Merry Christmas--Spiders and Talkin' Turkeys!

 Had to show you a few of my favorite Christmas gifts!  Kathy gave me this "prescription" coffee cup since I am not a morning person.  Drank out of it this morning, just what the doctor ordered!

 Spiders!  This may well be my favorite gift this year--let me tell you why.  My mom and I did two craft shows prior to Christmas and at one of them there was a corner booth full of spiders on Christmas trees.  Apparently there is a "Legend of the Christmas Spider"

A long time ago , a mother prepared for Christmas Eve. She cleaned and scrubbed her home, chasing the spiders from the living room with her broom. The spiders fled to the attic and listened to the excitement below as the Christmas tree was put up and decorated. When all was quiet again, the little spiders crept back downstairs to see the beautiful tree. They were filled with happiness as they crawled along every branch, admiring the glittering beauty of each ornament. But alas, by the time they had finished climbing through the tree, it was completely draped with their dusty, gray cobwebs.  When the Christ child came, He smiled as He looked upon the happy little spiders, however, He knew the mother would be heartbroken when she saw the shrouded tree. So He reached out and touched the webs and, blessing them, turned them into silver and gold. Now the Christmas tree sparkled and shimmered and was even more beautiful than before. Thus the custom to have tinsel of silver and gold and a spider ornament amongst the other decorations on the Christmas tree was born.  Author Unknown.

Right off the bat I spotted a purple spider similar to the one above and was going to get it for my sister.  She is deathly afraid of spiders and is ALWAYS posting pictures of the spiders in her house (she lives in the mountain wild, lol) that she needs someone to come kill.  She actually has anxiety attacks trying to get them out of her house.  Some of them are downright huge and some of them are poisonous.  Anyway we spent lots of time this year talking about spiders and commenting on her facebook spider pictures.  Every year since my kids were born I have bought each of them an ornament that represents something from the year.  It is my favorite item to buy them each year and when each of them moved out their ornaments went with them and they had a good starter amount!  So I saw the spider, thought of my sister and was going to get it for her.  Then I started walking around and saw spiders like the one below.

 Suddenly I knew I wanted these to be my kids' ornaments this year.  I bought three and I can tell you it is absolutely the most money I have ever spent on a few Christmas ornaments.  In the end I didn't get one for my sister or me.  My mom had bought one for my almost sister in law and then when she found out I didn't get one for Tina or me she secretly bought one for each of us and one for herself! So it was the year of the spider!  Everyone loved them and I think mine will stay out all year long!

 My other favorite gift is this rainbow leaf wall art.  We saw it at a craft show and I told mom how much I loved it and I am not sure when she got it but she made arrangements to get it for me.  I couldn't bear to put it outside on the brick wall that surrounds our back yard because the Arizona sun will fade it...so for now it is in my quilting studio and I love it!
Well if you have read this far now we get to the turkey part!  I really have been wanting to make this block since I saw it and decided that I would reward myself (for all the hst cutting, trimming and ironing) by sewing this up!

Talkin' Turkey!

 And at last all my HST's are done and bagged for the NYE Mystery!  Kathy has hers all sewn and it working on the rest.  Merry Christmas!