a popular vacation area, close to more than 100 pristine beaches of white sand. Of course, it's summer there now and I'll bet it's crazy busy.
This group of Aussie librarians at Shoalhaven are a wild and crazy bunch. Here's an earlier video they also collaborated on to promote the various services offered there.
Recently I learned about an event that started in New York City's Rockefeller Square in 1974 and that has since spread to nearly 300 cities around the world. Tuba Christmas.
Every year during the festive season, people of all ages who play the tuba, sousaphone, euphonium, baritone and their several variations gather for a rehearsal followed by a concert of Christmas carols that have been specially arranged for these instruments of the low register.
These events happen mostly in the US, but there are also Tuba Christmas concerts in Switzerland, several provinces in Canada (though, sadly, none in Ontario) and in Costa Rica. They are joyful events, often performed outdoors, even on ice, and draw many appreciative spectators.Somebody said that listening to a choir of tuba players is like having a sonic hug.
Here's a short video of the most recent concert in NYC, still at Rockefeller Square.
The next video is a bit longer. It tells the story of the beginnings of Tuba Christmas in Baltimore.
It's December 1 and what that means, among many other things, is that Movember has come to an end for another year. Movember is the global movement for men to draw attention to issues of men's health, both physical and mental, by encouraging each other in the growing of a mustache each year during the month of November.
Some guys really get into the spirit of it all.
though I suspect some of these works of facial art are done for special competitions for such things.
Anyway, now that Movember has morphed into December, thoughts are moving ahead to the holidays, with these kinds of photos starting to show up on Instagram.
What do you think? Fun? Do you like the look? Makes you feel festive?
Apparently the Christmas cactus in our breakfast room has not been paying attention to all the hype about starting the Christmas season too early. There have been buds and the occasional bloom on the plant for several weeks now and, at just under 6 weeks until Christmas, it's looking pretty festive.
This is the plant that Magnus brought for a house-warming gift 11 years ago.
Hilda sent this to me and I thought it looked like the kids had a lot of fun putting this together. Love the Kiwi accents. They are all from St. Paul's Church, Auckland.
Did you have a chance to catch Libera
on PBS the other night? Libera is an English all-boy vocal group which tours the world and was in the US last April to record the program for PBS as part of their fund-raising efforts. The choir was well-received by the enthusiastic American audience.
They are truly outstanding: ordinary boys transformed through practice and discipline into a renowned choir that is a delight to watch and listen to.
