How did the holidays get here so quickly?

I used to be one of those people who started buying Christmas gifts in July.  If I saw something I thought one of my sisters would enjoy or an item that would be perfect for a friend, I would buy it and squirrel it away for Christmas.  Those times have passed, it would seem, because I can't even wrap my head around the fact that we're in the month of December!  Good gravy.

I'm missing Vienna a lot these days since that is where we were living this time last year.  It's a lovely city, but it becomes even more magical when the Christmas markets open.  There are many, many, many of them, and some people travel to European cities this time of year just to enjoy the food and shopping at these markets.  I think we may have gone to every one in the metro area of the city.  Some are focused mostly on handmade arts and crafts, others offer a bit more of the touristy things along with traditional foods and trinkets, others have loads of handmade items from nearby countries like Italy and Hungary, and others have tremendous light displays on top of all you can buy and eat.  They can be a lot of fun (mulled wine and ginormous pretzels help with that), and I especially liked seeing the artisan made items.  We bought some ceramic ornaments, Polish pottery, porcelain pendants and glass balls but ogled a whole lot more, believe me.  We visited some of them multiple times over the course of several weeks.  Here are some photos of the booths of beautiful ornaments:

 

I'm also missing my favorite Austrian family who welcomed me into their home for Christmas.  They actually had lit candles on their tree!  And sparklers too!  And, as always, my friend Barbara and her husband, Janos, made a feast of amazing food.  I hope we get to celebrate together again one day.

This coming Saturday, I will be participating in my second jewelry blog hop.  The objective is to go through my stash of beads, look for those special beads I've been unwilling to let go of for whatever reason (i.e. hoarding) and use them to make some jewelry.  Tim has often said to me that I need to stop collecting and start making.  In that vain, I will be creating this week, and I will post about it on Saturday, December 6th.  Please stop by to take a look.  There are around 100 other participants signed up for this hop.  I'm excited to see what everyone else has been holding on to and what they've done with those items.