Jan 1st, 2008 by Antoinette
Happy New Year!
There’s a terrible fog here and the fireworks are making it worse. We can smell the gun powder residue inside the house. But… the champagne is delicious, the company is entertaining and we’re having a great time!
Wishing you all a happy, HEALTHY 2008!
Dec 30th, 2007 by Antoinette
My grandmother reaches the respectable age of 94 today! I love her to bits and so do her great-granddaughters.
Wishing you a wonderful new year oma, with lots of love, health and happiness!
xoxoxox
Dec 29th, 2007 by Antoinette
Technically speaking it’s Saturday, but I don’t care 😛
Appetizer
Name 2 things you would like to accomplish in 2008.
January 1st, 2008
December 31st, 2008
(stolen from Green Tuna – I mean, how can you beat an answer like that?)
Soup
With which cartoon character do you share personality traits?
Garfield – lazy, hungry, irresistable 😀
Salad
What time of day (or night) were you born?
2 PM
Main Course
Tell us something special about your hometown.
Rembrandt was born there
Dessert
If you could receive a letter from anyone in the world, who would you want to get one from?
As long as the news is positive, I have no preference
Dec 24th, 2007 by Antoinette
Silent Night is – to me – the most beautiful carol, especially the music.
I learned a lot about the history at Stille Nacht.info (available in 9 languages).
The choir I was a member of for almost 30 years (urgh – that makes me sound old!) used to sing at the midnight service on Christmas Eve and of course Silent Night was one of the songs we sang.
Visualize the scene… The church – a medieval cathedral, slate stone floor, hugh round pillars, each one surrounded halfway up by hundreds and hundreds of little candles. After listening to the minister reading the bible story of the birth of Jesus Christ, the lights dimmed even more, up to the point where the church was only lit by the candles…
Our conductor would take his place and always give us a soft smile, saying without words: “You know what’s coming and let’s make this a beautiful performance”. Then slowly, with a minimum of movement, his hands would give us the sign to start…
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.
Davids Zoon, lang verwacht,
die miljoenen eens zaligen zal
werd geboren in Bethlehems stal.
Hij, der schepselen Heer
Hij, der schepselen Heer.
After singing the second verse, the conductor always paused for a split second, before bringing his right pointing finger to his lips and softly, ever so softly we started to sing again…
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,
Heil en vree wordt gebracht,
aan een wereld, verloren in schuld.
Gods belofte wordt heerlijk vervuld.
Amen! Gode zij eer
Amen! Gode zij eer.
During the third verse the volume would get louder until we reached the last two lines – translated from Dutch: Amen! Honour to God – which were sung really loud, rejoicing.
It’s hard to explain, it’s a case of “you should have been there”, but that last verse always gave me goose bumps.
And now it’s Christmas Eve. No longer a choir member, but I will be attending the midnight service, anxiously awaiting ‘Silent Night’.
Whether you believe in a higher power or not, I want to wish you a blessed Christmas, surrounded by the people you love, friends, family. A peaceful Christmas… and I’m hoping for (maybe, just maybe) a White Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Dec 24th, 2007 by Antoinette
Welcome to Day 24 of my Christmas give away 🙂
If you’re not sure what this is, check the Announcement please
The last day of Sparky’s DS Christmas Freebies. I’ve enjoyed making these graphics and I hope you’ll have fun creating layouts with them. I’d love to see how my graphics are being used, so if you create a layout with my kits, please send me a 500×500 sample. I’m thinking of adding a Gallery 🙂
I had some left-overs from the fabrics I used *wink*, so I decided to stitch some trees for you. If you’ve downloaded previous freebies, you’ll probably find a matching tree in this package.
Download link:
Stitched trees 1.5 MB
