Christmas decorations

The other day I visited my favorite bread shop and found some workers making Christmas decorations. I frequent this shop a lot and they are used to me asking if I can take pictures of their bread but this was the first time I was so bold as to ask if I could step into their kitchen!

"Come on in!"

and a friend and I went into the warm, great smelling kitchen to take a couple of pictures. A few other ladies in the shop noticed our disappearance into the kitchen and trailed in after us. I don't know if the bakers wanted 5 coat clad ladies oohing and aahing over the baking process but we all took pictures!

One young man was making bread shoes (I think these are really salt flour but I'm not sure about that) and another girl was making wreaths.

The kindergarten was decorated for the Christmas program on Saturday and I was drawn to the beautiful Christmas tree on the wall. Have you ever made star pot-holders? I went through a phase early in my patchwork years when I made quite a few of these but never this many at one time!

Someone at the church had given the kindergarten principal a box of these "pot-holders" to sell at the church bazaar but the principal cleverly purchased all the stars herself and arranged them as a starry Christmas tree! Made me want to make a couple of these stars again... Not this year Tanya!

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Let's see... What year are we on here? 2000? This colorful picture was taken in my brother's California front yard on his kiddie play equipment. You can see that Tetsu got to America about once every 4 or 5 years. Take a good look at Takumi because this is the last you'll see him smiling for two years. Heading into the teenage years with him at age 14 and Leiya at 10. The animals were featured that year as a sticker again. Shoko on her favorite chair and Lemi, Zorro and Vel up on top.