Christmas Cards

You can tell people are skint when you only get 5 Christmas cards in the post.  I admit I am a bit of a Christmas card hypocrite.  I love getting them, and display them proudly, but in the past years, I haven't been on the ball to get any out.  I will give the international postage rate excuse, but I get Christmas cards from abroad every once and a while.  We tried to get a Christmas family photo, but at 2, the Sprout is tired of posing for pictures.  I hope to get my act together next year.

My christmas decor

This is the first year I have really decorated the house, this is mainly because we are holding Christmas at our house this year.

The Sprout has his own tree with little ornaments on it and his own Nativity set. It is the Fisher Price Nativity set, cutest thing ever.

This year I have been fighting a pinched nerve in my neck and so I wasn't able to make the advent calendar I wanted to, so I bought one. It is really cool. There are 24 drawers that come apart and have a little wooden ornament in it. I figured I can put candy and what not in it next year. I did have to put it on the shelf though because the Sprout loves taking it apart and we end up with 88 drawers and 24 little ornaments all over the floor.

I jumped on the bauble bandwagon and hung baubles everywhere in the living room. I have decided to get more baubles in different colours so I can have them up year round. I really love how they turned out.

I even framed Christmas cards I really like.

Advent calenders

I am a little obsessed with Advent calendars.  It is not because of the chocolate that many hold as I was never allowed a chocolate one (American Advent chocolate is crap anyway).

I don't know why, but I have always loved Advent calendars (and the Nativity in general).  My Mom always got us gorgeous Advent calendars which usually had scripture or the story of the Nativity inside.  It was so hard to keep the flaps closed (which is weird because I knew there wasn't any candy inside).

I have been obsessing over an Advent calendar for the Sprout.  I want to make it, and I want it to be something we can use every year.  I had originally looked at fabric panels.

I really like this one.

Then I started seeing wooden boxes with little compartments and fabric Christmas Trees with little pouches, and on and on.

Gisela Graham Gingerbread House Advent Calendar

Today my RSS feed came up with a blog called Make it and Love it.  I love this site, it has everything your sewing and crafting heart could want (it is especially good for coming up with clothing repurposing ideas).  She put up a how to for a Christmas Advent Calendar Shadow Box.  

The idea is each little box holds trinkets that the kids can put on the little Christmas Tree.  Isn't that the best thing ever??!!

The problem is finding a shadow box with 25 compartments and then making all of the little boxes.  I think I may take on this project, or at least the idea of putting Christmas Tree trinkets in the Advent compartments (as the Christmas Tree usually goes up the last weekend in November).

Tracking Santa

This is sooo cool.  Track Santa as he travels the world.  It even counts the number of gifts given (don't know how that works out, but whatever.)

All about updates

The year is winding down and so I thought I should give you a few updates.

It is snowing again after almost a week of warm 40 degree F weather.  Miki loves watching the snow.  I wonder what is going on in her head.

The Sprout is a full fledged bipedal tiny human.  He has a kinda zombie walk as he toddles (and it really is toddeling) around.  Every once and awhile he makes his car noises as he walks along...so cute.  He doesn't crawl much, because he found out he can carry things if he walks (and also swing things around).

I am going to try a little of the "cry it out" method for the Sprout.  In the past, I have been deeply opposed (in a personal sense, if anyone else wants to do it, go for it), but I feel that he is old enough for it now.  The past two days got me trying it for the morning nap time.  In the days of nursing, morning nap time was automatic, in the past couple of months he has fallen asleep on his own for the morning nap, but the past two days, he has decided not to nap eventhough he had fallen asleep in my arms.  Upon transfur to the crib, he wakes up.  This gets me sooooo annoyed.  I thought "fine, that's it.  You are so tired that you are asleep, it is the act of being put down that you don't like.  Well tough."  I place him in the crib and quickly leave the room.  It only takes about 15 minutes before he has SCREAMED and whimpered himself to sleep.  I don't know what the big deal is?  He knows we are only doing boring things.  But since I started work, he has been more clingy to both Richard and me.  It annoys me to all ends, so for now, if he falls asleep but wakes upon me droping him in the crib, he gets to cry.

