Midori Snyder's Blog, page 21

My Growing Mountain Girl and Her Forest Sweater

Baby girl got big this year and needs a new sweater, a couple sizes up. Hoping I get this done before Christmas.

Advent Day 13-14 Santa Lucia and More Lights!

Madeleine L'Engle: After Annunciation

"This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There���d have been no room for the child."

 

Advent Days 10-12: The Warming Glow of Candles

Advent Days 7-9: Christmas Shopping!

Advent Days 4-6: Snow and Tomtes on Ice

Advent Day 3: The Lighting of Candles

And there are candles to light. I am a very early riser, well before the dawn, and I enjoy lighting up two beeswax candles to accompany me and my coffee at the kitchen table. It is a lovely, quiet moment, to reflect on intentions for the day. "Advent" is the translation of the Greek word, "Parousia" -- which imeans ���presence��� or ���arrival��� ��� that is, the beginning of a presence. We wait in expectation and order our lives to "make straight the path."   

Monsters and Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water

After reading this WSJ review of Guillermo del Toro's new film, The Shape of Water, I can't wait to see it. There is no one who so well understands the translation of fairy tale to modern movies as well as Del Toro. The film is a story of two unlikely characters; Elisa, a mute and deaf cleaning lady in a government facility and a creature/monster held captive there. As always, Mr. del Toro's monster is complicated:  ���I have made it my evangelical mission in life to believe that what we call ���monsters��� in art are the embodiment of a beautiful imperfection....They are the embodiment of the ���other,��� and I needed to do a fairy tale in which we talked about empathy and love and saw the ���other��� in a different way.���

The setting is both modern, industrial, and yet also removed so as to allow the fantastic to dwell appropriately and powerfully within the film. Here's more from the review:  ".... Mr. del Toro based his movie���s aesthetic around the creature���s look, nature and color palate. The government facility is designed in Cold War-era grays and greens similar to the creature���s colors. Other fantastical elements are featured in the film to make a world in which the government is hiding a mysterious creature appear more believable. In one memorable scene involving an overflowing bathtub, Elisa���s apartment seems governed by its own law of physics....If you imagine this creature in a realistic-looking movie, it doesn���t work,��� said Mr. del Toro. ���You need to make it elevated so something that is not a real being can exist in it.��� 

 

Advent Day 2: Receiving and Sending Packages

Wrapped up in paper, sealed with string and sealing wax, and delivered by Tomte! I do love the way no one ever looks chilly in the winter snow! 

An Advent of Tomte: Vintage Swedish Christmas Cards

I have a collection of lovely Swedish Christmas cards from grandmother (and maybe even great-grandmother, since women of thos generations saved everything!). I am going to post them as a form of Advent as I am pretty sure I have enough to get me to the 25th of this month. So here is the first: a little Tomte and his groute.