Yesterday was a warm sunny day, it seemed almost too warm to be putting up Christmas lights, but now I wish that I had. Today is gray, and blustery with ice pellets in the air, and a wind that cuts through me, and made me wish I had worn a warmer coat, and made me glad I had worn shoes instead of flip flops.
The sky is low and grey, and there were snowflakes and ice pellets in the air. I was thinking about the post I was going to write today, and how I wished was wearing warm gloves. As I walked past the home that already had their Christmas lights up, I drifted into the warm and homey images of the Season, kept thinking about my cold hands which I had in the pockets of my denim jacket, and how cold they were. The words from a song in the A Muppet Christmas Carol. sung by a cute, little mouse began to run through my head.
" It's in the giving of a gift to another
A pair of mittens that were made by your mother
It's all the ways that we show love
That feel like Christmas"
My mother never made mittens, but we always had plenty. Though we were a working class family we did OK, of course you could in those times. We often got hand-me-down winter clothing from our neighbors, whos children had moved far away.
All fo this mental rambling brings me to a what I want to write about. Today is Mitten Tree Day, when people, usually school children bring mittens to school, church, the community center, wherever to decorate a tree, then these mittens are given to children who need them. The tradition my have started with a first grade teacher or it may have started with the book The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen. The story of a woman named Sarah, who knitted mittens for the children she saw at the school bus stop who had none. She hung the mittens on and evergreen tree, and the children never knew who gave them this gift.
When she ran out of yarn, basket of yarn appeared on her doorstep, she then knitted mittens for all of the children in town, and no one ever knew it was Sarah who made them.
hCildren always need mittens. and even if you can't knit, here is a way to make some, quicker than quick.
Turn Your Ugly Christmas Sweaters into Warm Winter mittenshttp://lifehacker.com/5714457/turn-your-ugly-christmas-sweaters-into-warm-winter-mittens
