• Daily Life

    12 Delights of Christmas Tag

    I was tagged by Ivy for this tag. Bring on the Christmas people!

    1) A favorite Christmas tradition?

    There are so many. I think just all of them, we usually go to Christmas Eve with extended family 🙁 Then do those still at home Christmas morning and then our whole family and grandparents.

    I also love vegetating and watching Hallmark with Mom many nights

    2) Say it snowed at your domicile, would you prefer to go out or stay curled up inside?

    Inside, but it might be nice to step out and enjoy the beauty and take photos for a bit.

    3) Tea or hot chocolate?

    Hot chocolate, I’d like to try old fashioned hot chocolate this year, with real bars of chocolate.

    4) Favorite Christmas colors (i.e. white, blue, silver, red and green etc)?

    I have red and green with touches of gold and cream. My grandmother did her tree a few years with whites, pearls golds, and silvers which I loved. I’d also kind of wanted a blush and rose gold this year, maybe next year. Don’t like a blue theme.

    5) Favorite kind of Christmas cookie?

    Mom does a cookie exchange, I can’t remember all the cookies we’ve gotten, not all of them traditional. I love gingerbread and Mom has made a chocolate cookie with hugs on top, I think mint hugs. I do like traditional sugar cookies as well.

    Aside from the cookie exchange of recent years, we are more of a fudge, peppermint patties, buckeyes, and truffles group for Christmas.

    6) How soon before Christmas do you decorate (more specifically, when does your tree go up)?

    I don’t like rushing Christmas, it definitely has to be after Thanksgiving. This year, the first week of December, last year I couldn’t budget it in until later. I will also leave it up until after the tradition 12 days of Christmas.

    7) Three favorite traditional Christmas carols?

    I need to research all Christmas music, I’m sure I’m missing old favorites, but music is not my thing, and I’m not really in the mood. I listen to podcasts all the time at work, and I just feel like I have noise overload, noise pollution, per an old post, I like

    “Carol of the Bells”

    “Sing We Now of Christmas”

    “Do You Here What I Hear”

    “Angels from the Realms of Glory”

    “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

    8) A favorite Christmas song (i.e. something you might hear on the radio)?

    See above about my attitude, nerves. “Here We Come A-Wassailing.” This I like because it is sung in Little Women (1994). I like the David Archuleta and Celtic Women version.

    “Ding Dong Merrily on High.” Also because of Little Women (1994).

    “Last Christmas” The Brit Nicole version.

    9) A favorite Christmas movie?

    This is hard. I’ve not seen all the classics, but the favorite classic I’ve seen is White Christmas. We also watch Narnia. For Hallmark, we have several favorites. I’m going to do a post about those soon.

    10) Have you ever gone caroling?

    Yes, mandatorily years ago at nursing homes for church.

    11) Ice skating, sledding, skiing, or snow boarding?

    Ice skating. I’d love to get my own skates and take lessons, I’ve been meaning to for awhile.

    12) Favorite Christmas feast dish?

    Thanksgiving is more of our feasting, Christmas is lighter with more emphasis on the desserts. We usually have ham, last year we had hors d’oeuvres as a meal both for Christmas Eve and Christmas. I love this! We always have deviled eggs.

  • Daily Life

    Christmas 2018

    Christmas Eve we gathered with extended family, ate appetizers, children opened gifts, ladies drew number for $10 gifts amongst each other, men did the same, and we drew for men’s and lady’s stockings. My brother, sister-in-law, and niece stayed over at our house.

    Christmas morning we had our tradition cinnamon rolls, opened stockings, my parents exchanged gifts, niece received gifts from my parents, and those still at home received gifts from parents. I also accidentally opened my gift from our sibling exchange (oops). We then watched White Christmas.

    We then went to my grandparents, ate more appetizers, gave and received gifts from grandparents, from sibling exchange (we drew names from each via drawnames.com which is awesome, we filled out our gift lists on it, I want to use those for birthdays also), and parents gave gifts to the married siblings. Some people watched Rogue One (very Christmassy), and we played games (including Fishbowl, which we also played on New Year’s Day, and some played on New Year’s Eve, it seems to be trendy).

    From top left clockwise, the $10 ladies gift I gave, most gifts I gave Doctordiva whose name I drew (the fox print fabric is an infinity scarf) minus a flower in a vial necklace and lotion, the gifts wrapped (I gave my mom a set of state made jams and jellies), and the belatedly-finished-still-not-given shrug for my niece (I still also have a sweater dress to finish for her).

