The Cake Bandits

by Jo Robertson


Do you ever feel that the holiday season loses its sense of giving and love? Is it as hard for you to keep a loving spirit as it is for me? Rather like the cartoon below, do you feel you're being held hostage to the holidays?



My mother taught me an important message about the holiday season. Mom was a happy, optimistic woman who had the fortune or misfortune, depending on how you look at it, to marry a man who also was outgoing, gregarious, and very alpha.


All the years of my growing up, my mother took a back seat to my father. It wasn’t until he passed away that she blossomed. Now, don’t get me wrong. They were married fifty years and remained in love to the day Dad died.


But she didn’t become fully realized as a woman until she was on her own. I saw her, at the ripe age of seventy, become the president of her church’s women’s organization. Lest you think this is a small job, let me explain. She organized every single church dinner of the year; she visited the sick and poor, taking in meals, clothing, and whatever else she managed to scrounge up from the church members. She supervised dinners for family members every time someone died. She coordinated with her pastor to order food supplies and necessities for the indigent in their congregation.


Big, big job!


Added to that, she and her friend Ethylene, planted a garden every year that would rival any co-op’s. They had corn, tomatoes, all sorts of beans, lettuce, onions, carrots. They tilled the soil, planted, pulled weeds and harvested their crop every year, hundreds of Mason jars of veggies and hundreds of bags of frozen ones.


And then they gave it all away!


Amazing, isn’t it? What generosity of spirit, and what a good example to me! I wanted to pass on those same values to my children.


When my kids were small, I'd try every year to think of a new way they could learn to give instead of receive. And it wasn't easy! See the oldest five to the right. Do they look like they're in much of a giving mood?


One of the greatest lessons came from someone else and was a gift to us -- from The Cake Bandits. This unknown couple in our church delivered the most fabulously decorated cakes to various families in the congregation throughout the year. Every Sunday my children waited to see who'd get the next cake from The Cake Bandits.

Finally our turn came. See the picture of the railroad station cake at the left? It was delivered anonymously to our doorstep one morning right before Christmas. The note said, "Merry Christmas from The Cake Bandits." We never learned who these generous people were.

One Christmas our family chose an emotionally needy student, you know, the lonely kind who doesn't seem to have many friends. We bought several gifts and played "doorbell ditch." Except when we rang the doorbell and ran away, we left these beautifully wrapped gifts for the student. Of course, no one ever knew who'd left them, and my children speculated for weeks about how excited that student must've been to know he had a secret friend.

Another year each child chose a gift from among his or her wrapped presents under the tree and gave it away to a needy child in our neighborhood.

This one was hard because my children always considered themselves the needy children since we were a one-income family at the time and Daddy was a school teacher.


What about you?
Do you find it particularly challenging to help keep the spirit of giving within yourself during the season?
What special traditions do you or your family keep to make special memories?

Don't forget -- One commenter will receive the Bandita prize today as part of our Twelve Bandita Days of Christmas, so be sure to leave a comment!

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Christmas in a small town

Though I now live in a city, I grew up in a small town in Kentucky surrounded by acres of farmland and forest. There was no skating at Rockefeller Center or hopping over to the movie theater on Christmas day. Why? Because there was no ice rink or movie theater in town. We did have a drive-in for awhile, and I remember it was $5 per carload in the summers and we'd see how many people we could stuff in a car. :) Even though the town was small (about 3,000 people in an up year) and wasn't exactly awash in economic prosperity, it did provide its own set of Christmas memories.

Like most towns in America, it had the annual Christmas parade down Main Street. It didn't have big floats like the Macy's parade, but it did have horses, the Shriners on little motor scooters, floats mainly made by clubs and teams at the high school, the Job Corps drill team, our small high school marching band in which my two best friends played, and Santa.

Here's Main Street, including one of the two stop lights in town -- in the entire county, for that matter.

Though in recent years, there has only been one of those plastic, light-up Nativity scenes on the courthouse lawn, I can still remember when there was a live Nativity there. Community members dressed as Mary, Joseph and the wise men would brave the December cold and stand in that open shed for hours. I think there might have even been live animals.

