"Families are the very BEST Christmas present"

I wanted to send you a warm and happy Christmas celebration. Things are so very close here and I am trying to "get in the Mood" but it has not come. I am so used to making beautiful gifts and giving them to each and every person that is dear to me but not this year and I am praying for the Lord to show me the REAL meaning of this Holdiay. I think I will make a birthday cake for the Lord Jesus and make our day into a birthday party with meaningful gifts of HIS birth. It hasn't helped much that I have come down with a really bad cold but maybe I will just rest and let the day go by. I will have time to pray and reflect on the real meaning of this commercialized hoop to la. We are NOT cooking Christmas meal. We always have several come and I love cooking for them all but it is so expensive for us and I even have to do all of the cleaning up so We have decided that this year we will fix meals for ourselves and IF anyone wants to bring food for the traditional meal they will have to bring it. I will probably make a cake or some dessert.

I had been wanting to do this necklace since I saw it in May at the Atlanta Bead Market. I finally got out the pattern and really enjoyed making it. I made the earrings out of one size smaller beads and I think they turned out pretty. There are over 100 Czech fire polished beads in the necklace alone. I used a size 15 seed bead for the earrings with a hex cut bead and reduced down the size of the Czech bead to a size 3. I thought you might enjoy seeing the projects I am working on.