I really love Christmas, the rushing around, the crowds, the lights, ribbons, cookies. . . . . I could go on but you get the picture. One of my favorite Christmas images, icon really, is the gingerbread house. Now, I tried making the real thing a few years in a row, w/out any true success. My mind understands how the process is supposed to go, but somewhere between my brain and my hands, it gets jumbled. So, I make do with smaller representations in more stable materials, like felt.

The past 2 years has seen our family welcome 2 new grandchildren, both girls Sadie and Charlotte. I love being a grandma!

I've used the name Happiewitch for a good, long time. It was always a joke in my house while I was growing up, that one of our relatives, an older female, was a witch. At the time there was a popular little bit of kitchen decor and folklore called a kitchen witch. You were supposed to hang her on her little broom in your kitchen and in return, she would prevent burnt bread, boiled over pots, or bubbled over casseroles. She was modeled after the Italian Strega.

The family member who was referred to as the witch had a distinctly sour disposition, grouchy and easily irritated. Well, I was never even close to being grouchy. In fact I often joke about being the Chinese Water torture of happiness because some people find my endless cheerfulness akin to the torture of water drip, drip, dripping on their foreheads.

So, anyone who remembers the fairy tale Hansel & Gretel, knows about the witch and her gingerbread house. The witch had a plan to capture children, fatten them up and cook them in her oven. Hansel and Gretel fell into her Gingerbread House trap after they were abandoned by their father and they started snacking on the witch's gingerbread house. Since I'm a happiewitch who makes Christmas gingerbread houses, I don't trap little children, I simply say to them,"Please don't eat my gingerbread house!"

I have always loved creative activities of any and every sort. I was one of those fortunate kids who had a fabulous elementary school art teacher and a fabulous art program. We did linoleum block printing, pinch pottery and pottery on the wheel, we did basket weaving, silk screening, pen and ink drawing, pencil, charcoal and oil pastel drawings. You name it, we got to try it. My mother supported that facet of our education by encouraging us to learn embroidery, painting and music as both instrumentalists and vocalists. Our summer school classes always involved the arts, as did summertime activities at the local library or community center.

Dad was no slouch in that department either. Anytime he was working on a construction project of one sort or another, he was more than happy to have us out there with him using his old fashioned tools driving nails, drilling holes and using his planes. The only thing off limits was his folding ruler. I can only assume that my two older sisters must have broken one or two of them.