My stepdaughter lost her mom about a week before the holiday...when the girl was age sixteen. Mom was a brittle diabetic and her heart gave out.

Every year, about this time, our daughter feels low. Maybe my husband does, too. I should check that.

I believe it is the small things that lift people out of the blues.


Volunteer. There is nothing like helping to cook for people who appreciate it.


I knew a 95 year-old who loved to make pies with a roomful of volunteers. Her pastor and his wife would take her to the homes of grateful recipients.


For me, I love Christmas. At six a.m. I am looking out my window to see who is up already.

I remember the Christmas Eve when I was about seven when my sleep was simply a flash of rainbow before I awoke.


I even married on Christmas Eve. I highly recommend it.


Invite someone...not only on the day. Include others who want to change their memories.


Putting up my own tree, when I was alone, and inviting a couple of people for coffee, saved my sanity one year. You could bake with them, or something else you like. A board game or two could be fun...or a jigsaw puzzle.


Make a new memory. Make a snowball fight. Or, decorate the outside of your home.

Walk with people to see the lights nearby.


Knit. Scrumble. (See http://www.knotjustknitting.com
and search the Pink Project...garments, etc., that don't need to be fitted.)


Think about projects to benefit your community, inexpensively. For example, scrumbling. There is an ocean of leftover yarns out there. Ask at every garage sale. The yarn is the very last thing to be put out. People think they should spend time with it, sorting, etc.



I pay about $10 for a big double armful. And as little as $2 for a garbage bagful, twice, when that was all that was asked. Lots of folks get grandma's collection, and don't know what to do with it.

I am a good sorter, keeping the same dye lots together, and bagging yarns, for sale at $.25 per ounce. I sort each collection I buy into a rainbow...that's how I see the dye lots.

Anyone can be a color expert with Carole Jackson's book, "Color Me Beautiful". Just ask at your favorite bookstore. For a long time my local library had to have seventeen copies to satisfy the demand.

Unfinished projects, and all relevant yarn, go to the local hospital's Ladies Aux.

And I don't wind into balls as that stretches out the 'spring' of the yarn.

If you want companions...phone all the churches in town and ask who runs the Ladies' Aux. or the Craft Group.


And, ask who wants to teach others knitting or crochet. Handwork boosts the intelligence of children. We all need it.


Love,

Fledgling