Well it was a little disappointing as two could not come due to unexpected illness. Boo!! The hostess had a cinammon craft for us to make and we cut out ornaments to take home. She thought we would all do turkeys, but we chose stars and trees. She had a nice lunch and a mock cherry pie for dessert--it looks like cherry pie but is made with cranberries and raisins. Her house is decorated over the top for each season/holiday so we enjoyed browsing in her home at all the new things to see. One member chose not to swap, so she brought us all home made relish. The gifts were supposed to be natural/handmade. I was #1 and picked a large ornately wrapped one and it was a Frankoma leaf-shaped dish full of home-made autumn potpourri. #2 stole it immediately. I next chose the package with the burlap sunflower on it and it turned out to be a frame with burlap and acorns on it. #3 was mine: I covered a box with fabric and did an iron-on transfer of an old postcard. Lined the box with pages from a 1909 magazine. The gift was an ornament made of dried oranges, apples, and sage leaves. #4 was a giant pomegranate and 2 hedge apples. We had fun. Next week we are meeting at my house to make the apple/orange/sage ornament.
My gift was wrapped in brown kraft paper with roadside grasses and soapberries on it, plus some peppers and dried okra pods from the garden.
www.cassphoto.com/fallswap4.jpg
After our get together we went downtown to go through a couple of shops. Everything was elaborately done up for Christmas. The only thing I bought was some fabric to make my grand daughter a cow. I'm planning to use the raggedy ann pattern, but make it a cow. She is only 3 but cow-crazy.
The Christmas extravaganza overwhelmed me and actually depressed me.