miss marie's miscellany

Christmas lights

Winners and Christmassy thoughts

Happy announcements today, the 2 winners of the giveaway are;

Petit Filoux, who has won the red rose corsage and Miss Folies who won the star garland. I'm sorry everyone who left their name couldn't win something,but thank you for stopping by and saying hello. I will be emailing the 2 winners to get their postal addresses so their parcels can be sent off soon.

This time last year, I did a post every day in December, an Advent calendar of posting. I have missed the deadline for doing that this year, so I will do some festive posts when I can throughout the next few weeks. To get started, here's a lovely photo I took in the garden a couple of days ago, nice and cheery to get everyone in the Christmas mood!

 

December collage

A happy month with Christmas and the preparations beforehand, good times spent with family and friends, some crafty goings-on and lots of glitter and tinsel.........oh yes, and lots of snow!

 

Christmas Eve

via www.youtube.com

This opening movement of the Rachmaninov Vespers(although strictly speaking not Christmas music) seems to fit the mood for Christmas Eve, even if one is not religious. It is such a wonderful and moving piece and to hear a live performance is one of the truly great musical experiences one can have. 

24th

Stained glass at the Burrell Collection. I love the jewel colours, still vivid despite the glass being 500 years old.

 

23rd

Snow everywhere, after a full afternoon's snowfall yesterday. It makes life a bit tricky if you are trying to get to work, but it is very pretty.

 

 

 

Below is the view from the top of the hill near the house. The distant hills you can see are the Campsies. I like the way the sunlight has made the top half appear sepia-tinted and the shadier bottom half appears black and white; all due to the light at that moment, no digital trickery was involved!

 

Sunset with some amazing colour a little later.

 

Too cold for anymore walking, time to go inside!

 
 
 
 

22nd

During this cold, snowy weather we are enjoying(?!)I find myself craving some floral colour; so today for our advent post, we have a horticultural retrospective of this year, some of the lovely blooms I've grown in my garden and seen when out and about. I hope it brightens your day!

 

21st

There are always some old comedy classics on TV over the festive season, some good which stand the test of time and some you wish they really wouldn't show again; even Morecambe and Wise can pale a little after the umpteenth viewing. For me, this is one of the former! I remember laughing at 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave'Em' and being amazed that Michael Crawford did all his own stunts. So enjoy his antics as an inept Angel of the Lord, complete with beret!

via www.youtube.com

20th

I recently re-read 'A Christmas Carol' with my book group as our Christmas book, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Such a good story and so well-written, the language is so chatty and modern even, and vividly descriptive of characters and places. We all read it from different editions and one of my fellow readers had a lovely book with the original illustrations by John Leech, which I really liked. Here are 2 of them;

Marley's ghost

 

Mr Fezziwig's ball

Aren't they charming?!  
 

19th

A frosty start this morning

 

 
 and a light sprinkling of snow this afternoon 

has put me in the mood for some crochet snowflakes

 

The pattern for the one above is available free here

 

I scribbled this pattern down and can't remember where I found it, sorry!

They will be adorning the Christmas tree!