Christmas Music

Colonial Christmas, Barry Phillips & Friends

Barry Phillips is a cellist, composer arranger and recording engineer whose CDs have included a series of collections of early American music.  In 2008, Barry released Colonial Christmas, (Gourd Music) a CD of instrumental carols and dances from the American colonial period. Barry’s CDs always have thoroughly researched and beautifully written notes, and each carol in this collection has a story. The pieces are, as always, beautifully played, Barry on cello, with Shelley Phillips on oboe and French horn, and additional musicians on bassoon, double harp, fiddles and other period insruments. The music is lilting but mellow, perfect for accompanying Christmas dinner or as background for present opening.

Christmas Classics, Solitudes

Since 1981 Solitudes had made CDs that incorporate natural sounds (birds, wind, sea, etc.) with music. The Christmas offering here is characteristic of their style. The selections move from light classics (“Skater’s Waltz”) and familiar seasonal favourites (“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”) to traditional carols (“Greensleeves”), all interlaced with nature’s own music. If so-called “New Age” music is your style, this  CD is definitely meant for your collection.

Crafty Fun for Children as Summer Rolls into Autumn

©2008, RKSilipo. All rights reserved.

Hardly seems possible, but over the weekend, I heard the first TV commercial this year to give the countdown to Christmas… even before Labor Day. It gets earlier every year.

I don’t mind much, since I love Christmas and I read about it, buy gifts for friends and make plans for holiday activities all year ’round. I just wish the focus was more on making things, doing things, sharing things among family and friends, than on buying things.

This is actually the time of year to think about homemade decorations, especially Christmas tree ornaments, since so many can be made from items collected outdoors. Plants are starting to dry up, throw seeds, drop leaves, produce nuts and generally offer up wonderful natural shapes for decorations. It’s also the time to think about what items can be recycled, adapted or reused to make fun, inexpensive decorations.

Also if you want to make Christmas presents, whether you knit, sew , draw, cook or whatever, this is a good time to write down your gift list, estimate the amount of time it will take to create each gift, and buy the materials you will need.

I watch for sales all year ’round and buy up such items as ribbons, braid, fabric remnants, beads and so on, and put them in my Christmas drawer, the bottom drawer of a chest where I keep my sewing and craft materials. I just toss things in there.  Then about this time of year I check to see what I have and what I still need to buy for the projects I have planned.

DECORATIONS

Some of nature’s designs that make lovely decorations are

• sea shells collected on summer days at the beach
• driftwood, sea glass and pebbles flattened by the sea
• teazels
• seed pods
• walnuts
• avocado pits
• peach, plum and nectarine pits and unshelled almonds
• pine cones
• bare branches after the leaves have fallen
  

And whatever grows and leaves interesting remains at the end of the growing season in your area. Use your imagination. I’ve even seen skeletons from bunches of table grapes dried out, painted silver and gold, and hung with ribbons on a Christmas tree. It took me a couple of hours of looking at them curiously to figure out what they were. The six year old girl in the family had saved and dried out the twigs all year, and her mom helped her spray paint them.

Shells can be hung just as they are. Use a small bit in your electric drill to make a tiny hole, then let the children thread through a thin satin ribbon in red or green, or some gold cord to make a hanging loop.

I have some gorgeous pieces of driftwood that I use as background for my nativity scene. Smaller pieces can be drilled and hung as they are, same as the shells. They can also be varnished so they have a sheen, or your more artistic or older children can decorate them with paint, to give as gifts or to decorate your tree.

A safe, clear, shiny coating can be made by mixing one part white PVA glue (such as Elmer’s Glue-all) with five parts water. This makes a very thin, drippy paint which can be applied with a brush; or you can dip nuts, pine cones, etc. in it to give them a shiny, sealing coating. Things should be laid out on wax paper or plastic wrap to dry, as the paint is VERY sticky.