It’s that time of year again where I bring you the we’re-at-my-parents’-house-here-are-a-ton-of-photos post. This post will include all of the same elements that always make an appearance in those about Christmas with my family.
1. Silliness with Grandma (and playing with my old toys):
^^The girls decided that Barney, my huge old teddy bear, was sick, and they were doctoring him in Grandma’s bed.
^^Baby Sis was even enthralled by this, the best holiday movie ever.
3. Story time at the library with Grandma:
^^She could not understand why she couldn’t just go get in Grandma’s lap for a story.
4. And of course, a big holiday free-for-all with my brother’s family yesterday.
We haven’t seen my brother and his family in a long time, and it made me so happy to see my kids and his kids jump right into cousin-ly camaraderie.
It was awesome to have my whole family together. Six adults + Seven kids (two of which are toddlers) = Crazy and wonderful.
The present opening was just as chaotic as ever, and just as fun.
Everyone got pretty tired out by the festivities.
More silliness with Grandma:
After my brother and his clan left the girls got dressed in their new princess PJs, which Lass had been begging to put on from the moment she opened them.
They danced around in their new finery, with Lass breathlessly proclaiming, “I’m Snow White! I am really and truly Snow White! All my dreams have come true!”
At the end of the evening last night, we put on a movie for tired girls (and tired parents).
We have one more day at Grandma and Grandpa’s before hitting the road to go home on Saturday. We’re packing in as much quality time as we can.
A few days ago, I got an email from someone at Minted. As soon as I saw the subject line, I figured it was about asking me to do some sort of post about some sort of product (I didn’t know what Minted was until I opened the email). My initial thought was “No. No more reviews right now.”
I just did a book review and I have another one coming up next week. Though I have enjoyed reading these books and writing the reviews, I don’t want to make this blog all about reviews. That’s not why I write it. So my gut reaction to the email was “no.”
Then I opened it. And I clicked on the link that Matt from Minted sent to me. And I changed my mind right smartly.
Minted is an online stationery store. Forget about the fact that as soon as I read that in Matt’s email I started imagining lovely, thick paper and envelopes just waiting to have a note hand written on them and sent through the real mail (have I ever mentioned that I have a little bit of a stationery thing?). Nevermind that I pictured myself buying some personalized stationery again (I used to have some when I was a little girl).
When I opened the link Matt sent, I found myself looking at some beautiful Christmas card designs, and I immediately changed my mind from “No” to “Oh, I love this stuff. Absolutely!”
I have found so many card designs that I like, I’m having a hard time choosing. There’s this one and this one and this one. The upload and edit process is extremely easy. I have five different saved cards that I made quickly last night, just waiting for me to make up my mind. And though my first impression was that the cards were more expensive than Shutterfly, which is what I’ve used in the past, when I checked it out I found that they actually are comparable or less expensive. And I just like the card designs better than other online photo or card companies I’ve looked at this year.
So. There you have it. I have a new online stationery store. Christmas cards coming soon. Now excuse me while I go shop for some glorious items in their paperie.
P.S. I am receiving a credit from Minted in exchange for writing about my opinion.
P.P.S. I’ll return to regular programing after my next book review coming up this week.
Today I’m going to write 7 Quick Takes about celebrating Christmas as the birth of Jesus rather than just a fun magical time to take the kids to do fun things and look forward to Santa. Things are a little different around here this year. I am trying to figure out how to combine old traditions with new ones without going overboard and doing too much stuff. I think I’m doing a fairly decent job so far.
1. We still put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. I refuse to have any Christmas-ing (music, decorations, etc.) in our house until Thanksgiving has been properly celebrated (in our house this year that involved lots of meat processing)
But once Thanksgiving is done, I’m all about getting the Christmas stuff going. Music, decor, wrapping, the works. And of course, the biggie is the Christmas tree. The big girls helped a lot this year.
Okay, they pulled lots of ornaments out of the box.
And Sis enjoyed the end result.
We used to keep the tree in the family room, but we moved it into the office this year. Sis is such a climber and a stinker that I knew I wouldn’t have a moment of peace for the next month if I didn’t. Now I get to enjoy it every morning while I have my coffee and every evening while I visit with my husband.
I love our tree. I could go on and on about how much I love it, but I have done that for the past two years (at least). If you care to read all about it again, you can look at the 2011 and 2012 posts about it.
2. I have added some true Advent activities this year. Last year, I didn’t even know what Advent really is. This year, we have our very own Advent wreath.