    My sister declared once she got out of school that she was going to start Harry Potter. Um, how about wait 5 days until Christmas?! I hid my copy, and told and texted everyone in the family to refuse to let her borrow their copies. It is HIGHLY out of character for me to misplace books also I’m not a good liar (and I didn’t want to lie, so I cut off from saying I didn’t know to saying it wasn’t on my shelf), but she suspected nothing.

    The Saturday after Thanksgiving we helped my grandparents decorate for Christmas, and these are the areas I helped decorate.

    I smashed a bunch of random Christmas photos into this collage. From top left clockwise, the bell wreath hanging from my doorknob (I’m keeping Christmas up until after the twelfth day of Christmas; its the 4th as I’m writing), the first version of my neat bookshelf (I cleared the floor and draped all the messy corners in white or gray), Sugarplum things she’s a decoration, my gingerbread house, my plate of appetizers from Christmas Eve (I LOVE that as a meal, and my grandmother fixed more and fancier appetizers for Christmas but I didn’t get a photo), the second version of my neat bookshelf (I’d smashed my snow globe decorating and later Mom bought another for me), the gorgeous wood Advent calender my mom bought for my brother and sister-in-law, Musicalmiss’s Dr. Suess “gingerbread” house (most of my sisters and I gathered at my brother and sister-in-laws house for a gingerbread day), and center is my hope chest nativity scene (I had three neat areas to decorate, the other is in the top collage).

    Clockwise from top left. Awesome leftie sewing Gingher scissors with a case from my mom (I bought some sewing scissors but they weren’t nice like my mom’s so I always borrowed/kept hers), my stocking stuffers, more tea from Mom, athletic sweatshirts and cozy socks from Mom, blouse and gloves from Mom, and all the lovely movies Musicalmiss got me (she had my name).

    Clockwise from top left. Some goodies I picked out some bags of goodies from family friends. Necklace and earrings from my grandmother. The $10 ladies gift I received on Christmas Eve (well, I drew for myself and my sick sister, and I picked this one because I knew what is was as another sister gave it, lol), and my gifts from my grandmother. That is an antique knitting basket/bag. That jar is a ton of lotion, I might be getting a slight hint as to the slight problem of the state of my hands, maybe.

     

    Our Christmas decor.

    More of our Christmas decor. I missed getting our main tree with all the gifts downstairs.

  • Daily Life

    Christmas Celebrations and Gifts

    Christmas Eve’s Eve
    My brother and sister-in-law asked us to let us do Christmas with them early, so they could be with her family on Christmas. We had a huge dinner and exchanged some of our gifts. Mom and Dad and my grandparents gave them their gifts, and we did our sibling gift exchange. My brother drew me (but as is often the case with married couples, lol), his wife picked out the gifts from my list.

     

    Christmas Eve
    We have an extended family gathering and potluck with my mom’s family. We have a family wide gift exchange for which we draw names on Thanksgiving (I got my grandfather and gave him seeds for his garden), a $1 stocking drawing (you contribute a $1 gift for the stocking of your sex and your name is entered in the drawing for the full stocking of goodies), and a $5 gift exchange (you contribute a $5 gift for your sex, the gifts are numbered, and then we draw numbers) plus the adults buy gifts for all the kids (which used to take forever, but thankfully there are not that many kids plus several weren’t there).

    I drew Musicalmiss’s $5 gift; she hand-painted glass Christmas ornaments. Then Travelgirl had drawn me for the main drawing, and she got me two of the Barnes and Noble Leather bound classics from my list (!!!!!!). We had a packed Christmas season plus sick people, so only two of those at home and one married couple made it to this gathering; everyone else either didn’t enter the drawings or received their gifts after we came home. We didn’t have meringue trees, truffles, or peppermint fudge, but I did get some cake pops!

    Christmas Day
    My grandparents didn’t come this year. We had our family stockings and gift exchange and ate our cinnamon rolls (Dad tried Once Upon a Chef’s recipe; I wanted him to only try the dough, but he tried filling and icing as well; I definitely prefer the old Miserly Moms version on those two things).

    All of us girls had Hallmark movies in our stockings. Musicalmiss got The Best Christmas Party Ever, Flowerchild got The Nine Lives of Christmas, and Doctordiva got The Lost Valentine (I think; it is not Christmas and isn’t one I’ve seen).

