New Year's Eve is always a fun time for our family. I don't make any resolutions but I just keep working at the regular routine things that are a priority. In year's past we've always gathered at my dear mother-in-law's house for a family get-together but the past few years we had illnesses or weather problems and have ended up staying home. This year my m-i-l is in a Senior Care Rehabilitation Center so we're holding the get-together at our house again. My mom and my sister are here with us so we talk and gab to no end and at midnight we'll go outside and join a few of our friends/neighbors to yell and bang pans with spatulas and even set off a few fireworks. We have lots of good food and Starbucks Frappuccinos . . .and left over Mandel Bread from Christmas (My friend, Samantha's recipe, from her Home Realm blog -- she says mandel "is the old fashioned Jewish term for today's trendy "biscotti"). . .My dh and I tried a new wine, Winter White, and have some for tonight. It's from Leelanau Wine Cellar from Leelanau County. It's a light, semi-sweet, fruity, white wine. Delicious, sweet but not too sweet in a beautiful blue bottle.

I've been working on some handmade snowmen for Christmas gifts for family and a friend. We tend to do more hand made things around Christmas time but I plan to do more in the upcoming year. So far, I've made three snowmen with a "winter-snow" look rather than a "Christmasy" look and that way they can be used throughout the entire winter season. I planned to make seven and hoped to have them all done by Christmas but it didn't work out. I still have four more to make. One for each of my daughters, one for my sister and one for my neighbor-daugther. I gave my cousin her snowman a couple of weeks ago when my side of the family met for our Christmas get together.

My ideas for each of the snowmen came from the snowmen on the tins that I found at a local craft store. Each is different and unique. Making my own pattern wasn't difficult and the wool felt was easy to work with. All the buttons are old, antique buttons from a garage sale find several years ago and the little piece of cloth in the pocket of my cousin's snowman is piece of old vintage scrap quilting material found at a garage sale also. I crocheted the hats and scarves in single crochet with a small hook so the yarn curled on its own.

This first picture is of my cousin's snowman. The second snowman is for my mom and her favorite color is blue so her snowman's attire is blue, naturally. The third and last snowman is for a friend of mine who shares the love of art.

He spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine.
Michael Card The Final Word