Sparkling Plush Snowmen

This Plush Snowman Ornament is about 6 � inches tall. He is made of a white fuzzy, sparkly cloth material. The Snowman is wearing his festive Christmas sweater that has red and green fuzzy stripes on it. Our Plush Snowmen also has a sparkling black top hat with a fuzzy red hatband on it and a sparkling red scarf that has 8 colored sequins on it. In his right hand is a small wooden birdhouse painted dark blue with a red roof. As with most Plush Snowmen, this one has a carrot nose and a big Christmas smile on. Select this link to view our Christmas Ornaments.

Snowmen.
There are many reasons why snowmen are particularly beloved, but one old legend explains why children are especially fond of them. Did you know that our snowy friends dance and that only children are able to see them? After a snowman has been built and left alone outdoors in the frigid air, he begins to come to life! The snowman dances to amuse and captivate the children who watch, for it brings happiness to his rather short life. So during Christmas, if your children seem to be staring out the window in a daze, do not worry, most likely a dancing snowman is entertaining them. Select this link to view our Christmas Gifts.

History of The Cardinal.
Cardinals, which are sometimes called redbirds, are a wild bird in the finch family. They are named for the beautiful red feathers of the male bird. Cardinals usually live in the eastern United States from New York to the Gulf of Mexico. They are sometimes found as far north as Southern Canada. They are spreading through the basin of the Mississippi River and can be found as far north as St. Paul, Minn. The cardinal is about eight inches long. The bird has a crest of feathers on its head that looks like a peaked cap. The males are mostly red, but have tints of gray on their backs. Their throats and foreheads are black. The females are olive gray and buff colored with a little red in their wings, tail and crest. Both males and females have bright red bills.

Cardinals usually make their nest in bramble thickets or in low hanging trees. The nest is made of dead leaves, grass and weed stems and lines with grass or roots. Cardinals have three to five eggs that are colored white or pale blue with spots of reddish brown and lilac. Cardinals usually have at least two broods of young in each mating season. The birds feed on insects, worms, waste grain and the seeds of weeds and wild fruits. When the winter is very cold the cardinals go to barnyards and corncribs and feed on corn. They are also very fond of sunflower seeds. The male bird stays close by the female during the mating season and brings food to her and the young birds. Cardinals sing a very cheerful song. One of its whistles sounds like a boy whistling to his dog. The cardinal is sometimes called the Virginia nightingale because of its sweet song. Select this link to view our Christmas Figurines.

What is a Star?
A star is a huge, shining ball in space that produces a tremendous amount of light and other forms of energy. The sun is a star and it supplies Earth with light and heat energy. The stars look like twinkling points of light, except for the sun. The sun looks like a ball because it is much closer to Earth than any other star. The sun and most other stars are made of gas and a hot, gas like substance known as plasma. Some stars, called white dwarfs and neutron stars, consist of tightly packed atoms or subatomic particles. These stars are therefore much denser than any substance on Earth.

Stars come in many sizes. The sun�s radius or the distance form its center to its surface is about 432,500 miles. Astronomers classify the sun as a dwarf because other kinds of stars are much bigger. Some of the stars known as super giants have a radius about 1,000 times that of the sun. The smallest stars are the neutron stars, some of which have a radius of only about 6 miles. About 75 percent of all stars are members of a binary system, a pair of closely spaced stars that orbit each other. The sun is not a member of a binary system. The sun�s nearest known stellar neighbor is Proxima Centauri, which is part of a multiple star system that also includes Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. The distance from the sun to Proxima Centauri is more than 25 trillion miles. This distance is so great that light takes 4.2 years to travel between the two stars. Scientists say that Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years from the sun. One light year, the distance that light travels in a vacuum in a year, equals about 5.88 trillion miles. Select this link to view our