I’m ridiculously proud of the fact that I put it together for less than $15 with stuff from Hobby Lobby and the Dollar Tree (surprise, surprise, two of my favorite places to shop).
I also got some new Christmas books, added them to most of our old Christmas books, and wrapped them up for the girls to open, one each day of Advent.
I got the idea to wrap them in purple and pink from Shower of Roses (I got some book ideas there too, she has great book lists).
3. I am still doing our Advent calendar that we used last year, but this year it’s also our Jesse tree. I just put new ornaments in the pockets and the felt tree works just fine.
4. I debated putting the cards in the pockets with different fun things to do each day. I was afraid that would be overwhelming. But we really enjoyed it last year, so I’m doing it again. It hasn’t seemed like too much so far. I figured some of the things I put in the pockets will be activities on our Winter Fun List, so I’ll kill two birds and all that.
One thing has changed though, in that I’m adding the cards to the pockets only the night before or the morning that we pull them out. I don’t have it in me to plan too far ahead at this point. In this first week already on most days I’ve just written on the card something we were going to do that day anyway, like today’s, “Drop off presents for families at church and shop for Daddy’s birthday.” Not thrilling stuff, but having it written down and pulling it out of a little pocket with a flourish and a gasp makes it so much more exciting.
5. It’s working well to do it one day at a time. I knew I wanted to take the girls to Nutcracker in the Castle some time this week, but wasn’t sure which day. On Wednesday morning, I decided we’d do it. I put the card in the pocket while the girls were playing. They didn’t even notice me putting it in there. I didn’t even have to plan ahead. Win-win.
I’m so disappointed with the quality of my photos from our outing. This event was in a local art museum, housed in an old mansion. They decorate every room as part of the Nutcracker story (they have Clara’s bedroom, a Sugarplum Fairy room, Drosselmeyer’s workshop, etc.). On the website it said photography is not allowed in the museum, so I didn’t even bring my camera. Then I got there and they said you could take pictures in the first big drawing room, which was decked out like the family’s main room with their big Christmas tree and toys underneath that they were allowed to play with.
It was so amazing, and my photos stink. The room was pretty dim, and the flash on my phone is crummy.
They had beautiful trees and decorations all through the museum, but the girls loved this room the best. They played with the toys and danced to the Sugarplum Fairy music.
I practically had to drag them out of there.
6. Last night we had another first:
Saint Nicholas came to our house and put small goodies in the girls’ shoes. They are loving reading about him.
7. I actually know the Christmas story now. I used to know that it was about Baby Jesus being born in a barn, and Mary and Joseph were there of course, and then there was something about a shepherd and a few wise men and a drummer boy…
This year, for the first time that I can remember, I actually know the story for real, from the Annunciation to the Epiphany (I can’t believe I just wrote “Annunciation” and “Epiphany” and that I know what they mean).
My kids even have a couple of nativities to play with and they act out the whole story too.
This year things are different and yet the same. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. I hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are!
I have always tried my best to be a thoughtful gift-giver, and now that I have kids, my investment in giving good gifts has increased exponentially. I want them to love the gifts. I want their gifts to encourage lots of creative play. I want their gifts to be sturdy. I want their gifts to not be obnoxious. I have a lot to think about when choosing the gifts for my children for Christmas. Quality, not quantity.
More than the gifts, I really want my kids to get a lot out of the whole experience of Christmas. Putting up the Christmas tree, singing carols, going to see Santa, baking cookies, spending time with family, doing all the traditional things that bring such warm memories to my mind from my own childhood. We’ve had a great time doing these things the past few weeks.
For me Christmas morning is the culmination of all the holiday doings. It’s the time when all the build up about Santa and his magic comes to fruition.
On Christmas morning, I want my kids to be bursting with excitement and all the pure wonder that only children can express.
This year, Christmas morning was all that I hoped it would be.
It was waking up early with this little one and waiting for her sisters to come down while starting breakfast preparations.
It was finally hearing the big girls stirring upstairs and hearing their giddy anticipation as they rushed to see what Santa left for them, watching them search for the one thing they really, really wanted (The Big Snow White!), and then seeing the pure, childish joy when they found it.
It was watching and hearing them play with their Santa gifts while I finished making breakfast. What a joyful sound.
It was finally making creamed eggs (Miss called them “egg nugget” for some reason!) by myself without needing to call my mom for her “recipe.” I’ve never written down the instructions she has given me so many times over the years, though I say to myself that I will every time. I call her twice a year (on Christmas and Easter) to ask how to make creamed eggs and have been doing so since at least 2003. This year, I finally just did it myself. With Charlie Brown Christmas playing in the background, I made my roux, added my milk, salted and peppered, and stirred in my chopped hard-boiled eggs all by myself. I felt like such a big girl. My 3 year old did help, though. She told me I needed more salt.
