Christmas for the Birds

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Matthew 6:26

After hearing this verse used in a sermon at church, it got me thinking about those sweet little birds (and our pet squirrel Elizabeth). After all, it was almost Christmas, and they should get a special something for being our feathered and furry friends... Sure, the Lord takes care of them. But maybe we could do something extra special for them in this happy Christmas season?

So one evening before Christmas, Quinn and I set to work. We gathered bird seed, and using a recipe I found here, we started making ornaments.

The recipe used corn syrup, and it made the mixture super sticky! Thankfully, it wasn't too difficult to press into our cookie cutters.

Now it was time to make the holes for hanging them!

Some colorful bendy straws made the perfect thing to make the holes. 
Now all we had to do was wait...

But we're not the type to just sit around, so we spent the rest of our evening making popcorn, cranberry, and peanut garlands. 

We were going to make some birds very, very happy!

The next morning dawned beautifully, with a cold wind blowing snow about in the meadows. With no snow or rain coming down, it was the perfect time to take a walk.

We gathered the family together and we were off down one of the forest trails near our home to find the perfect tree!

Laura followed behind us, skipping all the way:

Soon we left the main path and wandered out in the meadows and muskegs for a bit, searching around carefully.

Abigail and I each carried a basket packed with the tree trimmings Quinn and I had made the night before.

Finally, we found what we were looking for!
And adorable little hemlock tree, the perfect Christmas tree for the birds and little creatures of the meadow.

The birdseed ornaments we had made turned out wonderfully, and oh-so pretty to look at!

A twist of candy-stripped baker's twine to hang them and they were ready for the tree!



Now all that was left to do was to decorate the tree!

Everyone had a wonderful time trimming the little hemlock tree with presents for the birds, and the tree looked magical when we finished:

A very happy sight to be seen just off the trail.

Oh! But don't worry, we remembered the friends at our home too! We made something very extra special for them...

With some leftover birdseed and cranberries, we made them a yummy wreath as a Christmas present.
Our squirrel friend Elizabeth has inspected it and we think she approves!
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Don't forget your feathered and furry friends this cold season, I'm sure they would all like to wake up to a birdseed wreath hanging up in your garden.

Emily's Saint Lucia's Day

If you look into the hidden recesses of piled up boxes in the Barn entryway, you will be rewarded with very old pictures of Paul, Melissa, and of course all the kids (along with some old ski or camping equipment Abigail thought was lost forever). With the date of Quinn and I's wedding drawing ever nearer, he and I had gone on an archeological expedition to find pictures of himself as a kid for a slide show we were putting together. 

This happened over a year ago, yet my mind can still see the huge boxes as they came out of hiding (from behind the sleeping bags and boxes of Alaska String Band CDs). They were full to bursting with books, cards, and envelopes full of pictures. 

 I loved looking through everything, and along the way I found some real treasures. My favorite was a photo of Laura all dolled up and looking positively unimpressed with whatever Melissa was having her do:

One Christmas, Melissa had decided Laura and the family needed to celebrate Santa Lucia Day, or Saint Lucy's Day, a very old Swedish tradition that takes place in the darkest of winter. The oldest daughter of the family got up early in the morning on the 13th of December and made saffron buns (or in Laura's case, cinnamon buns) and served them to her family wearing a white dress with a red sash and a glowing wreath of candles on her head.

In Laura's own words: "This is it. This is how I'm going to die..."

Even though she says it was the worst thing ever (and her expression in that first photo really speaks truth to that), I think her smile - and Quinn's too - show that she was having a good time. Maybe.

After seeing the adorable photo of Laura I became really interested in Saint Lucy's Day - and the little girl in me longed to dress up all pretty and serve my family cinnamon buns (I AM the eldest after all). 
I told Quinn all about how I wanted to celebrate Saint Lucy's Day, and being the wonderful husband that he is, he encouraged me to do it. I don't think he planned for me to go quite as far as I did though...

Saturday the 12th finally came and Quinn and I stayed up late into the night making saffron buns from a recipe I found. 

