DAYS OF CHRiSTMAS CATCHiNG UP

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! ~Frank Church

Well hello again. Things here have been a bit hectic, and I temporarily misplaced my camera. Castle was fun but exhausting. It took me a few days to recover and recharge. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season.

I really love this time of year. I am trying to remind myself to slow down and have moments reminiscent of the spirit and excitement that I felt as a child. My parents always worked hard to make the holidays special and I want the same for Violet.

I know now, how hard that must of been because these moments, have to be carved out of our normal daily lives. Oh, but how those moments are enriching to the soul.

On that note, here is what we have been doing during our days of Christmas. They have not all been in the order that I planned, and some of the activities have stretched out of a course of a few days, but we have been having fun doing them.

6: Make Bird Feeders

We read Counting to Christmas which came from Mimi and Grand Daddy last Christmas. It sort of mirrors what we are doing and is a really sweet book. The bird feeders were constructed with orange and apple slices, pine cones, orange bowls (we cut them in half, scoop out and eat the fruit, and smear crunchy peanut butter in them), thistle seeds, and dried fruit. We had a lot of fun and they turned out cute.


7: Decorate a tree for the birds



8: Make Cinnamon Ornaments



9: Hang Stockings

The stockings were hung on the bookcase with care (we don't have a chimney...yet)

10: Eat Cinnamon rolls for breakfast

11: Donate food to a food bank

12: Pick out Christmas tree

Kalin found the perfect tree in the woods, and brought it home to us.

13: Make a Gingerbread house


14: Make orange coconut balls

My sister and I used to make these no bake cookies every year. They are so easy and delicious. I will try to post the recipe on another post

15: Do a Christmas project



I got this idea from the Kids Craft Weekly book. We used colored card stock, glitter glue, buttons, beads, and sequins. Oh yeah, and some felt balls.

16: Make Snowflakes

I was totally geeking out on this one. Violet was kind of in to it. Her snowflake (on the bottom) turned out cute.

17: Decorate the Christmas tree.

This one has not quite happened yet. Hopefully we will be able to do it later tonight.

18: Take Violet Christmas shopping at Dollar Tree

This will be the third year that we have done this. We always find cool presents. She gets to pick them out herself and everything is $1...so it is easy for her to count how much she is spending.

19: Bundle up and watch Christmas lights with a thermos of cocoa

We had a plan change and are going to do this activity tomorrow night. I thought that it would be fun to use this thermos. I picked up it up at a thrift store for 2 bucks. I love it!! I did a test run and tried out some chai for my on the go sword boxing, shipping, fabric and Christmas shopping extravaganza day. Whew. It works so good and kept my chai hot all day long. Wahoo!!!!




In addition to these activities we have squeezed a parents night at ballet:


my nieces band recital, two icy days,


Santa Lucia Day (Kalin's family has Swedish roots), a ton of sword shipments,

and a bunch of work done on our house. Yippee!


Our friends Chris and Irish stuck around after Castle to help us. They are the true angels this Christmas.


Oh yeah, we can't forget the prerequisite viewing of White Christmas. It is one of my all time favs. Violet loves it too. Especially the sisters number. Good stuff.


Happy Holidays everyone! I hope that it won't be so long until my next post. I have really missed it.