Give Me An Inch--And A GIVEAWAY!

Stupendous holiday, we had.  Hoping the same for you.  All illnesses seem to have passed, and I have learned a valuable lesson: if I take a break from blogging, it is exceptionally hard to return.  So here I am, in the nick of time, ready to saddle up this horse for another year.

Christmas saw our family of five renting an SUV and traveling to my mother, then my in-laws', then home for my father to visit at our house, all in the space of 5 days.  Hectic doesn't even begin.  But our children were showered with amazing gifts, and we two were drenched by our families' generosity, and it was wonderful as always to have those days away together.  Sleep schedules be damned, right?

Aside from all the Christmas booty that awaited us with each visit, I was crazy delighted to sit and watch my husband and his mother go through some old things she's collected over the years.  Not because I cared all that deeply whether he found the grade school photo album he's sure she's got stashed away, but because in my mother-in-law's house there are many rooms--and many closets.  And much to my father-in-law's frustration, they are all FULL TO THE RAFTERS with items his wife has been keeping for more years than anyone can count, lots of them passed down to her from her mother who has been keeping them..well, since she was alive.

Out of the chaos (which included two pillow cases full of "ironing" that my mother-in-law admitted were two years old!) were these treasures:

Handed down from her mother, to my mother-in-law who doesn't sew but couldn't bear to ditch them.  And now, with just a nod and a word, they are MINE!  Mwah-ha-ha!!

And, if you play your cards right, some of them could be YOURS!  

In celebration of the dawning New Year, I'm paying these beauties forward and giving away THREE GRAB BAGS of vintage buttons, still on the cards.  All the grab bags are assorted, my pick, but they'll all be equally awesome.  Some of the cards are torn and incomplete--I'll hang on to those and only send y'all complete cards with fantastic illustrations like this:

And this:

Leave a note in the comments with your New Year's wish, and I'll use the random number generator to pick THREE winners on Friday, January 2.  Feel free to enter as often as you like, as long as you include a new wish for the New Year each time you enter.  Winners will be posted before Alabama plays in their bowl game Friday night.

Roll Tide, people, and good luck!