Holiday festivities can lose their joyful charge as you lose family members. But when you expand your family’s traditions you can expand your family circle. And, you recharge that joyfulness beyond the limitations you’ve known.

Arts & crafts united my family at the holidays. Crafting unique ornaments each year became a loving competition between my mother, sister and me. We would learn from each other—share our selves—and craft belonging into our family.

The rest of the time, my father’s alcoholism and pedophilia were daily concerns that kept us squelched, distanced from each other. But at Christmas time, we could rise above it, if only for the season.

Crafting ornaments gathered the women of our neighborhood around the same table, acting as both a survival antic and artistic outlet. Each of us in our own imaginations, creating beautiful offerings, sharing sweet treats and savored dreams. It was magical. This is when I felt the safest and happiest in my youth.

These were delightfully intimate moments where the synergy of life all came together in perfect harmony. Even, and especially, when the world around us wasn’t there yet.

In fact, I’ve always felt that arts & crafts offered women the survival skills needed to create a new and improved life. It asked us to be visionaries and problem solvers. We created something out of nothing, with a finite degree of skill and supplies.

It also gave me a sense of grace. Presenting hand-crafted ornaments that expressed my light was, and continues to be, important to me. It shows gratitude for life, even if the life being lived feels flawed.

Offering my ornaments shows love for everything that is good—a rising above short-comings and offenses.

Now, with my sister gone in Covid’s wake and my mom hampered by health limitations, I feel an even greater pull to the safe-haven of arts & crafts. Beads and gems, needles and string, pliers and cutters, surround me as I create Enchanted Icicles that catch the light and magnify what’s good in the world.

Through the holiday season, I’ll gather friends, stretch my imagination, and infuse each crafted icicle with love’s magic. And to expand my family even further, I’ve decided to offer these Enchanted Icicles to you!

Kick off your holiday at: https://bodylogos.com/icicles/
Join my Expanding Family! Enjoy the goodness and grace of hand-crafted Icicles!

Love is more than crafting stuff. But, crafting ornaments, and the like, has offered me a path to rise above disappointment, fear and uncertainty. A path that when united with the right people has led me to a magical life all year round.

The holiday is a time to offer thanks to each other. A time to light the way for us all to embrace what’s good and just and heart-based. Delight in what is, share of your self, and visualize a life you can’t wait to live!

Happy Thanksgiving.