You guys kill me (Patty)

I WAS going to post the winner of Andy’s Advent giveaway on Sunday, but —

353

THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE!!!

comments later, I wanted to give enough time for all of you to enter and me to put off counting until I hit some deadline that forced me to do that random number generator thingie, get my number and select the winner.  Off to the random number generator, plugged in the total comments, clicked, and it produced the number 249. Of course, no easy 57 for me. After counting down more times than I can count – Dusan, you were 100, Janet in California was 200 (this is me keeping track so I don’t have to count more than 100 at a time) , I have determined the winner.  Nicolai R.  BTW, I don’t count replies, just in case someone wants to go in and recount, which you wouldn’t  really want to since it won’t change anything even if I counted wrong.  The decision of the judge is final and irreversible because I’m bad at counting and bad at math, so this was quite painful.

Nicolai, click on the contact us button over there on the left, send me your contact info and address, and I’ll fire that off to Andy, and you can let me or him know what you want, and Andy will get it sent to you.

Happy Holidays to all of you who played!  I wish everyone could win!

It’s a few days before Christmas in Denver, and the snow is falling in light fluffy piles, they are predicting 6-12 8-12 inches.  It’s Denver, predictions are less accurate than guessing the number of jellybeans in the big jar.

This is a rare, lovely treat for us.  People always laugh at me when I tell them it’s more likely Denver will be having 60-degree weather for Christmas than snow on the ground.  Our snowiest months are March and April.  Getting snow before January is heavenly – it’s an excuse to completely hibernate on the longest night of the year (hey!  that’s tonight while I’m writing this, not when you are reading this tomorrow, which is today — oh, you know what I mean).  I’ve got my extended version blu-ray DVDs of Lord of the Rings all qeued up. I’m going to run out to the grocery store early in the morning in the four-wheel drive, everyone will still be at home, waiting for the snow to stop, stock up on ingredients for oxtail soup, sides for the geese and pork roast, and then back home, into my Moroccan caftans, and I’m not moving again until after Christmas.  I’ll break out the sewing machine and start playing with my designs, drink champagne, probably too much, stare at the snow through the window and my Christmas tree lights, read, watch a few stored-up episodes of the Real Housewives, get sleepy watching my dogs sleep in front of the fire until their bellies get too hot, then move to the other side of the room while the other one gets up and takes his place by the fire.

I’ve told all my Christmas stories here before, the smells of the live tree at church on Christmas Eve night, the bags of candy they handed out full of chocolate clusters and nuts that my dad immediately pawed through picking out the stuff he knew we didn’t like when we got home.  My mom and my brother Harry singing “Chestnuts Roasting on and Open Fire” completely off-key every Christmas, and it never fails to make me laugh because they are the two people in the world that sing worse than me.  And the sadness because Christmastime holds memories of death – my grandmother, my dad, and others.  We have this running joke in my family that we should look around at Thanksgiving and see who is looking a little wan and give them an extra hug in case they slip the mortal coil before Christmas.  Christmas is memories of a frigid crystalline morning with thousands of tiny icicles hanging off of every tree and there was a carpet of icy frost on the ground  that my father had to go in that day, and my heart shattered with the intake of  soul-freezing air and healed with the beauty of the light refracting like a thousand brilliant lights as the sun came up.

Those are my Christmas stories, and the smells from my lifetime of Christmases are peanut brittle bubbling, breads baking, hams and turkeys cooking, hot chocolate, Cinnabar, cloves in the orange pomander – is that what you call it?  My new smells are ginger-lemon-honey water (I have got this infusing thing perfected), Thymes Frasier Fir candles,  and Flowerbomb extrait. Well, yes!  Hey, I like Flowerbomb, and I totally dig that extrait, it feels more grown up but keeps all the cotton candy patchouli girly-girl fluff.   Don’t judge even though I know you want to.

And I feel so grateful for another year of all of you joining us when you can, talking back to us, talking to each other, forming friendships, giving out your compassion and help when asked.  You are an amazing community of people, and I have wrapped myself this solstice night, in the days before Christmas, with my gratitude for each of you.

Well, let’s do a little more tangible expression of gratitude.  Giveaway is a teeny sample of that new JAR, Bed of Roses,  Flowerbomb extrait. Purdistance M and the first one, and maybe a couple of other things. I’ll do two of these.  so comment away on anything you want to talk about – your memories of holiday time or just winter, if you’re dreading or enjoying the holidays this year.  Since I won’t talk to you before  Christmas, Merry Chrismas to you all!!!