Time to announce the winners of the Living Crafts Winter issue giveaway. By the way- here’s a link to blog post by Melissa at All Buttoned Up– who had her aunt make her the earrings. Hooray! Click on over as they look quite lovely even in crochet thread.

This time I chose the winners based on the traditions I liked and may want to try, which- hey, is pretty close to random, right?

First up is Ruth, who commented:

So many traditions in my family and all are loved!
Christmas morning we would get up early and climb in bed with Mommy and Daddy to sing every carol we knew until they were ready to get up and start the day. My daughter and I have continued that except now it is us singing until we hear that the extended family visiting us wakes up (or the ones who’s home we are staying at – we swap who has to travel ever other year). Advent calendars, cookie baking, sleeping under the tree the night it is first brought into the house, decorating with ornaments made and ones received as gifts thru the years… Oh, that is a good one too! We tie each ornament on the tree with a red ribbon. As each bow is tied we are tying up the challenges and our problems from the year. When we un-decorate the tree and untie the ribbons there is a fresh start to the new year.

I love the idea of untying the ribbons to start a new year. 2009 was a challenge for  my family, to say the least. Hopefully 2010 will be much better.

I also just loved reading this next comment, and then I realized it’s from my friend Nancy! I never really had a dollhouse as a kid, but I love this idea anyway, and it’s a new one to me!

When I was little, I must have been a sound sleeper because my mother would sneak into my room Christmas night while I was asleep and decorate my doll house for Christmas! I’d wake up and there’d be a little tree and presents in there, and little dollhouse boughs of holly, and always one or two new dollhouse things I’d have to hunt around in there to find. Whenever my girls are old enough for a doll house, I’d like to make it a tradition in our house too!

And I’ve decided to give away a third copy to Julie, my friend in Bozeman. Because what am I really going to do with a box of copies? I know she’ll use and enjoy it since she already bought the yarn. (You really only need a scrap amount, so you can knit or crochet an entire other thing and have earrings to  match!) Plus, she recently wrote this lovely post that  mentions my book. What can I say, flattery works!

I just bought some of that yarn the other day and Barb and I were talking about the possibilities!

Beautiful and congrats!

um, let’s see…my favorite holiday traditions are **pie** and the annual discussion that my man and I have about the perfect way to brine a turkey.

Thanks to everyone who shared their holiday traditions in the comments- there were definitely some goodies in there!! I hope to incorporate some new traditions into our holidays and these will give me a starting point–that is, if I can get around to Christmas this year (I feel so busy!!). And if you didn’t win this time, worry not– I have more things to give away just as soon as I can write the blog posts!!