A family tradition in song

I know this post is a day late. But there is a reason for that: yesterday, this was still a secret.

Traditionally, my Mom has marked milestones in people's lives by re-writing a popular song for them, changing the lyrics to reflect their stories. Traditionally, I have helped her. My Dad turns 50 this year and we threw a surprise party for him this afternoon. Our song choice was ambitious: "One Week" by the Barenaked ladies. Mom, Bethany (my sister) and I performed it at the party.

Of course, much of this will make little sense to the people who were not a part of it. But I want to share my Dad's story and our love for him.



One Life

Debbie:

It’s been 33 since you smiled at me,
Asked me to dance and wrapped your arms around me,
32 since you sang to me,
Walked with me and made me glad you found me
31 since the rowboat date,
You rowed a heart shape ‘round a pumpkin and it seems like
Yesterday when we said, “I do”
27 years flew by in just a heartbeat.

All:

Hold me now; you give the best hugs.
You’re giving back rubs.
You’re the coffee in the morning man.
You summon fish to the dish, although I like the partridges,
But not the groundhog, that’ll never touch my frying pan!
Hot like Jack Sparrow when you’re on board.
A Cabin Boy, sure,
But you be talkin’ like on Pirates
That movie’s got the best lines.
[Music stops] Mom: Where is the rum? Beth: Where did the rum go? Erin: Why did the rum… [Music starts]
You know someday you’re gonna get it right.


Gonna take a break and make some weekend pampakes,
I like the waffles that you make me on my birthday, too.
Gotta see the show you sing solo
To dreamer Joe when he was low,
You know, that technicolour
Dreamcoat would look good on you.


Refrain:
How can we tell you all the ways you’re a great guy?
Can’t understand what you mean to us—don’t try.
You’re the kind of guy who takes care of everyone.
‘Cept when you’re sailing off into the setting sun.
You have a tendency to talk about boats a lot.
You have a history of buying old boats.


Erin and Bethany:
It’s been twenty years since you swaddled me,
Taught me to walk and talk cast a fishing line.
Fifteen since you read to me
Curious George, Dr. Seuss and Pat the Bunny,
Five/Two years since I moved away
Funny how I’m livin’ in the city you were born in.
Yesterday you were missing me,
So I packed up and drove back home to tell your story.


All:
Empty nest, but you’re still good lookin’
You have a sugar bush and the sap is cookin’
Watching NASCAR in the man cave.
Hey, that’s a close shave.
And Tony Stewart wins this one.
Laptop in hand, you’re workin’ late night
To get your talk right
Because you’re all about LiDAR
Like Stephen Page, you’re writin’ great songs
Okay, you don’t write songs
But you sometimes make the words up.
Here’s a little French pour vous,
I’m asking you, Ou est Pitou?
Pitou est sous le cami—Maybe you should just sing
Gotta get in tune; you’re starting soon.
You know your wife is gonna swoon when your guitar
Strums her fav’rite old thing.


Repeat Refrain


Debbie: It’s been too long since we sang this way,
All four together, one happy family.
Erin: Two days since you texted me, saying
Get out of the city, come back and see me.
Bethany: Ten months since I’ve been back home,
Though you know that I always call you on the telephone.
All: Yesterday we were lonely, so we
Called all your friends to come make a party.
…
Wanted to say how we love you at the party.
…
Hey, did we fin’ly surprise you with a party?

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How to Decorate for Christmas (Without Getting Caught) Part 3

Multi-Season Paper Garland

I confess, this was originally inspired by a Martha Stewart craft.

To make this garland, you need two craft punches of different sizes, or a pair of scissors and a lot of patience

Some pages from a book you don't mind defacing:

Some junk mail or magazines in holiday colours:

Glue and string:

 Note: Don't use thread, like I did. It's only pretty until it gets tangled:

Step 1: Cut large circles from the book pages.

Step 2: Cut large and small circles from the junk mail and magazines.

Step 3: Lay the end of the string over a book-page circle.

Step 4: Glue a coloured circle (small or large, as you please) on top of the string.

Step 5: Place a second book-page under the string a short way from the first.

Step 6: Glue a coloured circle on top of that one.

Continue until your garland is as long as you want, always putting the book-page circle on the bottom.
Try this project using string, ribbon, yarn, wire... whatever you can think of.

Draped on a Christmas tree, both the white side and the coloured side will be effective. For another occasion, hang it with the red-and-green side facing a wall.

Happy crafting!

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Rhyme for a Generation

Buttons
I can press the button that will make my race car go,
And I can work the TV buttons, watch my favourite show.
I can use a keyboard or controller or remote,
But I need Daddy's help to do the buttons on my coat.

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How to Decorate for Christmas (Without Getting Caught) Part Two

I live in a small Toronto apartment with my sister and her husband. We don't have room for a Christmas tree—and in any case, it's too early to be thinking of one. Right?

Well, unless we get creative.


I managed to find these twigs on the sidewalk one day before the meticulous city workers came by to clear away anything natural.

Secret Christmas Tree
Materials:
Twigs
String
Strips of fabric long enough to tie around the bundle of twigs
A pretty jar
Buttons or decorative pebbles
Christmas decorations (Shhh!)


The Process
1. Tie the twigs into a bundle using string.

2. Tie a strip of fabric around the twigs, covering the string. Use a single knot.

3. Tie on a few more. Alternate colours. Make it pretty.

4. Slide the bottom of the twigs into a jar. Pour in buttons or pebbles.

5. Find a place to display the twigs. Try to keep them out of your housemates' way. Now admire your work: a perfectly reasonable autumn display.

6. Until December comes and you are fully justified in decking it out with Christmas decorations.

NOTE: this garland is only a stand-in for real decorations. I wouldn't have real Christmas decorations in my house this early in the season. Of course not.

