Big Balls of Holly

Christmas Giving

Happy Holidays everyone! This is a special post today. You see, because I'm crazy for Christmas, people like to ask; "Danatello, what do you need for Christmas?" The truth is I found everything that I need in life the day that I met Amanda, December 19, 2000. Today I want to tell you about a couple of special websites. I learned about them from 2 BBOH readers; my friend Sheila in Brooklyn, and Uncle Dan in Illinois.

First, Uncle Dan wrote to tell me about a super cool website for disabled folks. In our family we have both mental and physical disabilities. The website is called Ouch! I am embarrassed to admit that I had not considered that disabled people may be visiting this blog, for shame! I am linking to the Christmas page, but be sure to read the about page also, thanks.

Sheila writes to tell me the sad tale of her friend's son Liam. Liam, along with hundreds of kids per year in the U.S., has been diagnosed with Neuroblastoma. That's a form of pediatric cancer. Historically funding for pediatric cancer research has been low. This year the parents have gotten together and baked 8,000 dozen cookies in order to fund research. As I write this, all the cookies have been sold! (Darn, I have to learn to type faster.) Selling all of those cookies was incredible, but there is still more to do. Please visit the Cookies For Kids' Cancer website and learn more about how you can help. Here is a link to Liam's blog. Here's a song for Liam, Merry Christmas.

Little Drummer Boy, Living Strings Living Voices

Homemade Christmas... Felt Ornaments

A few years ago my wife and I made felt ornaments for Christmas. These are easy and fun to make. Basically, you and your kids just cut Christmas shapes out of colored felt. The felt is available at any craft store. Cut every shape in pairs. Sew the two together and leave part open so that you can stuff the ornament to give it more dimension. That's it. The fun really starts when you ad on the extras and come up with ways to make your felt ornament unique. For example, when you make a Christmas tree shape, sew on buttons to represent ornaments. The image at the top of this post is of some new felt ornaments that you can buy in a store. I say it would be fun to make the new style at home. There are templates available on-line or in holiday magazines for the basic shapes. Many sites also recommend using cookie cutters to trace around. One neat idea is to use Elmers glue to make a design and then cover it with silver or gold glitter. Here are some images to get you thinking.