Skip to main content

Christmas Countdown Characters #21

Because  there are only 25 days in Advent and there are 26 letters in the alphabet, today we have a  daily double - U and V




U is for Ulla  

 Ulla  is a Finnish name , made popular by the Swedish secretary in the stage play, "The Producers" , but today I have two different Christmas celebrities who are named  " Ulla" .  




Little Ulla is the  fictional heroine of an interactive Christmas Stage Show specially created for little ones, with puppets, music, and yodelling! It’s a busy little time for Little Ulla the Post Goat!  It’s Christmas time and she has lots of cards to deliver around the village.  Every day she makes people happy by delivering cards from friends and loved ones. But poor old Mr Hans the clockmaker never gets any Christmas cards!  Needless to say, Little Ulla makes sure that Mr Hans is not neglected this Christmas.  


The discovery of this rather odd Scottish operetta and its caprine heroine does not diminish the brilliance of  my artist friend, Ulla Anobile who is not fictional, but a real living Christmas celebrity. Ulla is a Finnish-American, who creates   the most whimsical nativity scenes, and other  delightful Christmas characters from felt with hand embroidery.  




You might have remembered " tonttu" from yeseterday's post.... Ulla's Christmas elves  each has his own personality defined by the hand embroidered features. Most of Ulla's work refers to her Finnish heritage and is unique - every felt character is a work of original art.  Ulla's work can often be seen and purchased from Cactus Gallery in Elysian Valley, Los Angeles.  

You can find Ulla  and her  brilliant work on her Facebook page.  
Hyvää Joulua, Ulla!




V is for Virginia 
Most may not recognise the name " Virginia O'Hanlon" but if I mention the letter and the classic response which began , " Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".   I am sure it will ring a bell, a Christmas one even! Eight year old  New Yorker Virginia questioned the existence of Santa Claus, and the now famous reply appeared as an editorial in The Sun in 1897  
Virginia enjoyed a career as a teacher and later as a school principal but throughout her life, she continued to receive correspondence about her letter . Virginia died in 1971 and her family recall that Virginia never ever thought she did anything special, she felt all she did was ask a question, and it was the editor Francis Church who wrote the remarkable response who should be receiving the glory. 

Ulla, Little Ulla and Virginia all have in common the love of spreading joy in the world.... what a lesson we can all learn from them this festive season. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Giveaway - Gifts for You on My Birthday

Giveaway Gifts T his week is blog giveaway time! Last week I celebrated my birthday.  I’ve had far too many to count the candles, but I had a wonderful party on the weekend with my family - with an indulgent birthday cake, favourite foods cooked by my husband and great company. ( In case you were wondering about the writing on the cake , Por Por = Chinese grandmother)     I also got great gifts from  my family and friends. There seemed to be a bit of a theme this year – with many of my gifts and cards depicting matryshoka ( babushka) dolls and tea drinking.   As it is also winter here in Australia ,   it was easy for me to  decide what I could offer as gifts  in this birthday giveaway. All the gifts are handmade by me. Gift 1 - two little fabric matryshoka dolls  Gift 2- a little bag made from colourful teapot and teacup fabric . The design is called a jester bag, but it is suitable for carrying s...

Pink Ribbon Giveaway

Today, 26 October, is Pink Ribbon Day. We started the morning at the community centre with my Rotary club, the Rotary Club of Wallsend-Maryland, and cooked pink pancakes and bacon and eggs (their natural colour) at a fundraising breakfast for Breast Cancer Research. I also bought a couple of items of pink merchandise to support the cause. The pink ribbon and pen are part of this week’s blog giveaway. It’s a pink parcel – a pink fabric bag, made from a Laurel Burch print, a beautiful flower made by my mum, one of our Rotary club’s angels of hope and the pen and ribbon. There may be some other little pink surprises which I may add during the week. All you have to do to win this prize is leave a comment, either about Pink Ribbon Day or one of the photos in this blog post. I will put all the names in a container and draw one next Monday, 2 November, 9am Australian Eastern Summer Time. The photos are of things I’ve finished this week. The beaded doll was started ages ago, before I we...

Giveaway x 3

As promised, to celebrate and thank you for over 500 likes on the Empress Wu Designs Facebook Page  , here is a giveaway of some of my art - three giveaways, in fact. I have chosen three sets of art gift tags as prizes because they are easily posted worldwide... These tags make great small gifts themselves or as an accompaniment to a gift, or you can even use them as bookmarks. All you need to do  to win a set is leave a comment here or on the Facebook page (or both) and next week on Monday, 6 October, 5pm Australian Eastern Summer Time, I will randomly choose three winners. The first person will have first choice (one of three sets of tags) ; the second person will have a choice of the remaining two sets, and I am afraid the third person will have whatever set has not been chosen before. Here they are:  Art Tags Set A - Marie Antoinette series  (mixed media tags) Marie Antoinette series - 1 Beehive tag( line drawing on tea bag paper, digital image wit...