Here's the courthouse sans Nativities. You can, however, see the Christmas tree decoration on the utility pole at the left.

Back in those early childhood days, I can still remember my dad bringing his mom to town (she didn't drive) to do her Christmas shopping. At that time, there was a Western Auto store still on the square. I can still remember all the shiny bikes in the front window. In a town that didn't have a Wal-Mart or anything similar beyond a Dollar General Store, the Western Auto was the best place to buy toys, and buy them she did because my sister and I were her only grandkids. The Western Auto is gone now, gone the way of the live Nativity.

Christmas Day when I was young involved short trips to see the two grandmas. Lunch was always with my mom's parents, who lived in town. Mamaw and Papaw had 15 grandchildren, so we each got one small gift. But it was nice to be in that house stuffed to the rafters with cousins, aunts and uncles. Dinner was always with my dad's parents in the next county until they passed (Grandpa when I was 5 and Grandma when I was 10). Grandma always made way too much food, and we always took some home with us. The things I remember most were her homemade chicken and dumplings, slow-cooked green beans and yummy banana pudding. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Christmas night would round out with whatever Christmas movie was on one of the three channels we got via our antenna out in the country. It was usually one of the black-and-white classics.

So, were Christmases simpler when you were young? Do you have small-town Christmas memories?Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-12-16T19:00:00-08:00&max-results=7&reverse-paginate=true
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Bandita Goodies

Santa's little elf picked Keira as Sunday's BB winner! YAY Keira and congratulations. And thank you everyone for hanging out with me all day and sharing your holiday crafty experiences. Now I'm super hungry for bonbons, really wishing I knew how to make scones and in deep envy of those Bandita Buddies who work at Michaels *sigh*.



Keira, if you can drop our darling Bandita elf, Jeanne, your shipping info, she'll get your pressie out to you. jeanne@jeanneadams.com
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Fishy Fashion Handbags

Since 2006, Unnurwear, has been making fashion forward handbags for fashionistas all over the world. One of the company's specialty are handbags made from sea-leather. They use farm grown Icelandic Salmon and farm grown African Perch.

Checkout these fish-leather bags and be fashionable without being smelly.










I wonder what PETA may say about these bags.
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Crafty Holidays

by Tawny

Tis the season to haul out the gluegun and glitter. Pom poms and paint. Construction paper chains and handcrafted snowflakes.

Ahhh, its holiday crafty time! I remember in gradeschool, this was the fun time of year. Lessons were shorter so we had more time to create. I'm a big fan of creativity, so I was always excited. I remember making gifts for my parents, cards and other fun things. Did you ever do the paper bag Santa's? Cottom ball beard and a fingerpainted face. Ahhh, the memories!

So, obviously I love to craft. I'm a huge scrapbooking fiend, and this time of year is my call to creativity. (Okay, I admit it, I hear the call all year round, but this is the time of year that I drag everyone off to listen to it with me). I nag my kids to come make decorations for the house with me. One of my favorites is a papercrafted Christmas Tree, with loops of paper and lots of pretty sparklies.

Another thing I love making are ornaments. Michaels sells clear glass ornaments that are wonderful to fill with glitter, or to paint, or to glue bits and pieces of pretties to. Last year, we discovered the fun of making ornaments out of CDs. We always buy CDs in bulk, so we took a half dozen and glued scrapbook paper to them, added glitter (do you see a theme here?) and ribbon to hang them from the tree. I loved it! My daughter made some for her 4H group, too, using wraping paper.


This year, we're making gifts, too. My husband cut a 4x4 into blocks for me to paint, and I've covered them with pictures and, yes, glitter. I also created calenders for all the grandparents this year using the kids pictures. One year I decorated candles, using pretty paper and ribbon... but they caught on fire (go figure) so this is my next candle-type project -something in jars that is less likely to shock the recipient with a possible bonfire.

I have to admit, as much as I love to make crafty things, I'm not so sure people like getting them. One year I helped my brother move and was hauling out all the stuff he'd stored in his garage. I found all the crafty type gifts I'd made him still in their giftboxes. He claims he loved me enough to keep them and that should count for something. So a lot of times, if I'm not sure the person will really like the gift, I resort to turning my creative impulses into the kitchen. Almond toffee, fudge, cookies. Oh, yeah!