It was the madness of opening the rest of the presents under the tree after breakfast.
It was loving watching my big girls’ different approaches to this process, with Miss tearing open every present that had her name on it, barely stopping in between to look at what she had just revealed, and Lass stopping to play for a while with each toy as she unwrapped it and leisurely making her way around to open each of her gifts.
It was seeing my older girls, surrounded by all their new toys, choosing to sit and read for a while.
It was taking a little bit of time myself to explore the wonderful new books on cooking my husband gave me – “The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchen,” “Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking,” and “Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook’s Manifesto” all by Michael Ruhlman, all Awe. Some.
It was all of these things and more.
It was joyous. It was magical.
I really think I love Christmas and Santa even more through the eyes of my children than I did when I was little myself.
Our elf, Christopher Pop-In-Kins, left our house last night, leaving behind a note and the movie, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” I told the girls they could watch their new movie after baths, just before getting ready for Santa and going to bed.
They were anxiously awaiting baths all day!
To kill some time before naps this afternoon, they helped Daddy make sausage, while rocking out to some Christmas music.
Today we avoided Rudolph, but they love to dance to the Charlie Brown theme song (to my chagrin they like my husband’s favorite Christmas music better than my Johnny Mathis Christmas… for now anyway).
They helped their Dad start to make brats before heading up for naps, all the while asking how much longer until baths and movie.
Finally, after naps, after dinner, after baths, they got to settle in with milk and cookies on fancy plates to watch their new movie.
My favorite part of the day came after the movie. We got treats together for Santa and his reindeer.
The girls dictated a precious “Thank you” note and signed their own names.
The very best time tonight was story time. We snuggled in to read many, many of our Christmas books tonight. Of course we started with “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” but followed that with several more favorites.
I think I was as excited as they were when I put them to bed.
And then of course, there was this:
The bane of all parents of little girls on Christmas Eve – The Dollhouse.
Oh, but what a dollhouse!
It will be the perfect home for the “Big Snow Whites” that my girls have been asking for for over a month now. The ladies are in the stockings just waiting to bring joy to my two eldest girls in the morning. Baby Sis’s stocking holds Prince Charming 🙂
I can’t wait for the morning.
I had a hard time thinking of anything I wanted for myself this Christmas. Truly, there isn’t much that is material in nature that I want or need.
I have three beautiful, healthy children and a truly wonderful, amazing husband. Tomorrow I hope to see their faces light with joy when they open their gifts.
More than that, I hope all year to give them my love in such a way that they always know it, can see it, can feel it no matter what. To me, Christmas is about love and family. We’ve got that.
In the morning we will open plenty of presents. We will have gift wrap flying everywhere. We will have little girls oohing and aaahing and probably squealing a bit over their gifts. We will have a traditional breakfast and stay in pajamas all morning. We will play and probably watch a Christmas movie or two. We might listen to Rudolph or other Christmas music.
We will have all of these things. But most of all, we will will have lots of love. Everything else is just gravy.
The holiday spirit is in full swing around here. Last night Daddy (aka Santa) helped me wrap the rest of the presents and get them under the tree. The girls inspected them closely this morning and eagerly asked about each one. They are excited about Santa coming tomorrow night.
Today was a day for playing Christmas music and making treats in the kitchen. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was on repeat, at Lass’s request, and we made cookies for Santa.
As Rudolph played in the background (for quite a while Lass was insistent we listen to nothing but that, but after a while I snuck in some Charlie Brown Christmas and we were all able to move on), the girls got warmed up with the rolling pin.
They had fun spreading out the flour and then got down to business.
After a few rounds they really got into trying to pound the dough flat before rolling it.
Santa is going to be very pleased. Especially since Miss says we need to leave chocolate milk for him to have with his cookies.
And speaking of Santa being pleased, he was very happy, as were we all, with the fresh (and huge) ham he cooked for our dinner tonight. He cooked the other ham from our hog at my parent’s house last week and was a bit disappointed by how it turned out. The flavor was wonderful, but the meat was dry.
Today he nailed it.
The house was filled with mouth-watering smells all day and the finished product did not disappoint.
We’ll be eating ham for Christmas dinner, and I have plans to use the bone to make a yummy ham and vegetable soup later in the week. I’m happy that we won’t need to be in the kitchen all day to make dinner on Christmas. I’ll cook some Brussels sprouts with bacon and sauté some fennel bulb and the meal will be complete.
