Earrings for Coneheads

Unlike retail America, I believe Christmas comes AFTER Thanksgiving, and these pine cone earrings are a good bridge during the transition period.

Earrings I Don't Have

Happy Black Friday. If you are one of the crazy people who are actually out spending money today, here is my wish list of holiday earrings that I don't already have:

Christmas Earrings:
Santa (I know, shocking, right?)
Elves
Reindeer (I do have meese, though)
Gift boxes
Sleds/sleighs
Wreaths
Stockings
Mistletoe
Holly
Abominable Snowmen (I have plenty of the unabominable kind)
Jesuses
Fruitcakes
Leg lamps

Earrings for Other Holidays:
St. Nicholas Day/Belsnickel (Christmas stockings might work)
April Fool's Day (I suppose I do have some poissons d'avril I could use in a pinch)
Columbus Day (except for these)
Leap Day (I have a single frog)

Miscellaneous Earrings I Want
Lightning bolts (for Harry Potter movies)
Chandeliers that light up (I can dream)
Stop lights that I can control based on my mood (I have a vivid imagination)
Leg lamps that light up (a really vivid imagination)

Earrings Are for the Birds! (Or Cats)

Happy Turkey Day!

I can't leave these earrings sitting out on my dresser or the cats will take them. It would not be the first pair of earrings I've owned to become cat toys. I suppose it's only fair, since I'm sure at some point or other I've turned a cat toy into an earring.

Out on a Limb

How many autumn earrings do I have? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

Silver Wear

These earrings came in a set of six, but I like to wear one of each pair in my three ear piercings. In this way, I feel I'm "set" like the table for Thanksgiving. The fork's always on the left, naturally.

Fork It

It's Monday. These are my "Fork it!" earrings. Also good for Thanksgiving.

Axes of Evil

Back in an October blog post, I told you to "Axe Me Later" what a tomahawk was. A tomahawk is a kind of hatchet, a weapon held with one hand, whereas axes are held with two. I guess it's appropriate that I have only one tomahawk earring, then.

Another way to think of it is:

Axe = Halloween
Tomahawk = Thanksgiving

Travels, Falls & Leaves

I was told these earrings are made from real Aspen leaves. They were a souvenir brought back to me from Colorado.

Our House is a Museum

I was in the middle of a conversation with my husband tonight when I noticed something peculiar about our diningroom chandelier. I kept staring at it and tilting my head. Finally, he stopped talking and said, "What?"

"Our chandelier is not hanging at a 180-degree angle from the earth," I answered, still staring.

"And, in our house, this disturbs you?" he asked wryly.

"No," I smiled. "I'm just trying to figure out how to make it even more crooked."

Pilgrimage

It's Thanksgiving earring season! I have no idea where these pilgrims came from. The Mayflower, I guess! I hope you can see the tiny wishbone earring that I like to wear with them.

The End of the Tunnel

My husband and I spent the first year of our marriage apart, as he was deployed to Iraq with the Army Reserves. I consider myself lucky, because we seem to have experienced no long-lasting ill effects and because, so far, I have no reason to believe that I'll have to endure another deployment (although things can always change at any time). As a military spouse, I can tell you that deployment is truly hell and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

For an entire year, I feared every day that two men in uniform would knock on my door to tell me that the most important person in the world to me was dead. I would wonder how it would happen. Would I come home from work to find a strange car in my driveway? Would they show up first thing in the morning when I was in my jammies with nappy hair? Is there something seriously wrong with me because I'm thinking about what I'd look like at a time like this? Would they be people I'd met before or total strangers that I'd break down in front of, and which would I prefer? Who would be the first person I'd call after getting the news?

Earrings for the Guy

Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, has been celebrated in Great Britain since the first anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. In 1605, Fawkes and his co-conspirators were attempting to blow up Parliament with numerous barrels of gunpowder they'd stashed underneath. They wanted to oust the protestant King James and replace him with a Catholic monarch. Fawkes was basically caught red-handed on November 5 and soon ratted out his buds while being tortured at the Tower. The other conspirators were drawn and quartered. Fawkes managed to jump from the scaffold, dying when the fall broke his neck, thus sparing him the agony of drawing and quartering, but his body parts were still sent off to various places and displayed as a deterrent to future treason.

November 5 was declared a day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure. Effigies of the Pope and Fawkes were burned in bonfires. The custom continued, and kids would display effigies and sometimes knock on doors asking for a "Penny for the Guy?", ostensibly to buy fireworks, but Wiki says the custom is sometimes now frowned upon because 1) kids aren't supposed to buy fireworks 2) it might seem like begging and who knows what the kids do with the money? and 3) it is sometimes seen as offensive to Catholics. And more recently, the American custom of trick-or-treating at Halloween has been adopted in the UK and sort of replaced the Guy Fawkes ritual - for kids anyway. Bonfires and fireworks still mark the occasion in the UK and some former colonies.

I always find it interesting how holiday customs blend and become distorted. Many believe Fawkes Night fires have as their true origin a pagan fire ritual that cleanses the streets of evil spirits.

I searched online for Guy Fawkes Night earrings, but the closest thing I could find were some V for Vendetta earrings that I didn't like, and some Big Ben charms that I can and will fashion into earrings for next year. I figure, you know, Big Ben... Parliament. I'm not really sure what gunpowder earrings would look like (barrels?), though I have seen some fireworks-inspired earrings. They tend to be all red, white, and blue and American-looking, though. So, for now, I will wear the earrings shown in the photo, which I made by printing out tiny pics of a Guy Fawkes mask and slipping them into the frame earrings I found at Michael's.

I feel that simply printing out a photo and slipping it into the frame earring is a cop-out, but in this case it does have as an advantage that I could, at the end of the night, burn the little pictures if I were feeling particularly festive and then just print out more next year.

But I admit I have some sympathy for the Guy. King James I and VI was not a friend of witches.

Voting Is Such A Gas!

This Election Day, it's nice to remember that whatever our political leanings and despite our differences, we can all still unite in a single, shared truth. Whatever you do there behind the curtain of the voting booth, please join me in proudly stating it to the world!

Just print out these designs on sticky label paper and cut around the ovals. I give permission for personal, not commercial use.

I do hope your voting experience doesn't stink.

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

I understand that Day of the Dead is November 2, but I gather many celebrations begin November 1 or even Halloween. Fortunately, I have two pairs of skeleton earrings appropriate for the occasion(s). I suppose the coffin earrings I posted yesterday could also work.

This marks the end of my posts about Halloween earrings - until I find some more to add to my collection!