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Christmas is Coming!

How to Decorate for Christmas (Without Getting Caught)

You know those times when you have one late night and then every day is so busy that you just can't catch up on your sleep and you walk around in a tired daze doing countless assignments and going to class and going to work and writing really long sentences with no punctuation?

These past two weeks have been one of those times for me. However, I woke up this morning after ten hours of sleep and felt like myself again. So I got up and cleaned, and shopped, and went to the library, and wrote a take-home midterm—and then I got to craft!

With the way things are getting so hectic, I've really been craving comfort crafts. And comfort crafts for me are Christmasy. But it's only November and in spite of—or because of—the enthusiasm of the store displays, it really isn't time to deck the halls yet.

Which is why I am beginning a new series:

How to Decorate for Christmas (Without Getting Caught)

Project #1: Flower Wall Art/Tree

The internet boasts some great examples of wall art made from toilet paper tubes. Check out Design Sponge, Just a Girl, and Cut Out and Keep for some of my favourites.

I made a piece of my own with brown toilet paper tubes that go quite nicely with the colour of our walls:

Then my housemates came home from a Costco run with a huge bag of Cotonelle, which meant not only a pleasant, soft toilet paper experience, but also the chance to collect a large number of white cardboard tubes. Surely, I thought, there must be some Christmas potential there.

And there was! Today I will show you how to make this snow-covered pine tree:

Which can masquerade in the off-season as these innocent, summery flowers:

Materials:

Nine toilet paper tubes

A pair of scissors

White glue

A ruler or measuring tape with centimetre markings

A pencil

Bobby pins, paperclips, or clothespins (optional) 

A straight pin with a large head

A hammer

 Procedure:

1. Squash your tubes flat and measure two-centimetre segments.

 2. Cut the segments apart.

3. Arrange seven segments into a flower shape. Ignore the fact that my tubes change colour.

4. Apply some glue to the part of each petal that touches the next petal. Leave the flower flat to dry for a few minutes.

5. Make two of this kind of flower.

6. Choose fourteen segments. Bend in the tip of each one a short way so that it looks like this:

7. Glue all fourteen in a circle with the narrow part facing in:

8. Choose seven segments and fold the tips in as before. Glue them in a circle.

9. Choose five segments and fold in the tips. This time the folded part will be the inside of the flower, so it has to be pointy. Glue inside the folded part to hold it in a point.

10. Glue the five petals together.

11. Fold four segments in half.

 12. This time, apply the glue near the fold instead of on the edges; otherwise you will end up with a cross instead of a flower.

13. Glue the four petals together at the fold. You may want to use bobby pins, clothespins, or paperclips to hold them together while the glue sets. If your petals are too skinny, gently press down on the apex of each to plump it up once the glue has set (the pictured flower has not been plumped yet)

14. Cut the last segment open. Roll one end into a point and glue it down.

15. Cut off the tail.

16. Wrap the tail around the cone to make it larger. Glue it down.

16. Cut the bottom of your cone flat.

17. To display your flowers on the wall, gently hammer a sewing pin with a large head into the drywall.

18. Rest your flower—or your glued-together collection of flowers—on the pin. It's surprisingly sturdy.

19. Play with layouts.

20. To turn your flowers into a tree, simply stack them from largest to smallest and top them with your cone. Since I had an extra brown flower lying around, I used it for a base.

Happy not-yet-holidays!

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The Story Man

The Story Man comes to our town once a year
Wearing patches and rags and an old Midnight cloak
And the summer-day children come running to hear
All his silver-strung stories of gold-fingered folk.

There's rainbow's-end treasure and magic in kettles,
Birds of the air raining finery down,
Jewel-crusted grots dripping bright precious metals,
Nuts that spill diamonds and star-shining gowns.

The Story Man's seen it and touched it and known it;
He's heard the harp sing and he's sat by the well.
He skimmed up the beanstalk when Jack had just grown it;
He's stood at the place where the shooting star fell.

He's wandered barefoot through the great Cave of Wonder,
Filling his pockets with nothing but words;
He's founds dens of dragons where tales were his plunder;
He has swapped gossip with Ashputtle's birds.

But still he comes back to our town every year,
Telling stories for pennies and darning his cloak
While the summer-day children swarm round him to hear
All the glittering tales of the gold-fingered folk.

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The Story Man by Erin Woods is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

In the Sunshine Land

In the Sunshine Land

Oh, for the days in the sunshine land
When you sleep-a-bye softly
And wake-a-bye bright,
When the right winds blow through the buttercup rows
And the golden is spilling from grasses and sky.

There is the elven-nook under the willow.
There is the swell of the fairy-top hill.
Still now and hush in the dew-glimmered breathing,
Sweep now and rush in the wind-dancing wave.
All now is ours—every my all together—
Sing it out sweetly with robins and green.

Then in the moon-glow with crickets and dreamers,
Figures are dancing on hush-secret lawns
Onto the toadstool-tops leap-and-a-laughing,
Onto the skitta-skate star-specked stream,
Up to the top of the sky-scratching pine tree,
Drowsily down to the dew-dawning day.

Now it's Oh! for the giggle-built forts in the forest,
Hey and a ho for the hideaway haunts,
Oh! for the summer-clad play-pretend playmates
Slipping away all the pearl-strung days.

When they pull the shade on the sunshine land,
And all the elves are fairly gone,
Then the dark is on the rows of figures
And toadstools are mushrooms after all.
And yet—and yet—oh, never forget,
Amid all the dull and the drone and the dim,
To dream with the crickets and sing in the silence,
To wish in the whispering, hope in the night,
To wait for the glimmer in star-speckled skies,
To watch for the glitter in sun-sparkled eyes.

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In the Sunshine Land by Erin Woods is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.