Paper Bag Advent Calendar

During the Thanksgiving preparations, I had my mind on many things, most of them not food. I certainly ate.  And, ate.  And ate.  But, I found my mind combatting tensions, stresses, and other banalities.  Finally, my mind began to fixate on lunch bags. 

We had a number of lunch bags around.  At Halloween, we had thrown a crazy bash that rotten many a mouth within a ten mile radius.  In order to encourage the guests to take the sugar home and away from our own children, we had an activity where children could decorate hand lino-printed bags.  It was these leftover white bags that were singing to me.

Cooking has always been a joy for me; its inherent creativity and relationship to conviviality enrich me.  However, the food blogging scene, with its competition and cliquishness, were challenging. I always felt like I was in middle school.  But, in the midst of radio silence, I was certainly cooking.  Though rather than trying to find new combinations and frankly win adoration from unseen, unknown followers, I went back to regulars.  I just cooked for myself and my family.  And, then I also allowed my many interests to live unobserved. 

Making things, in whatever form that takes, continues to enrich me at home.  I continue to write and photograph.  But, I have been doing it for myself. And, this takes me back to the moment, where I was standing at my pantry door, as if eying a conquest.  The bags were just sitting on the shelf.  Lets face it.  They were asking for it. 

A couple hours, a few snips, and a little bondage, and voila, a paper bag Advent Calendar.  The spare appearance began a whirlwhind of further Advent making.  Felt and mason jars were harmed, to be sure.  The children can now certainly count up to 24.  If they are doing anything other than hours in a day of a portion of the month of December, it could be a problem.  But, hey, why put too much pressure on your young?