The blog's tradition

 Over the years a tradition evolved - where I come up with a heartwarming story for Dec 24th. I do not go  overboard during the holiday season - but I do enjoy looking for a story with warm-fuzzies each year.

This year (as I write this on Nov 2nd) I do not have anything spectacular for my annual holiday story. Because I have such a steady stream of warm fuzzy mail - maybe that should be the basis of my Dec 24th post.

Hopefully I have not gone overboard with thanking my readers and pen pals. Is it even possible to go overboard with gratitude? 

This envelope arrived in October - from Clover.

She sent me a very fun article with beautiful inspirational images of Spencerian writing. I ended up using the paper to make some little boxes. It tickles me that someone sees an article and thinks - Oh, Jean would like this - and then she looks at her stamps - and sees the Lichtenstein fruit bowl - "Oh, Jean would like this stamp." And then she figures she might as well gussy up the envelope - and it would have taken some time to fussy cut that image. So thank you again, Clover. 

Two things if you have time to kill today: First, you can put *Clover* in the search feature, which I just did, and it was a fun trip down memory lane. Please note - there have been two Clovers featured in blog posts - this is not the Clover in Texas - it is our Clover who alerts us to important USPS matters.

And the second time-killer is an account on IG that is amusing. It was hard to choose which post to feature since they are all so funny. Actual ideas for food - from the olden times - which I remember. The account is called 70's Dinner Party -- but I think a lot of these are from the 50s and 60s. I stuck with banana *recipes.* 

https://www.instagram.com/70sdinnerparty/ 

.....and to all a good night.

Or if you are having your morning coffee - you have my permission

 to just crawl under a blanket and take the whole day off.

***

Wait - there's more. It is now Nov 17 and I was going through 100+ emails that had piled up in my blog-email. I opened a few of them to enjoy the warm fuzzies - lovely things that people have sent me. Sometimes they are writing to let me know how much they liked their envelope. 

When I got to June - there was an email from Clover - and I was so happy to see another banana related envelope. I especially LOVE what she had to say about her design:

When you have a glue stick and no calligraphic skill…

Thanks Clover for providing my yearly tradition of something fun for Dec 24th...