Another problem we have been having is night time waking.  I am thinking of applying the "cry it out" for this too.  At first we moved him into our room, if anything just to make it easier for me to get him, because he was waking up screaming (it was a scary screaming).  Having him in our room has not resolved the problem.  So I think we are going to move him back into his room and when he wakes up, just let him get himself back to sleep.  However, this would result in the total weaning from nursing, since I only nurse him at night.

The Sprout has 5 teeth now.  3 on the bottom and 2 on top.

I finally went back to work at the end of November.  I have been getting along really well.  My back has actually been allot better.  It is nice to have something else to do, and as long as I don't get too involved in the workings of the place, I will be happy.

We are going to have Christmas Eve at our house.  We are going to have a free range chicken dinner and hopefully a flaming Christmas pudding with the song for dessert.  We will open our presents and watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Story."  In the morning we will open our stockings and Santa presents and have a full English Breakfast before heading over to Richard's parent's house.

This years children's christmas book of choice

This year I get to pick the book, next year the Sprout will be capable of choosing it.  I went to the book store yesterday and came across The Smelly Sprout by Allan Plenderleith.  I had to have it because after all I have a smelly Sprout.

It is really cute and about a brussel sprout who just wants to be eaten, but of course no one likes sprouts.  Well I do.  Anyway, cute illustrations and a pretty funny concept.

Santa baby

So Molly's Musings takes part in a Project Blog and yes, I do look at it, but as the Sprout takes my computer keys when I open my lap top, I can only write something when he is asleep.  I will comment on this weeks Project Blog.  The question is...

 If you could ask Santa for three presents this year, what would they be? And, as requested, Katie, no world peace wishes.


I will answer with items that are feasible.

1.  (this is kinda funny because it is the same as Molly's) a rocking chair.  I really want a rocking chair.

2.  An Amazon Kindle

3.  A weekend trip to Spain (could be just the tickets, I don't care).

The gift that keeps on giving

I keep getting requests to donate money in someone's name for Christmas.  I came across a friend's profile on Facebook that linked to a site called Kiva and after looking at the site, I wished I had waited to donate my money.  Kiva is a site for micro-loans.  People put up propositions for a loan and you can loan as much as you want.

Another cool site that is dedicated to money donations is DonorsChoose.  This site was featured on The Colbert Report last year.  This site is dedicated to getting donations for projects at schools and organizations.

So if you were hit by the donation bug for Christmas this year, check out these sites.

Random things

We had our first major frost this morning.  Boy am I glad I cleaned up the rotting pumpkin on our porch this weekend.  Everything was frozen, making walking down the hill pretty torturous.

I got my second request for a Christmas list.  I guess I had better get on it.  I am feeling a bit guilty about having a Christmas list seeing as I am pretty sure no one will get a present from me except the babies.  I will be making cookies for everyone else.

My Christmas Tree arrived!  Even better, I haven't put it up yet!  I am going to wait until next Friday.

I was searching the internet for rocking chairs, because I really want one, and I came across a Nanny rocker.

Isn't it cool?

We went on our first Family Christmas Outing on Saturday.  We went to watch the Bradford Christmas Lighting Ceremony.  It was pretty lame, but there were Disco Penguins, a snow machine and fireworks, so it wasn't all bad (video of the Disco Penguins will follow shortly).  Needless to say, the Sprout was awake for the boring part and asleep for the good stuff.

More about the Reindeer Dust.

Many people liked the idea of Reineer Dust and I found that it is actually a popular Christmas Eve tradition.  Ehow.com has a site on how to make the dust.  I found many people mentioning that glitter is bad for birds and so coloured sugar is a good alternative for the glitter, that was something I had not thought about.  There is a peom that goes with the dust:

Sprinkle on the lawn at night

The moon will make it sparkle bright

As Santa's reindeer fly and roam

This will guide them to your home

Christmas traditions

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

This will be the first year that Richard and I don't have to travel for Christmas.  It is also the first year that the Sprout can help us celebrate (he is still small, but at least he will be awake and can take part in the eating).  It got me thinking about family traditions.  I haven't lived at home for almost 12 years, but it seems that the A-S-B traditions applied until I moved countries, and even then, I would travel over land and sea to take part in any little morsel I could.