So how about you? Are you a creative crafter who hauls out the glitter this time of year? Do you make your own gifts? Do you like receiving crafted gifts?

And don't forget! Today is one of the 12 DAYS OF BANDITA CHRISTMAS! Be sure to comment to be eligible for th edrawing to win a Bandits Prize!!Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-12-16T19:00:00-08:00&max-results=7&reverse-paginate=true
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Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, the Giftie Give Away......

You all really knew your Christmas trivia today! Thanks for taking time out from shopping, decorating, baking, and other holiday festivities to join us in the Lair.

After much consultation, discussion (Prancer and Comet almost came to hoof-icuffs but Mrs. Claus promised them extra magic corn if they came to an agreement) the winner of the 2nd day in the Bandita's Twelve Days of Christmas is......


VIRGINIA!!!!!!

Virginia, send your stocking information to JoanieT13 AT gmail DOT com and we'll fill it with a Bandita Christmas surprise!
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It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.....

by Joanie T


"It’s the Holiday season with a whoop-de-do and a hickory dock….. "

Yes it is! Time for lots of fa la la-ing, decking the halls, wishing you a Merry Christmas and presents under the tree.

I started out composing this post with the thought of focusing on one aspect of Christmas—ornaments for the tree. But as I started Googling them I ran into first one then the other fascinating sites talking about all sorts of Christmas traditions. And I could not stick with only one aspect. So as with my opening lines (The first is from a favorite, jazzy song by Andy Williams called the “Happy Holidays” song) I’m going to just throw out a hodge podge of my thoughts on this “Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”

I’ll start with the tree. We all know that as with many of our modern day traditions, the Christmas tree has its roots (pun intended) in Celtic/Pagan traditions. Kind of appeals to my Irish genes, don’t you know. And yes, Germany had a hand in getting it all started especially with glass blown ornaments.

This year I decided to buy one of those pre-lit, simple three piece Christmas trees. My brother dutifully helped me out, put it together, stared at its sparse foliage and said “It’s a Charlie Brown tree!”

I took a deep breath and said “That’s why God invented tinsel.”

I set about making my little tree beautiful. It’s true, a little tinsel will go a long way into sparkling up the place. I found out that the Germans, once again, were the first ones to use tinsel only they used REAL silver shredded into thin strips.

I used Walgreen’s garlands.

Next came the ornaments. Now ornaments are a lot like the Christmas tree lights. In one camp you have the people who want only coordinated, satin or glass balls. It probably goes with their tasteful white only lights. No doubt about it, those are beautiful trees.


And then there are people like me :-)

Multi-colored lights all the way, baby! And the ornaments? A montage of my interests, my friendships, my life. I have a collection of homemade ones and ones representative of my interests, most notably my reputation as a baker. I even bought myself one that was an oven mitt with whisks, spatulas etc. poking out of it. Did ya’ll know I bake chocolate chips cookies? Then that would explain the rotund Santa with a see through belly filled with chocolate chip cookies and the little chipmunk sitting ON a chocolate chip cookie.

I have a group of snowmen with my CP’s names, one of two elegant lady deer sipping cocktails over lunch. Tucked away in the branches are a small cross-stitched bell given by a friend who has since passed on and one that says “Mom”.


My tree is as individual as me and I think that is cool.

Add a twinkly star and a traditional red and green tree skirt and voila….I join Snoopy in winning the decorating contest.

I could go on and on about Christmas but we have ten more days of the Banditas Twelve Days of Christmas to go so I’ll leave with a little Christmas trivia quiz:

1. Which of Santa’s reindeer is named after another animal?
2. Which Christmas song holds the credit as the highest selling Christmas single of
all time?
3. Which company made the concept of Santa Claus popular in America?
4. Which country is the largest exporter of Christmas trees?
5. When is Santa Claus’, i.e. St. Nicholas’s birthday?

Answer the questions as best you can,
The elves of The Lair may give you a hand,
The gift for today, we cannot let lay,
So give it a shot and come on and play!
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