DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

 This comes from  www.marthastewart.com  .  Almost anyone will enjoy making and setting these out for the holidays. Create a Winter Wonderland in a Jar The shimmering magic of snowfall is always transfixing, whether it's outside your window or inside this classic toy. Homemade globes let you create a wintry scene straight out of your own imagination. Almost any jar works for this project: Baby-food, pimiento, and olive jars are good choices. Look for plastic or ceramic figurines (metal ones are prone to rust) at flea markets and hobby or model-railroad shops. Synthetic evergreen tips are available at many floral-supply stores. You will also need oil-based enamel paint, sandpaper, epoxy, distilled water, glitter, and glycerin (available at drugstores). Add Distilled Water and Glitter If the jar lids are not in seasonal colors already, paint them with oil-based enamel paint. Sand the inside of the lid until the surface is rough. With clear-drying epoxy, adhere

  Found this on  www.notmartha.org  .  These little houses have so many uses and can be given away as gifts or made for that  next Christmas party. Happy holidays!! I made tiny gingerbread houses that are meant to be perched on the edge of a mug of hot chocolate. I had been thinking about those  sugar cubes that hook on the rim of a teacup  earlier this month, and I was also thinking about  3-D cookies  and how they fit together and figured it would be pretty neat to make cookies that hang on the edge of a mug. I thought I was being  so brilliant  but it only took a few seconds to discover that a flat cookie on the edge of a mug has already  been   done . So I started wondering what else I could do. At the time I was making a bunch of gingerbread recipes trying to find one that would hold up for my  partridge in a pear tree cookie , so a gingerbread house was on my mind. I made a few versions to figure out how to make one that wasn’t so top heavy that i

    Christmas is a Holy Christian observance that is often celebrated with imaginative, fanciful traditions from folklore and legend. Santa Claus is a legendary personality, similar to St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, Sinterklass, and Julenisse. Christkindl, representing the Christ Child, started bringing small gifts to children in Germany during the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther, St. Nicholas, Santa Claus and German Christkindl.     Christmas personalities are authority figures who bring gifts to good children. In some cultures the Santa Claus figure is feared because he knows all and sees all and may decide children are bad and leave nothing or something like a lump of coal.     As people move around the world, traditions mix and change with time. The United States is a melting pot of cultures with different traditions observed by the many ethnic groups in the country. Likewise, many cultures may adopt the traditions of neighboring countries. The followi