Welcome, Welcome Jesus Christ!

We're getting closer! The season we long await will be upon us shortly. How do you mark the twelve joyful days of the Christmas season?

For me, I'm thinking of apples this year. We live in Michigan where the apple crop is an important part of the economy and extra delicous. When I was a school teacher I often received apple ornaments to hang on our family tree. Today I think  an apple is lovely hung on a tree or present in Christmas decorations to remind us of Adam and Eve. It is a visual reminder of the connection between the tree of knowledge and the tree of the cross.

But there are twelve days! What else? We've been blogging for ten years so we dug into our past posts to find ...

A Christmas craft here.
Tidbits about nativities we display here. 
A reason for Christmas bells here. 
A recipe here. 

Additionally how about sharing scripture readings, stories or poetry. We so rarely take the time outside of worship to read aloud to each other. Here is a prayer/poem that I am drawn to right now:

Welcome, welcome, Jesus Christ our infant savior,

baby who makes every birth holy.

May w , who like the shepherds

have witnessed in the stable a new kind of love,

return to our work with joy.

May we, for whom the heavens have opened 

to proclaim that God is with us,

we who have fed on living bread

and drunk the wine of heaven,

go out to be instruments of your peace, day by day.

A New Zealand Prayer Book

May your Christmas celebration be joyful!

Outside Carrot Top Studio: Time With Family & Life Lessons

Last week I ventured out of Carrot Top Studio to head East for time with family. Here's my mom (who I get my gift of color placement and love of fabrics from) and my daughter (who has a great artistic eye for photography) and that's my dear son making the photo bomb. His action is an example of the good fun we were able to have throughout the holiday. Life lesson: laughter is a gift.

Many of you have bought our peace and healing themed stoles that give back to the Alzheimer's Association in honor of my mother in law. We loaded the iPad with pictures from her past and enjoyed traveling down memory lane with her. She doesn't speak much anymore but it was interesting to see which images she'd react to by tapping on the screen with her hands. Life lesson: visual images can speak loudly.

Last Monday we spent time with my husband's Aunt Mary. She was the one that introduced my husband to the joy of trips into New York City for shopping, fine food, and a bit of Italian opera. In recent years we all loved eating strawberry ice cream with her as this particular food brought her little bits of joy. Aunt Mary was surprisingly called home as she slept that night. Life lesson: savor each moment and embrace those little bits of joy.

I write this on the 6th Day of Christmas. As Christians we can mark this day not just by thinking of the six geese a laying in the popular Christmas song but as the six days of creation that confesses God as Creator and Sustainer of the world (Genesis 1). My take away from a very full last week, logging 30 hours of driving, spending time with friends in our former hometown, cherishing time with family in three additional cities, and celebrating the life of a loved one leads me to the last life lesson: "He upholds all things by the word of his power." Hebrews 1:3. I am so grateful for God's love and the witness I have had to it this past week! 

P.S....it is great to be back in the studio....doing some cleaning out and goal setting this week! We'll be back with new inventory and plenty of ideas for 2015! Follow us on Facebook or Instagram (carrottopstudio) for the latest news!

What's New?

So you're curious as to what's new in the world of Carrot Top Studio? I'm bursting with joy that my son asked his girlfriend to marry him! We love this young lady and it's been exciting to watch their relationship grow over the last couple of years. And our dear daughter has returned from a semester abroad in Belize. She returns more mature and wiser to the ways of the world and the desires of the good Lord for the care of His creation. If you mentor anyone that is college aged I can highly recommend the Creation Care Study Program with campuses in Belize and New Zealand.  

These guys keep me on my toes when I'm not in the studio!

What? You were really asking about what's new in the studio? Ok! There's lots to share there too! We added three new designs to our Christmas ministry stole collection this season.

The 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' stole (on the left) is lovely first because we think the whimsical buildings echo the joy of the Christmas celebration. Secondly, some of the gold stars are created out of sheer gold fabric and then free motion stitched with variegated threads. They are on top of a silver dotted background which truly says that this stole and its message are special. The middle stole in the image above honors the names of Jesus that are foretold in the book of Isaiah. The holly echos the prophecy of the King we await as it symbolizes the crown of thorns that will eventually be worn at the Messiah's death. This death and eventual resurrection of course complete the story. The stems of the holly add an interesting detail being created out of softly textured yarns. Lastly, we've redesigned an old favorite seller with the nativity border stole. Often artists depict the nativity as if they were seeing it in their hometown. If that were Carrot Top Studio we'd have surrounded the stable with evergreens and the tall deciduous trees of Michigan. But for this design we've chosen the palm tree which might have actually existed in Bethlehem. 

May those that you minister to be blessed with meaningful visuals that help connect them to the story of Christmas. 

Book Review: The Season of the Nativity

My personality is well suited to seasons of preparation. Therefore I've always been more

drawn to Advent than Christmas. Annually, I traditionally purchase a book about or for Advent. This year I picked up The Season of the Nativity: Confession and Practices of an Advent, Christmas and Epiphany Extremist  and quickly suspected I would like it when the author Sybil MacBeth confessed it took a long time for her to learn to enjoy Christmas. This resonated with me and I now especially see the twelve days of Christmas in a new light. I've always been intrigued by how to mark this time but have found it challenging given that society celebrates Christmas day and then moves into after Christmas mall sales and signing up everyone for exercise classes for their New Year's resolutions. The author has given me enough encouragement that I suspect I will do better than that this go around.

What I appreciated most about this book is that there is something for everyone from the new Christian learning what the church year calendar is all about to someone that has been following a liturgical cycle for decades.  In fact MacBeth points out that because we are continuously evolving that's exactly why we can year after year relive and learn anew from the stories of our faith. Amen!

Lastly, I think it's splendid that there is attention given to Epiphany. Growing up all I knew was to put a bean in the cake and the one that ended up with that piece won. There is and deserves to be more than this. 

So now I prepare for the season of preparation and look forward to some new additions to my rhythm and routine of the days in Advent. How will you mark these days?