More Nostalgia

Nostalgia: A device that removes the ruts and potholes from memory lane.
— Doug Larson.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug. Under its influence, ordinary songs take on dimensions and powers, like emotional superheroes.
— Kate Christensen

It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.
— Frank Zappa

We’ve got a nice routine with the grandbaby on Sundays. She comes over in the afternoon to do crafts with Gramie, and when she gets tired with that spends some time with Grappy in the recording studio where they’re working on a CD of original music.

Doing crafts with the grandbaby always makes me nostalgic. One of my fondest memories of when I was a kid was visiting an aunt who instilled the love of crafts in me. Every time I visited she had a new craft to show me.

I remembered one in particular I thought the grandbaby would enjoy – making a wreath out of a wire coat hanger and garbage bags. First, you bend the coat hanger into a round shape with the hook at the top. Then you cut up garbage bags into short strips and tie them to the hanger. You have to keep pushing them together to make them nice and tight on the hanger, but when you’re done you have a wreath, ready for decorating.

The first problem I ran into was trying to find green garbage bags. Most garbage bags are black now, and while a black wreath might be fine for Halloween, it’s not very Christmassy. However, I did find some white garbage bags and then bought blue decorations (blue is the grandbaby’s favorite color).

The second problem I ran into was the grandbaby having trouble tying the strips to the wire. It was something I’d never considered, but she had a hard time getting the hang of it and was getting a little frustrated. So I pulled out a package of self sticking foam shapes to make decorations out of instead, telling her I’d tie the plastic onto the wire, and she could decorate it the following week.

She loves to draw and paint, so I picked up some wooden, and clay ornaments for us to paint, but we didn’t get around to it this week. We started with decorating the wreath, then a couple more foam decorations, then some snow flakes cut out of coloured paper, and then she did some drawing, which is where she really shines. I ask you, does this look like the work of a six-year-old?

Next week I think we’ll focus on the decorations to be painted so she can embellish them with glitter glue. Glitter glue is a wonderful invention – all the sparkle of glitter with a fraction of the mess.

Trust me, Gramie would never steer you wrong. LOL