🐻Lil Treasures #105: North West and the Sleepytime Tea Bear
Happy Friday, party people!
It is officially December and we are a mere 22 days away from Christmas Day! I am not ready.
I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday weekends, and were filled with great joy and even greater pies. I’ve been playing host to the Popcast staff this week during our retreat, and am carrying on like a tired, limp noodle today, so this newsletter will be brief.
As I was decorating my house for Christmas this week, I realized just how much I love and value traditions. Both my close and extended family have a lot of them, ranging from sweet and personal to strange and random. I’d love to hear some of your own holiday traditions (they can be current or past traditions). If you’re willing, please share in the comments!
Here are this week’s treasures:
🤝 My friend Gloria is part of a movement called Hope Booth, which is seeking to make people all over the world feel seen and unified. Our society is a little disconnected after the last couple of years, and their goal is to help everyone experience a taste of community through installing Hope Booths in cities across the globe. They have a kickstarter fundraiser to help get this started, so if you are interested in this project, please give and share! Additionally, if you want to learn more about Hope Booth, click here!
🆓 For my fellow true crime sleuths: a man named Anthony Broadwater was freed from prison this week after a wrongful sentence for a crime he did not commit 16 years ago. The crazy thing is that all of this happened as a result of some film producers who noticed some errors in storytelling. When producers for a Netflix film starting digging into the script on the story, they realized there were some major holes in the trial information, which led to Broadwater’s conviction being overturned. We celebrate with you, Anthony!
🎄 I find myself feeling a little overwhelmed by Christmas this year, if I’m being honest. If you are like me and are having difficulty manifesting the holiday magic for yourself and your family, this poem from Meredith Ann Miller is for you.
📰 Although extremely sobering, this article about one family’s escape from Kabul to Texas is an important read, providing an up-close account to the events that unfolded in Afghanistan this past fall.
🕯️ It’s not too late to join us for Advent! We have one week of Thunder In The Desert under our belts, but you can easily catch up and follow along for the rest of the season for only $6 (the study is only a month long). If you’d like to participate in this study of Advent and Isaiah 40 with a kind and beautiful group, click here to subscribe!
🪨 Apparently Kim Kardashian and her daughter North got a TikTok account and the internet is responding in the best way possible.
LET’S DO SOME TWEETS:
This is so tender:
Okay pals, that’s it for me. Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you in the comments!
Good morning, friends! I’ve been absent from the comments for a few weeks and have missed being here. One big anticipatory treasure from our house this week:
🎄🍆 some of you may remember that we had new neighbors move in last year. There are 2 big trees in their front yard, and last year, they cut all of the branches off of one tree but left the bulbous phallic tree trunk standing, and decorated it with twinkle lights and a flying pig. The Fancy Peen tree was one of the biggest joys of Christmas 2020 for me.
Early Thursday morning, I woke up because of a loud crashing thud, looked out the windows but didn’t see any branches/trees in our yard, and forgot about it until I drove to work. In the neighbors yard, I see a HUGE branch laying in front of Fancy Peen tree. That’s right- the tree next to Fancy Peen lost a huge branch and I am GIDDY with anticipation about what is going to happen! The dream is that we end up with a double dong tree pair festooned in bizarre Christmas decor in the neighbors front yard. We shall see! I will keep you posted 😬
My papa Joe (93) is a furniture craftsman. He and my nanny had 4 kids, they each married and there were 4 older grandkids (including me) and then a gap til the 4 younger came along. Christmas morning, when all the presents were open, he’d say “let’s go up to the shop” and we’d race up the hill and wait. When he got up the hill, he’d open the garage door on his wood shop and unveil whatever he had been working on that year - always a set of four - and one set of us would be thrilled to find the very best gift made for us. Over the years, I came home with two complete bedroom sets, a grandfather clock, a doll/china cabinet, a corner curio, a wall clock… the very very best heirlooms ever.
Search for “WRAL Joe Everhart” if you’d like to see the news story from a few years ago ❤️