We can spend Christmas day as it should be spent. Snuggling and laughing and playing sister games (though I will spend a little bit of time in the kitchen in the morning, after opening presents, cooking our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of creamed eggs).
The girls got their wish to play in the snow today.
They had so much fun tromping through the snow, making tracks and exploring.
Lass was a bit unsteady at first and had a hard time getting up when she fell down.
After a bit she was more stable and keeping up with her sister fairly well.
Daddy made them a little snow fort.
I think they could’ve stayed out there all day. After an hour and a half or so I coaxed them inside with hot chocolate and lunch.
We read the book “The Snowy Day” at nap time, and Miss realized that they had “forgotten” to build a snowman while they were outside. She was disappointed about this (and that she hadn’t gotten a stick with which to whack a snow-covered tree).
They had been having so much fun, they really did forget, though my husband and I didn’t. I was excited to see them build a snowman and outfit it with some fun accessories, but the snow would not pack well enough to do so today.
But, their Advent calendar activity for the day was to “Make a Snowman,” so I improvised. While they were napping I remembered this ornament craft that my Mom mentioned to me the other day and that I’ve glimpsed on Pinterest. I grabbed three vintage blue ornaments off my tree, some white finger paint, and some paint pens, and we made it happen.
I painted their hands, placed the ornaments in their hands and had them press their fingers on them, and then added the rest with paint pens. Snowmen made.
Miss agreed that tomorrow we need to read “The Snowy Day” before they go outside, so she won’t forget again to do any important snow activities.
Today our Advent calendar activity was to go see Santa. I wasn’t sure if the girls would want to do this, but when we saw the reindeer the other day, they expressed disappointment that Santa wasn’t there too. So, though I was unsure how it would play out, we went to visit the big guy today.
I drove 30 minutes up to the mall to get to him and was surprised and pleased that there wasn’t a line to see him. The girls could have walked right up and jumped on his lap.
Except they had no interest in doing that. They were shy and wouldn’t get much closer to him than this:
I was absolutely not going to force them to sit on the lap of a strange man if they didn’t want to, Santa or not. So I let them look at the cool teddy bear display around the path leading to Santa and was just getting them to wave to him from a distance and preparing to walk away when they both said that they did in fact want to go see him.
Some other kids had arrived after us and gone ahead to sit with Santa, so maybe seeing that gave them some courage. I don’t know, but they both started waltzing right up to him after that.
Once they got close, however, Miss said, “My sister is going to go sit on his lap, not me,” as she kind of pushed Lass ahead of her toward Santa.
Lass went right up to him, though she did seem a little unsure about it. She told him she wants, “A Big Snow White” for Christmas and got down.
How authentic is this Santa, by the way?
Even after seeing her sister do it, Miss still wasn’t willing to go up to him, so Baby Sis had her turn.
After that Miss was still a bit reluctant. I told her that it was okay if she did not want to go sit on Santa’s lap or talk to him, but that if she chose to leave without talking to him we probably wouldn’t have a chance to come back again (I could foresee her saying, as we were driving home, that she had changed her mind and did want to talk to him). So she decided that she would talk to him but did not want to sit on his lap. Fair enough. I went with her, and the very nice woman working there took a few photos for me.
She told him that she wanted, “A big Snow White, just like my sister.”
Then both girls kind of hugged him and he said, “See you on Christmas Eve!” They both got a big kick out of that.
I would have been perfectly okay with it if the girls had chosen to keep their distance from Santa. I thought that might happen when I planned the trip up there, but I wanted them to at least be able to see him.
As it turned out, I am pleased with how they took their time but managed to work through their worries to go and speak to him. I’m particularly proud of Miss for asserting herself so she could have a chance to talk to him on her terms.
I’ve been spending lots of nap and bedtime breaks this week addressing Christmas cards and wrapping presents, so I’m trying to catch up with a big post full of a bunch of random happenings from the week.
As I type this post, a big winter storm is raging outside my window. Snow is flying sideways. Wind is howling. My power keeps flickering out. It’s a blizzard called “Winter Storm Draco.” We woke this morning to a winter wonderland. The girls are thrilled, as this is the first big snow of the year.