     

    We then headed to my grandparents where Travelgirl and her husband joined us for lunch and gift exchanging. My grandmother got me the madeleine pan off my list.

     

  • Daily Life

    Beginning Christmas

    Time for Christmas posts.

    A Literary Christmas Wrap Up
    ~Annika’s Secret Wish by Beverly Lewis
    ~Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. Tolkein
    ~A Merry Christmas, and Other Christmas Stories by Louisa May Alcott
    ~Stories Behind the Best-loved Songs of Christmas by Ace Collins
    ~Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: a Family Celebration of Christmas by Ann Voskamp

    Yeah, I finished all of two books. I switched to my Alcott collection which had far more stories, but I only got through the first few. I only finished one story in the Christmas carols book. I opted not to read the Voskamp book. The books I finished are kids books, but they are darling, and illustrated books are part of Christmas growing up. I should have pulled out some of the ones I grew up on. I wish I had a total list of the ones I grew up with because I am not sure we saved them all.

    A Christmas Bucket List

     

    I didn’t complete these all, and I fudged on a few (this year I was making gifts [I didn’t finish them all; I still have those plus really late birthday gifts to sew] plus we had an extra Christmas celebration because of conflicting in-law events plus we left for vacation the third day after Christmas).

    I completed
    ~Listen to New Christmas Music (my Bing Crosby C.D.; I had meant new to me groups or songs)
    ~Mail a Christmas Card or Two
    ~Create a Christmas notebook (this is still and was meant to be a work in progess; I need to add helps to prepare for next year)
    ~Watch a Christmas Classic (White Christmas; I had meant a new to me movie)
    ~Bake Bread from My German Baking Book (A Christmas Star; my pan wasn’t big enough because I used all the dough, so mine looks like a starfish)
    ~Bake Cookies from My German Baking Book (lebkuchen which is German gingerbread and has honey instead of molasses, white instead of brown sugar, and a tad more spice and more types of spices; see color difference below)
    ~Read a Christmas Poem
    ~A Photoshoot of Luna in a stocking (I tried; I was trying to keep her still, the photo focused, and yeah . . .)
    ~Christmas clean room and pack (well, it is neat, but I didn’t have time to vacuum before we left because I was sewing the morning of for the trip)
    ~Build a Gingerbread House (a graham cracker house at a friends; I made gingerbread dough for a house, and I amended my plans to build it there and then further amended the plan by making the dough into cookies. I had great fun though because I thought my castle was fun and easy and satisfying. The hostess had bowls of thick royal icing to spread on. Works MUCH better than tubes)
    ~Decorate for Christmas (I mainly decorated the neat section of my room; one half bookcase plus I hung a little bell wreath on my door)
    ~Buy or Make a Christmas Outfit (I really meant Christmas Eve; I wore a new gorgeous teal dress I bought from Thred-Up; one day I’ll have that dream dress made)
    ~Make a Christmas Craft (I’m going to count the calligraphy and stamped place names I made for my grandmother’s Christmas party)
    ~Participate in a Christmas blog event (I sort of participated in the Literary Christmas event)

    Touches of Christmas

     

     

     

     

     

    Best of Hallmark

    I’m still of the opinion that lately Hallmark has put more effort into their year round movies, but I did enjoy a few this year. The last two are my favorites; the very last is classic favorite quality, I think.
    Christmas Getaway
    The Christmas Cottage
    A Gift to Remember
    With Love, Christmas
    Christmas Next Door

  • Daily Life

    Christmas and Winter Questionnaire Day Six: Winter

    I borrowed questions and ideas from: here, here, and here.

    ~Winter Dislikes
    When I’m too cold, having to drive in the dark, scary icy roads, ugly “green” Christmas type landscape.

    ~Winter Likes
    The changing seasons, Christmas, Coziness, Fleece onsies, Movie nights, Winter foods.

    ~Do you like playing in the snow or enjoying it from the window?
    Usually, enjoying it from the window, I should try sledding once in awhile.

    ~Any books you prefer to read in Winter?
    I can’t think of any, but I should make some selections.

    ~When do you start getting excited about spring?
    I’m usually ready for it when it is officially spring.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Winter
    ~Winter Dislikes
    ~Winter Likes
    ~Do you like playing in the snow or enjoying it from the window?
    ~Any books you prefer to read in Winter?
    ~When do you start getting excited about spring?
  • Daily Life

    Christmas and Winter Questionnaire Day Five: Celebrations

    I borrowed questions and ideas from: here, here, and here.

