The World Market

I spent most of the morning shopping for favors for our Christmas party. With more than 40 people coming here, and everyone leaving with a gift, I try to find different things for every party that most people haven't seen before.

"The World Market" is a great store not far from here, and as long as the traffic isn't bumper-to-bumper on our main road, it's fun to go there. Our traffic problems here have escalated since they started building so many townhouses near the Gulf Freeway. All these multi-level townhouses means more cars, much more than this area can hold on the roads we have, so during the rush-hours, we have city traffic just like the downtown areas. And why is it that The Powers That Be didn't realize what would happen to our normally quiet main roads after all those townhouses went up?

Anyway, before I get really get started on the traffic problems.... The World Market had lots of interesting things for Christmas-- uniquely shaped chocolates in cute packaging, ornaments from around the world, scone and biscuit mixes from England, cookie mixes and plum puddings, marzipan animals and fruits, plus lots of nice glassware to fill up with holiday candy.

I bought some of the marzipan fruits for us, for Thanksgiving. I made little candy-cups from ribbons, crape-paper and silk leaves, similar to the Halloween candy-cups that I had found on eBay. My Aunt Dolly always had those tiny crape-paper candy cups for all the holidays-- they sold them at the Five and Ten-Cent stores in the 1950s. I bought some on eBay and used them for a lunch surprise for Miss C one afternoon-- she had never seen them before.

The little cups looked simple to make so I tried that last night, using Thanksgiving leaf-design ribbon and gold crape-paper. I used the small paper bathroom Dixie cups-- cutting them in half to make them shorter... they came out very nice, and I made enough for each place setting at Thanksgiving. After I got busy with the hot-glue gun, you'd never guess there was a plain white Dixie cup underneath all the copper and gold paper and ribbons. Each of the little cups will be filled with the tiny marzipan fruits. We're having just five for Thanksgiving dinner... I don't know that I would have gone to all that trouble if I had to make a dozen.

I also went to the consignment shop today, and their 20%-off special was anything made of porcelain, ceramic or glass. That gave me an idea for the favors for Valentine's Day, so I walked around the shop and picked up all their heart-shaped candy dishes, which were marked down anyway, plus the extra 20% off. Those will make great favors for the Valentine's party-- I will fill them with heart-shaped cookies or heart-shaped candies.

The girl at the register asked me if I was buying all the heart-shaped dishes for Christmas presents, and I told her that I was already finished with Christmas shopping, so I've started now on Valentine's Day. She thought I was joking.