I had never cooked with saffron before, and I was so excited to see how the buns turned out!

While we rolled out the dough and curled it into little 'S' shapes, I told Quinn the story behind the Swedish holiday:


According to legend, Lucia brought food and supplies to Christians hiding away in catacombs. She wanted to carry as much as she could, so she wore a wreath of candles to light her way.

However, the story comes to a sad end with Lucia being martyred for her faith. With such a beautiful story of devotion to the Lord and her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I hope to celebrate this holiday every Christmas as a reminder that we should always put others before ourselves, and that even in the darkest of circumstances, light can always be found. 

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As we finished up the last of the buns, Quinn and I got everything ready for the following morning. We didn't want a repeat of the previous Sunday, where Abigail had found out our secret Saint Nicholas plans by accident, so we planned to get up extra extra early.

Quinn might have also been re-thinking how encouraging he had been when I asked him to do something extra special for me...


You see, in Sweden not only girls dress up for Saint Lucy's Day, the boys dress up to! They're 'star boys', also lighting up the darkness.

I found this pretty painting here.

Quinn didn't seem very excited at first, but when I told him he got to wear a tall, pointy cone hat, he agreed.

Now all that was left to do was to wait till morning...

The sun hadn't come up yet when we woke up, it was still hiding behind the mountains far away. I hurriedly went down the stairs in the barn and started to get ready, while Quinn followed sleepily behind me. 

We stuck the saffron buns in the oven to warm them up, and soon we were all ready. We carefully snuck next door and Quinn tried to open the door and...

LOCKED! The door was LOCKED!

Here we were all dressed up, myself holding a tray full of hot saffron buns, and the family had locked the door! Quinn was kind and ran around the house to the back door - which thankfully- was open. 

Nothing else could go wrong...right?

Hahahahaha! You must not know me.

Quinn came around and unlocked the front door and let me in as he whispered, "Mom's sleeping on the COUCH! I'll go sneak and turn the music on, you light your head on fire!"

As it turned out, Melissa woke up super early and couldn't sleep, so she had come downstairs and cleaned the whole kitchen before laying on the couch to sleep some more. But even though it was unexpected, she still woke up with a big smile on her face when I walked through the door to the song "Santa Lucia" playing.

She was so surprised, the first thing she said was "Emily, you look like an angel!" 

Then it was off up the stairs where Paul and Abby were still snug in their beds.

Quinn and I snuck into each of their rooms and offered them saffron buns. Meanwhile, Melissa was already making hot cocoa and tea downstairs for a very scrumptious breakfast together.

But before we sat down to eat more saffron buns, Abigail was kind enough to take some pictures of us out in the morning sunshine...

Quinn's robes I had made from two sheets, and the dress I wore was a vintage wedding dress found at a local thrift store for $20. I had made my candle wreath back in September - I had been so excited for Saint Lucy's Day even then! 

Back inside around the table we read the Christmas story from the Bible and drank our hot cocoa. Quinn put a sheet over his head to show just how tired he really was.

"Next year," Abigail said to me, "I want to help you and dress up too!"

We had such a fun morning, even if it didn't go quite as we had planned. And I think we have a new tradition in our family, and maybe next year Laura will be Saint Lucia instead of me.

~The End~

An Evening of Music

   Not too long ago, we heard the sad news that our dear friends the Truitts were going to be moving away from Juneau. This called for a going-away party filled with music and yummy desserts (I mean...dinner). 

   Lots of our friends came over for the evening to wish the Truitts off on their new adventure, and the evening ended wonderfully with home-made raspberry pie (made by Quinn and I from our very heavy raspberry bushes). 

Now, we need to clear something up with you. 

Very often in our travels (and sometimes even here in Juneau), people will come up to us after a show and they seem to think all we do in our free time is sit in front of our fireplace on cold winter evenings and play music happily together. 

And that's sort of true...

Yes, there are lots of cold winter evenings.

Yes, there is a lot music played in front of the fireplace.

But no. We are practicing. 

We very seldom just get together and play for fun.