I love that they are naming winter storms now. I think it gives some street cred to the hassles, and sometimes perils, of living in the north country. We’ve had snow falling for about 16 hours, but Draco is just starting to pick up steam now, so we’ll see how it turns out. Hopefully we don’t lose power before I get this post done…
Meanwhile, we’re just staying in and trying to keep busy. We’re preparing for Christmas (I still have a ton of wrapping to do before the weekend) and reading lots of Christmas books. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree,” and “Christmas in the Big Woods” are the Christmas favorites right now. Other popular reads this week have been “The Snowy Day,” “The Gruffalo,” and “Interrupting Chicken.”
The girls are finding cozy spots to hang out, to hide from monsters, and to play peek-a-boo.
We got a fun and thoughtful gift from a friend of my Mom’s last week. She came across this Cinderella’s Castle gingerbread house kit, thought of my girls, and got it for them! What a sweet thing to do.
The girls were so eager to get it out and start working on it. I struggled with putting the frame of the house together on Monday and then had to put it away for a while to let it dry (and let myself recover from the frustration of getting it to stay up). We finally finished it today, and they had a blast!
They were so proud of the finished product.
They’re already begging me to take it apart and eat it. Thanks Mrs. P!
I drew my last Chopped ingredients a few weeks ago. They were Crab, Pineapple, and Black Licorice. Holy crazy combination.
I decided to make Crab Tacos with a corn, roasted red pepper, and pineapple relish and some black licorice and lime mayo.
I roasted some peppers and then chopped them up and put them in a pan with some corn and chopped up pineapple. I seasoned this with salt, cumin, and a little bit of chili powder and threw in some minced cilantro when the cooking was done.
I cooked the crab with minced garlic and chopped onion that had been sautéed in butter. I used cumin, salt and pepper for seasoning.
The ingredient that I had the hardest time with during the cooking was the licorice. I wanted to melt it to add it into some lime mayo, but couldn’t figure out how to get it to melt. I tried just putting it in a pan over medium heat, but it started to burn.
I got some new licorice pieces, added some water, and put it over low heat to avoid burning. The licorice was melting very slowly and the water just kept evaporating. After a long time messing with this, I ended up getting enough licorice-y liquid to add to the mayo and the licorice was soft enough that when I strained the liquid, I could mash little pieces of licorice through the strainer to get more of the flavor in the mayo.
Sound gross?
I know, my Chopped experiments probably always sound kind of gross.
This one turned out pretty well though.
The girls helped me with the cooking and learned about always tasting your food before serving it.
We decided it needed more salt
The finished product was good. Though the licorice was the trickiest ingredient during the cooking, the thing that caused the biggest problem in the taste of the finished dish was the pineapple. I used a little too much and didn’t chop it finely enough, so it was pretty overpowering. The licorice got lost under the lime in the mayo, so it wasn’t easily detected in the dish.
Weird as it sounds, and in spite of the problems, it really was quite good. I might even make this one again (with less pineapple).
Haven’t picked my next ingredients yet.
The week has been packed with Christmas readying and savoring. Last night I took the girls for a drive through a local park to see the Christmas lights. They called out through the whole drive, “Look Mama! More! Look, I see more!” over and over.
We got out to see the live reindeer they had on display. Lass would go anywhere near them, but Miss was pretty excited.
She really wanted to see Santa, but he’s only at this display on Friday and Saturday nights. I’m going to try to brave the mall to see him tomorrow if the roads aren’t too bad.
We’re embracing winter and the holidays this week. My girls are begging me to go out and play in the snow. They’re pretty persistent, but I have insisted that we wait until the blizzard stops, party pooper that I am. They are eager to make a snowman (Miss says it will be a Snow Queen, complete with a crown) and snow angels, and get into all sorts of other snowy fun. Wish me luck with this in our two feet of snow!
Yes. Of course I have. I’m a holiday tradition junkie.
One of my favorites is the tradition my Mom and I have of watching the movie “Heidi” every Christmas. I know it’s not a popular holiday movie, but we’ve been doing it every year since I can remember (you can read about the girls’ first exposure to it last year here).
My Mom and I recite the dialog together. “I think there ought to be a Frau Schultz!” and “My word! A gorilla!” and many, many more lines of this adorable movie.
We laugh heartily at the same scenes, every. time.
This year my girls laughed with us.
For the first time, my girls actually paid attention throughout the movie and seemed to get into it (Lass got distracted for a while in the middle, but was pretty attentive for the first 30-40 minutes and the last 15 or so).
They cracked up at the craziness that resulted when Heidi let the monkey in the house. They were distressed with Grandfather was placed in jail and couldn’t find Heidi. They were on pins and needles about “When will Clara walk?”
I can’t even express how happy I am that I could share this tradition with my girls this year. I watched them watching it almost as much as I watched the movie.