Stockings
In the past, I have talked about the A family Christmas stockings.  This is the first part of the new tradition I have to address.  After much thought, I have decided that it is not necessary for the Sprout to wield an A family stocking.  In fact, I don't even need Richard to put out his A family stocking.  If I ever got around to making a stocking for the Sprout, I might try to combine Richard and my stocking styles.  It would sort of serve as a family tree.

The Tree
The next tradition I have to decide on is the tree.  When will we put up the tree?  How will it be displayed?  My family has always gone to find the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.  In England, we have a fake tree and therefore have no need for a hunting party to find the perfect Christmas Tree.  In the past I have put up the Christmas tree as early as the second week in November and as late as the last weekend in November.  I think I will continue to put the Tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving so I can have it up for my English Thanksgiving Dinner.  We still need to buy our tree for this year, last year's tree got moldy from being stored in the cellar.

Christmas Eve
How will we celebrate Christmas Eve?  My family had a regimented Christmas Eve tradition of eating crab, opening our presents, going to church and watching "It's a Wonderful Life" while we all fell asleep.  Somehow, 4 years ago I became allergic to crab, something I discovered on Christmas Eve.  I have always wanted to eat Salmon for Christmas, a kind of homage to the Pacific Northwest, but everyone else hates fish.  We may just have to have a thick steak for dinner.  I like opening presents on Christmas Eve, because it makes the Santa presents that much better and more pronounced.  Our Santa presents were always wrapped in sparkley paper and fancy boxes (Fredrick & Nelson boxes to be exact).  Because I have a baby, I get to think up how I would like to handle the Santa issue.  I think Santa is important, and therefore there will be a Santa, and he will have flying reindeer and he only gives presents to GOOD children.  I was reading up on some traditions that other families have regarding Santa and I like the idea of magic flying reindeer powder that Santa gives out in his letter to the children.  I guess you take glitter and spread it outside the front door so that the reindeer know where to go.  I just thought that was really cute.

Christmas Day
Christmas Day is tricky for me.  For more than half of my life, I spent Christmas Day whizzing from one house to another, the product of having divorced parents and grandparents who still had Christmas dinner at their houses.  There is no more whizzing.  I only have one family to visit.  It almost takes all the fun out of Christmas, to be allowed to settle and relax.  I like the idea of a nice breakfast and presents from Santa, then letting the rest of the day be up to the in-laws.

I am new to Boxing Day, but I am sure there are people with traditions for that day too.  I am sure I won't be one of the ones scrambling to the shoppes.

I am sure establishing traditions has allot of trial and error, but I am excited to start new ones and keep old ones going.

More on traditions

My mom's side of the family has a huge sense of tradition that is especially prevalent in the way Christmas is celebrated.  Mom's side of the family's traditions are so deep seeded that they tend to take over any new comer's family tradition and this is especially relative to the Christmas stocking.

EVERYONE has to have this stocking.  If someone marries into the family, guess what?, you get a stocking.  If there is a newborn, guess what?, you get a stocking.

When my mom got remarried, the strangest thing occurred.  As a wedding present, she got OUR stocking from someone she didn't know!  So I began to wonder how common is this stocking pattern?  Some searching on the internet after a fear that our pattern maybe lost came up with some interesting results.