(though yes, practice is a lot of fun sometimes)

Getting together with friends and just playing music seldom happens outside of Folk Fest week here in our house, so this evening spent with four guitars, two fiddles, a banjo, a bass and a piano was absolutely wonderful.

The night turned into a worship service/talent show, and we filmed parts of it to capture the moments we shared with everyone. 

We hope you like this little look into a very special evening:

"For where two or three gather in my name,

 there am I with them."

Matthew 18:20

Tasha Tudor Day

We have started a new tradition in our household: 

Tasha Tudor Day! 

Tasha Tudor is a world renowned American children's book author and illustrator. Many of her books can be found on Melissa's book shelves, and Abigail, Quinn and Laura have fond memories of reading them when they were young. 

She is very much Melissa's hero (and mine too, since Melissa introduced me to her work), residing in an old new England farm house with goats, chickens, and many adorable corgis. She believed in hard work, imagination, and the beauty and joy that could be found in making things with your own two hands.

Because of our love for Tasha Tudor, we decided to celebrate a day in her honor! We would dress and go about our lives in an old fashioned way. 

And let me tell you...we had so much fun!

The day dawned bright and sunny, and us girls put on our favorite old-fashioned dresses. 

Mine is a vintage German dirndl dress that fits me to a T! This was my first time wearing it, and I couldn't have picked a better occasion. 

I started out my morning by raiding Melissa's table cloth stash..

Quinn, being the helpful husband, had already hung up a long clothes line for me to hang the tablecloths on.  He had helped me plan a special picnic for everyone that day, and it required the perfect setting!

Tablecloths are one of Melissa's favorite things (right up there with dishes, ovens, chocolate and coffee), so we had plenty of beautiful floral printed cloths to hang up.

They would create the perfect backdrop for our picnic!

Abigail came out to help us then. She wore a lovely dress Quinn had gotten her as a Christmas present several years before. Paired with a pretty white lace apron, she looked simply stunning!

Together we hung paper garlands in the blossoming apple trees. I had sewn them all up the night before so we would have them ready. 

Melissa came out then (wearing a dress patterned all in spring flowers), and together we grabbed our trugs and flower clippers and headed down to the flats to find flowers. 

The flats were a-glow with green sea grasses, shimmering in the sun. The mountains looked wild and far-off as we skipped around with bare feet. 

Buttercups, shooting stars, lupin, and sweet pea flowers covered the ground. 

The beauty that surrounded us was amazing, we could have spent our whole day down there!

We filled our baskets to the brims with flowers. 

It was hard to leave the beauty of the flats, but the flowers needed to be put in water and we needed to start on making lunch for the picnic!

We may have stopped on the way back up to the house to take a ride on the swing though...

Once we were back up at the house, we laid down a quilt under the apple blossoms and started cleaning the flowers. 

I had extra cones from my May Day gifts, so we filled them with flowers and hung them in the apple trees. We even had enough for two vases as well!

I used a bundle of extra sweet pea blossoms to make Abigail a flower crown.

Now she looked even more fairy like with that flowing golden hair of hers!

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Melissa had started the soup for our picnic lunch. Abby and I looked through her Tasha Tudor cookbook and found a bread recipe to try.

The recipe was for a large batch, making four loaves of white bread all together! 

But I have a large family, so we decided to make the full recipe and share what we had left over.

Abigail and I took turns kneading the bread (which is always the funnest part). 

It came out of the oven looking absolutely beautiful! And let me tell you, we ate every last bit of it with honey and jam and butter (all except for the loaf we gave to my family of course). 

Our picnic was the prettiest picnic I've ever had the pleasure to be a part of, and I think everyone else would agree with me.

The apple tree blossoms smelled so sweet as we sat underneath them. 

The tablecloths blew in the breeze...

And the picnic food was beyond yummy!

We all sat together on the quilt we had brought out. We ate, talked, and basked in the warm sunshine.

Melissa remarked, as we stretched out on the quilt after all the food had been eaten and put away, "Yes, I think Tasha Tudor would have been proud."

I think she would have been, too.