Merry Christmas!

Hello friends! I hope you are having a happy holiday, or if you don't celebrate one at the moment, then a deliciously relaxing vacation full of people you love and good food and good reads.

Above: a not very impressive picture of our tree! Mr. Crane and I have had an unusual holiday - a quiet and romantic Christmas. Almost every year we visit Wisconsin, home of the extended Crane family with my awesome mom and sisters and BILs and kids, but this year we stayed home for a change. We've both been frazzled.

Lots of ornaments from each of our childhoods came out of boxes. Several had to be immediately repaired, including a number of these diorama ornaments my sisters and mom and I made years ago out of cookie cutters and tiny figurines. They are my favorite ornaments. The one above was Heidi with a deer. There were some other very falling apart ornaments - glass and bits of metal -  that couldn't be repaired, but Mr. Crane has very strong feelings about Christmas: he feels all ornaments must be put on the tree, because if not now, when? Or else thrown out. So there are a few very questionable ornaments on the tree.

It's fun to have a tree and pull out those old ornaments, though holidays tend to make me miss my dad, who passed away three and a half years ago. And seeing those old ornaments!! I think many of you know how that can be around the holidays. I am with you, sisters and brothers!

I wanted to put a cat up on top of the tree, as that would more accurately symbolize the hierarchy here at the Crane home, but that didn't happen...only because there wasn't one to put there. And of course, as I mentioned in a previous post, there was the coating of the lower branches with tabasco to discourage cats eating the tree. I ran this picture before, but it's one of my favorite Mr. Crane pictures, because he is so annoyed. 

We had the kind of self-indulgent Christmas only two writers and their cats can have, giving each other books and notebooks and things like that, and then sitting with the cats and reading with candlelight and the tree. And eating coconut soup and chocolate. Here is one of the gifts I got from Mr. Crane: a pre-order of Lothaire! I love this cover Mr. Crane drew. I think it pretty much sums up what he thinks the book will be about!

Oh, I have to put this up, too: something a facebook friend found. It's a magnet. I may have to grab one for a prize at some point. Thanks RT!!

Anyway, happy holidays, friends! I appreciate you from the bottom of my heart.  I hope you feel happy today.  ♡