By Judy Klien
For the recent FOTC conference in Santa Fe, I had designed a nativity ornament using peanuts for the Holy Family, glued to a wood disc. I made these as little gifts for my fellow Board members & a few other friends. After all had been distributed, John (one of our new members and a FOTC conference first-timer) found me because he wanted to know if/how he could possibly obtain one. When I sadly told him I had no more, he begged me to make another and neil it to him. Price didn’t matter, he just really wanted one!
This is the letter I just sent to him:
“Dear John, I haven’t forgotten your request.... just been on the run since Santa Fe. Hope your Thanksgiving was fun, filling, and blessed beyond measure. I had used up all my peanut makings & was not planning to make any more, but your pitiful begging got to me 🙄.... I did still have one left plus some too-small slices of wood left, but other ideas for taking it further kept coming, so I bought more makings & another bag of peanuts. (The story of my life!!)
As you will note in the first pic, is the original design as I had in Santa Fe. The second pic shows another design making use of three of the too small slices so the background became the Trinity. Then I found the delightfully shaped peanuts that were perfect for the wisemen (that I was NOT looking for, by the way, yet... there they were & not to be ignored!).... then there were the smaller shepherds with their sheep!! Well you can see what happened in the last pic. And as I was clearing the table (and the night was growing shorter), I saw the ribbon that was perfect to suggest the magnificence of their wardrobe, and after another couple of tedious hours of getting everyone appropriately dressed, and figuring how to make sheep-shaped single peanuts can you say that fast 3 times?) identifiable as sheep, I was finally, again back from to clearing the table. And that was when it hit me....the scene was naked!! There was no landscaping to hold it all together! Another hour or so later I could finally step back, take a long look at it and deem it complete (well, except for a star which would have to wait until I could get to Hobby Lobby the next day). I could then get close to 3 hrs of contented sleep, which I did.
Since then, in my new bag of peanuts, I have found three more wisemen! So here’s my offer:
The original ornament ($8 should cover mailing, too) OR the Trinity ornament for $12 OR the whole gang, framed & dressed, for $25 (the second & most likely last of that original design). I’m retiring from peanut designs... the nights are not long enough !! So, dear FOTC First-Timer John, the choice is yours... unless you want all 3 for $40. Just let me know & I’ll start the night shift again!
And for what it might be worth, Neil Allen has been bugging me to write a blog for the FOTC website, so I think this email to you just might be it.
My apology for the late hour. It wasn’t late when I started!!! That’s just how the night shift works at my house! “