It's coming on Christmas, They're cutting down trees, They're putting up reindeer, And singing songs of joy and peace *

It's coming close to Christmas. That means it's time to get to work on Christmas cards. Late last week I took out some books and magazines to find inspiration. After a few hours of searching, I came up with a few ideas that I sketched out. From the sketches, I drew up two templates - one fairly simple and the other a bit more fancy. Once the templates were finished, it was time to transfer them to the cards. The fancy template took about twice as long to transfer and finish up, so I decided to only do a few of those for family, and use the simpler one for everyone else. Even then, each card takes about an hour to make.

Last year I put a poetic Christmas prayer on the back of my cards, but I had trouble coming up with anything worthwhile this year. When I saw my parents this weekend, we spent some time talking about advent, which spurred me to read the traditional advent passages of Scripture. The pattern is obvious, so I took the Scriptures and rewrote them as a short poem.

Now that the two elements are complete, I can move forward making and sending out all the cards. I'm planning to send out twice as many as last year, so I should be busy this week - in a good way.

* River - Joni Mitchell

She Walks in Beauty

The first exam of the new classes was today in Brit Lit II. We have to write an essay over our choice of one of the poems we covered in class and turn it in before each exam. This exam covered Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake, so last night, before I did my studying, I wrote about Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge's amazing imagery.

I finished the exam pretty quickly and , as I usually do when I'm confident and speedy, I made a few a couple of stupid mistakes. After the exam I had about two hours until class ended so I read poems for the next class. The new poets are Byron, Shelley and Keats. After I read a few poems I decided to memorize one. I haven't memorized any passages in a long time, so I chose a short 18-liner by Byron - She Walks in Beauty.


By the end of class I had the poem memorized. I read an article a few eeks ago in which the author talked about memorizing poetry and the feeling of ownership of something beautiful that she could recite any time, like an old companion. I hope that I can store more in my brain and make it into a gallery to look at and enjoy during slow times.





She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!