For one thing, this is a popular pattern, and for some reason it has a hold on families all over the place being a permanent fixture on countless family's mantels generation after generation.  The pattern is known as Personalized Christmas Stocking from 1945 by Rae P. Burbank and was advertised in Woman’s Home Companion in November, 1945. (Page 25), and if you look on Ravelry.com you will find many people testifying to their family's tradition involving this stocking.  Karabosse on Ravelry writes:

Everybody in my immediate family has this stocking, made by a friend of the family. A few years ago we realized that my aunt, uncle and cousins had the identical stockings, but made by my uncle’s mother. Well, now my cousin’s getting married and her fiance has (gasp!) only a store-bought stocking. My aunt suggested/demanded that I make Kyle one as a wedding present so he and Stacy could have matching stockings. What a slog this was! My cousin’s stocking was duplicate stitched instead of using intarsia, so that’s how I made his. Now I’m just praying they don’t want matching stockings for their kids-to-be! 

And oh my God, how true this is for my family.

SpiritWings on Ravelry wrote:

I have a story to tell you about this pattern… My grandmother knit 216 of these personalized Christmas stockings. She started the year I was born, and knit one for my dad, my mother, and then me. It was 1956. Over the years, she knit a stocking for every grandchild and great grandchild and many of her friends’ children and grandchildren.

 Anyway, I just thought this was the coolest thing.  And though it is kind of a shock to see that something you thought was a unique and special tradition in your family isn't so unique and special...it is nice to see that there is a connection amongst families that you don't know that is made through a Christmas Stocking.

Christmas Meme

Christmas Meme

I am copying this from Ms. S's  blog who found it from Swistle...



Eggnog or Hot Chocolate? Eggnog and I have to make it homemade because they don't have it in the UK in stores.

Does Santa wrap the presents or just leave them under the tree? He wraps them with super special shiny paper and for some reason in the same Nordstom's boxes my mom has had for a million years.  Maybe he runs out of his own boxes.

Colored or white lights on the tree? I like coloured, but it seems to always be clear.

Do you hang mistletoe? No.

When do you put your decorations up? The Saturday after Thanksgiving.  But I have been know to do it before.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Well, since we have a fake tree, it already has lights on it.  And because I have yet to get my ornaments from home, I have the stupid decorations the tree came with.  However, I put all the holiday cards we receive in the tree, which I think is really nice.

Snow: love it or hate it? Love it! As long as I don't have to do anything.

Can you ice-skate? Yes, poorly, but I can stay up, slide around a little and even turn around if I have to..

What is your favorite holiday dessert? Pumpkin pie.

What is your favorite holiday tradition? Watching It's a Wonderful Life and opening the family gifts on Christmas Eve.  I miss waking my brother up to open stockings though.  I do love me the pudding song, I may have to introduce that to the Osborne's.

Candy canes: yum or yuck? Yum

Top three favorite Christmas movies: It's a Wonderful Life, Edward Scissorhands and A Christmas Story

The American Christmas and New Year's Trip

Sandpiper New Years

Click to see pictures

We were very fortunate to be able to get to see ALL of our families this Christmas, in the UK and in the US.

Richard's sister was nice enough to shuttle us down to Beaconsfield so we could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas at the Osborne's house where we opened presents and had a big feast which was followed by a Murder Mystery Game.

Boxing Day we headed to Heathrow to begin our non-stop journey to SeaTac. The flight was uneventful, although Richard was annoyed at the guys getting drunk at the back of the plane.

The trip was only 9 1/2 hours long and we were surprised to see all the snow on the ground that was left from the blizzard at the beginning of the week. Danny and Molly picked us up from the airport and we began the next 10 days of Christmas.

The festivities played out as:

Dec 26th: Mom's House.

Dec 27th: Dad and the Girls at Mom's

Dec 28th: Grandma and Grandpa's House and the Allen Family Christmas

Dec 29-30th: Dad's house with the Girls

Dec 31st-Jan 4th: Sandpiper Resort.

Jan 4th and 5th: Time with D. (who was so nice to drive up from Eugene to see us).

Jan 6th: Back to the UK. We were delayed in SeaTac because of a Blizzard in Paris, but we were only delayed for 3 hours, which gave us less of a lay over in Paris...so that was ok.

As you can see we were really busy, but we had a really good time and I miss everyone.


Please see our pictures up at the top of the post...just click on it.

