Merry Christmas to All: Flora, Fauna, and Feeble Humans

Our holiday season started with an invitation to our Topsfield Council on Aging Holiday Party, December 7. This is where some of us at the end of the party were allowed to take home a floral arrangement by Topsfield’s New Meadows Garden Club. Thank you, Love you, Bless you ~ all the garden clubs! The original came with 5 red roses. After two weeks, I freshened up the piece with a few tulips and a lily. Here’s a couple tips for people enjoying floral arrangements this season:
1. Water your arrangement a little every day.
2. Replace spent flowers with fresh market flowers.

The red sleigh floral arrangement resulted from another give away – the sleigh container – received December 14 at a Topsfield Council on Aging get-together. The piece came together using a block of oasis floral foam, flower preserve, water, and fresh market flowers. I’m grateful again for Dave Eng, of Dave Eng’s Flowers Salem, who taught our floral arrangement class in 2016, through Northern Essex Community College. Thank you, Love you, Bless you ~ all the teachers!

I write and look outside as the snow falls… I’m enjoying Blue Jays, Red (male) and Peach (female) Cardinals, Juncos, Tufted Titmice, Nuthatches, and Red Squirrels all vie for a turn at the feeder. Beyond the feeder, the snow covers the landscape we’ve made wheelchair-accessible with help from local landscapers Dan Jackson and Tony Hurley (Artistic Landscapes). Thank you, Love you, Bless you ~ all the landscapers!

Finally, if you’re still with me (reading this far!), I want to recommend an awesome holiday piano piece I heard on Boston’s Classical Radio, WCRB.
Pianist: Jeffrey Biegel
Piece: Sleigh Ride
Composer: Leroy Anderson
Album: A Steinway Christmas Album

WCRB Classical Radio is a program of WGBH Public Media Boston. Thank you everyone who supports WGBH! What a gift!

Thank you, Love you, Bless you ~ all the musicians, all the public radio stations, all the supporters of access to art and culture!

Moving forward with a listening heart,
vision, inquiry, and action,
Mary