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Today’s Advent celebration is sending out holiday cards. I love holiday cards. I think I’ve saved every one I’ve received over the last decade or so. (Not that I could find them or anything, but I know I haven’t thrown them away.) So today I’m doing the very office-y tasks of addressing and stamping envelopes and carting them to the mailbox. I wish I could say I had the time or inclination to make my own, but I can’t. I couldn’t manage to make a photo montage card, either. Pat’s grandmother, every Easter, would receive the most beautiful handmade cards from her relatives in East Germany. They couldn’t get Easter cards, so they’d make their own, and they were beautiful keepsakes.

This little Noel gift tag was to a gift my mom received back before she was married. It was from Dan. Who’s Dan? No idea, but I love the design — and the fact that my mom kept it in a box of unused cards, which I found just a couple of years ago.

Are you making yours this year? If I had my freewheeling money-is-no-object choice, I’d send out either letterpress or vintage cards. Here are some ones I’m coveting, which are all available on Etsy.com.

from gomonkeydesign

from WellWudJaLookAtThat

from vintageartssupplies

from LetterpressLight

from pressmade

There are so many great options out there! Love these!

I didn’t manage to get any snowflakes cut and hung up until late last night, so this is more info on what we did yesterday to celebrate Advent. It was one of those never-stop-moving days. But how easy and under-appreciated are hand-cut, homemade snowflakes? I think very. Cutting snowflakes has got to be one of the easiest, and probably most expected, winter things to do, but I still love them. There’s something satisfying about folding paper, making a few cuts, unfolding that paper — all of the sudden delicate and tender, and discovering a new pattern in the paper.

You probably don’t need to know the details about how I did these. If you went to first grade in any US public school, you remember. These are pretty simple, 2-D snowflakes. There are links to the fancy stuff below. But, just because I can blather on here, here’s how I did these, in three easy steps:

1. Punch (or cut) circles out of holiday paper. Lots of people start from squares, but I wanted smaller snowflakes to hang, so I started with a circle. (You can obviously use any paper you like. Jean uses coffee filters and paints them a bit, for example.)
2. Because the paper was heavier and the circles smaller, I folded the circles into fourths. The larger the paper, the easier to keep folding, even into six points, like every (natural) snowflake.
3. Cut away! Open and hang. I used thin ribbon and a hole punch to hang this garland across the windows in our living room. More are in production.

If you’d rather bypass the paper and the scissors, you can make snowflakes online, here. Very fun!

If you want to get all fancy and have some time to spare, here’s how to make a 3-D snowflake. I might try these today, if I get a chance.

And, wow! These six-pointed snowflakes put my little ones to shame. These are really beautiful, with instructions! Here are more instructions, if you need them.

OK, here’s what we’ve been up to!

Advent Day #3: Give a donation of food to Manna Food Bank. From our pantry to theirs.

Advent Day #4: Celebrate Iver’s birthday with a little gathering of family and friends, with cake and streamers and toys, toys, toys! And dinner with family in festive Biltmore Village.

Advent Day #5: Visit The Big Crafty craft fair and look for gifts for friends and family.

Advent Day #6: Make a gift bag for Meals on Wheels to deliver to one of their seniors.

We had a fun-filled, snow-blown weekend in West Asheville. It’s been filled with loved ones and tons of laughter and music and great food. We also kept up our Advent celebrations. We spent early Friday morning in our pajamas going through our cabinets to put together bags of food for the food bank. We spent Saturday welcoming a small group of revelers to our house to celebrate Iver’s birthday. Nearly everyone in Pat’s family came from states away to celebrate! It was amazing!

Sunday, Ann and I braved the snow and freezing wind to go to The Big Crafty. Some of my favorite local artists were there (like Patty Bilbro) — and we found some new ones to love! Including Ali Douglass, with her beautiful illustrations. I bought two of her prints to hang in the girls’ room. I love the themes and the colors, her chairs and transistor radios. She has a website and an Etsy site, if you’d like to see her other work. Here are detail shots of them.

Monday, Stacy, Iver and I went out to get supplies to fill Christmas gift bags for Meals on Wheels in Asheville, which we delivered to their offices to be delivered to one of their clients.

Look at all these gift boxes! And this is just one corner! The organization serves about 500 people in 660 square miles around Asheville, they told us, and this is the first year they’ve done this particular program. Their workroom was filled with beautiful handmade jewelry, scarves and afghans, with notebooks and pens and boxes wrapped in holiday paper waiting to be filled. It was amazing! Meals on Wheels in the Piedmont delivered meals to my mom and dad for several years, so I have a love of the organization and all they do to provide not only nutritious food, but also companionship to seniors who are homebound.

Today? We might pick out a tree this afternoon, if we can. And we’re going to make snowflakes, which is so appropriate because it’s been flurrying for going on four days now!