Christmas Cards

I just wanted everyone to know that we will be getting cards out late this year because we can't afford postage for 40 people (yes 40 people will be receiving Christmas cards), so most of you will be getting your cards with your presents at Christmas, but in the mean time, here are our Christmas pictures:

As we were doing these pictures I was wondering...why do we take pictures of ourselves in front of the Christmas tree? Almost everyone does it, and when you start to ponder it, it is incredibly strange. We don't only take the picture but then we share it with everyone...very strange indeed.

Nativity Sheep Dead at 27

Late Tuesday night, Nativity sheep lost his life to what appears to be an annual attack by a one year old cat. As the footage below indicates, a calico female appeared from the bushes and attacked ruthlessly.

The coroner found that this was not not the first time the sheep had been attacked. Many healed lesions were found on the sheep's body that indicated that the sheep had been tormented by felines throughout it's life.

Police have yet to contact Shepard John, who is not due to return to his flock until December 23rd where he awaits the Saviour every year.








CCTV was able to catch the vicious attack on Nativity Sheep but the only eye witness was Nativity Donkey who reported the attack. "Every year this happens," Donkey sobs. "Why is it always Nativity Sheep?" Nativity Donkey reports that these attacks have been carried out for the past 27 years, always by a kitten, perhaps in some kind of rite of passage for the cats. It seems that only Nativity Sheep is attacked while Nativity Donkey is left untouched. "We try to hide Nativity Sheep, but he is always found and tortured."

Services will be held for Nativity Sheep once Shepard John is located. It is believed that Angel Jessika will be creating new Nativity Sheep to replace this Nativity Sheep.

Christmas Cactus, Mikizilla, and Bread?

Last year Richard's mom gave us a Christmas Cactus, by the time we got home all the little buds had fallen off (it was quite a journey). This year, however, it got the chance to bloom (another reason why I had to put up the Christmas tree so early). I had some fun taking a bunch of pictures. Here are some of the better ones:

The bottom third of the Christmas tree is missing it's ornaments. I wonder why?

I decided that making bread is easy... and yummy:

Pedestrian Christmas

I know this is a really weird thing to start my post off with, but I thought it was really interesting. There have been 7 feet that have washed up on B.C. shores since August 2007. Now when I read this, I was thinking, wow is this some new serial killer that is cutting off people's feet and throwing them in the water? It is actually more simple than that and something I should have known from my studies of decomposing bodies. Apparently, the feet come loose as a body decomposes in the water, therefore, the feet have an opportunity to make their way back to land...isn't that interesting? I thought it was.

Now for the real post. I have the week off! So, I decided it was time to put the Christmas tree up. I know it is early, but the benefits of having a fake tree is that you can have it up whenever you want. If it wasn't for me having to dust the tree, I would have it up all year round.

This is Miki's first Christmas. She was very excited about the box that the tree came in and only a little less excited about the tree it's self. In the true spirit of Christmas tree raising, we took pictures.

And yes...I am wearing the same sweatshirt I was wearing last year when I was putting up the tree...




Last year...




This year...

Halloween Blues

Well, Halloween came and went and was a little disappointing. I had to work, but wore my pink devil horns and veil that I aquired at my hen night to work. No one else dressed up, not even a little. Only one other customer, a 5 year old girl in a pumpkin mask, dressed up, and most customers that talked to me asked why I was dressed up. Stupid British. Halloween is such a let down here. ASDA, British Wal-Mart, had all kinds of Halloween stuff in their window, so don't tell me you don't know that it is Halloween. I know people here celebrate Halloween, but where are they? Anyway, Richard and I still carried out my traditions and got on with it. The night ended with me throwing my pumpkin out the window in the alley. It made the most satisfying thump that echoed and made me "Whoo hoo!"

Because it is November, we had to start playing our Christmas music and holiday-up the store. We actually had to start doing all of this stuff the 29th of October. I am sorry, but this is way too early. The Christmas music isn't bad yet, but I am sure I will want to kill the receiver in about a month.