.Cement cookies and other harbingers of the season

After re-reading yesterday's cricket rant (and it truly was a rant, but wasn't it fun? For me, maybe), I felt I needed something to balance it out.

Yes, I know it's a TV ad, and I know it's a month 'til Christmas, but when this came out three years ago (three - I cannot believe this!), I thought it was magical. I was going to try to make gifs out of it, but the images flash by so quickly that I am not sure I could manage it.

Yesterday we made cement cookies, or rather, cookies made out of salt dough that hardens into something you can paint up and use as ornaments. It went so well that I want to try it with the other two grandkids. It's not that I don't get into the spirit - I do - but most of what passes for "the spirit" is a cash grab. "Black Friday" is a case in point. 

Until a few years ago I didn't even know what it was, and in any case it sounded horrible and ominous. Gradually I twigged that it was the day after American Thanksgiving, when everyone stampedes to the mall to buy more things, no doubt so they can be even more "thankful" in the coming year.

Now I'm seeing Black Friday ads in Canada, when our Thanksgiving is at the PROPER time, in late October, not so close to Christmas. And yet, our BF is going to be on the same day as in the States.

Oh well, I'm ranting again, and I do love the actual day when we all seem to have a wonderful cozy time. Four kids running around, I ask you - even though they are growing up alarmingly fast - and then what? Old age, and - ? Life is a rapid, confusing deal, and all we are left with is the day - the elusive, flashing-by, bittersweet day. 

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm