Happy New Year everyone! I just wanted to write a little, positive post, to let you know how things stand in the studio at the moment.
When i locked the studio door at the beginning of the school holidays, I was on a mission to make the very best of this Christmas. My family is large and sociable, and quite spread out, so we always have an epic family get together where the cousins run as a pack, and every meal is a feast, planned right down to the last mince pie.
This year I decided that we would make our own Christmas traditions, and so we set about stealing other peoples that we liked the sound of. There’s the Icelandic tradition of exchanging books and chocolate on Christmas eve – so we did that. I like an excuse to buy lovely books.
I also stole my friend Christina’s tradition of going through the Radio Times with highlighters while sharing a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Have you noticed that all the traditions so far involve chocolate?
Prior to this I’d also managed to take part in the Winter Solstice Run to Millers Grave on the moors. It was wet, and foggy and there was no sunrise to be had. So we repeated it on the morning of Christmas Eve. It was FREEZING! But so worth it…
And we were very lucky that our lovely walks changed to polar expeditions as Yorkshire came up trumps with Christmas weather!
I’m never a fan of New Year’s Eve, but this year the children were excited because a) we weren’t going to be in a hurry to get them to bed and out of the way and b) they would be saying goodbye to 2020. We had a little ceremony, wrtiting down all the bad bits about the last year, and burning them…
and then we wrote all of our wishes for the year ahead, and the nice bits of 2020 on Amaretti papers, and sent them up. Ever burned Ameretti papers? No one I’ve spoken to knew what I was talking about, so this is to show you what they do:
One of the ‘bad things’ that went into the fire was ‘Home schooling’. And one of the wishes that was sent up was ‘No more home schooling’. There was also ‘A Dog’ and ‘Cuddles with Granny’. I am sorry for the first fail. Crossing my fingers for the second, and very hopeful for the last. All the grandparents have a date that they are aiming for, and as my Mum said, we just have to get our heads down and get through this. There is an end in sight.
Daniel and I have split the week for home school. I will be in the studio Monday – Wednesday. Nancyann – AKA The Studio Fairy – will be in on Thursday and Friday making up parcels and mounting prints. The studio can be completely seperate from the rest of the house so she can be safe, and we can wave at her through the window! Importantly, we can still fulfil orders, though you may have to wait just a little longer. Heart Gallery is continuring to take orders via Totally Locally and I will keep Alison stocked up thoughout this lock-down.
I have lots of beautiful things planned for this year, and I will start posting them soon. 2021 has just go off to a bumpy start, but things will get better.
I love this idea of stealing the good traditions of others and adding them into our own. In some ways I enjoyed Christmas more this year, there was less rushing about and I loved getting up on Boxing Day and not having to go somewhere. I missed seeing people but I realised it’s not about cramming it into the few days between Christmas Eve and NYE where we tend to be on a bit of a repeat cycle of food, drink and conversation at different houses. It made me realise it’s the bits building up to Christmas that I enjoy and things like making the gingerbread house, decorating the house, going to the panto, exchanging gifts with friends. So this year I hope to put the focus on people and traditions during December which culminates in a lovely family Christmas Eve/day and after that we rest xx
I just came across your website accidentally typing in the wrong name for something else! But your work looks beautiful and I love your Amaretti papers tip!