    Christmas Eve
    ~Do you have a celebration?
    Yes, we go over to my mom’s extended family for supper and gift exchanges.

    ~Do you open gifts?
    Yes. We draw a name at Thanksgiving. We also have a $1 gift for the stocking of our sex, and a $5 gift for the gift exchange of our sex. The kids get gifts from everyone.

    Christmas Day
    ~Have you ever had a White Christmas?
    Yes, but not recently. We used to get more snow in December, but recently it has snowed a bit before Christmas and then tons in January and February.

    ~Christmas pajamas?
    No, but Mom bought us fluffy onesies one Christmas recently, and we all wore them to Christmas lunch and supper at my grandmother’s.

    ~What are your Christmas morning traditions?
    Dad makes home-made cinnamon rolls, and we dig into our stockings and open our gifts from our parents. For the last few years, we wait for my grandparents to come because my grandmother wanted to watch us open gifts, and she also gives gifts to her “grand-animals.”

    ~Do you travel for Christmas?
    No, our family is local.

    ~Do you stay home or visit on Christmas Day?
    We start at home and then move to my grandparents’ house (which is less than half an hour away) for lunch and supper.

    New Year’s Eve
    ~Celebrations?
    We usually have an open house for my parents’ church. Originally it was on New Year’s Eve until someone encountered a car driving the wrong way on the interstate then we changed it to New Year’s Day. The program involves smoked pork, home-made doughnuts, a ping-pong tournament, board games, too many people, noise, and it is not a good tradition. It needs serious modification. But we are going to be gone this year, so we don’t have to have it.

    ~Resolutions?
    Haha. I like drawing them up anyway, and making grand plans.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    If you want to join in:

    Celebrations
    Christmas Eve
    ~Do you have a celebration?
    ~Do you open gifts?
    Christmas Day
    ~Have a White Christmas?
    ~Christmas pajamas?
    ~Christmas morning
    ~Travel?
    ~Visiting?
    New Year’s Eve
    ~Celebrations?
    ~Resolutions?
  • Daily Life

    Christmas and Winter Questionnaire Day Four: Gifting

    I borrowed questions and ideas from: here, here, and here.

    ~Do you truly prefer giving or receiving?
    I love getting gifts that I like best, yes. I do enjoy giving to people I like to buy for, people that I can give good gifts too. I don’t enjoy it for people who are hard, who buy everything for themselves already, or who I don’t know very well. I don’t like being stressed about it.

    ~When do you buy gifts, early or last minute?
    Unfortunately, I seem to always be late which it makes it less fun. I need to get better, so I can enjoy Christmas better.

    ~Are you a brilliant, adequate, or terrible present wrapper?
    Adequate, I’d love to get to brilliant (creative) at some point.

    ~What is the best gift you have ever received?
    A custom made hope chest a few years back from my mom.

    ~What is your favorite gift you have given?
    One that is upcoming, I think.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    If you would like to join in:
    Gifting
    ~Do you truly prefer giving or receiving
    ~When do you buy gifts, early or last minute?
    ~Are you a brilliant, adequate, or terrible present wrapper
    ~What is the best gift you have ever received?
    ~What is your favorite gift you have given?

  • Daily Life

    Christmas and Winter Questionnaire Day Three: Favorites

    I borrowed questions and ideas from: here, here, and here.

    ~Christmas movie: White Christmas

    ~Christmas story: So many, I need to see all our old Christmas stories. There is an adorable one about a snowman.

    ~Traditions: Our Christmas Eve and Day gatherings, watching as Hallmark as a family, etc.

    ~Christmas carol: I prefer the merrier sounding carols like “Here We Come A Wassailing”

    ~Christmas treats: Truffles, cake pops, meringue Christmas trees, gingerbread men, gingerbread, peppermint fudge, and cinnamon rolls.

    ~Favorite holiday drink: Hot chocolate. I would still like to try eggnog and wassail though.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    If you would like to join in:
    Favorites

    ~Christmas movie:
    ~Christmas story:
    ~Traditions:
    ~Christmas carol:
    ~Christmas treats:
    ~Favorite holiday drink:
  • Daily Life

    Christmas and Winter Questionnaire Day Two: Decorations

    I borrowed questions and ideas from: here, here, and here.

    ~Real or fake tree
    We have almost always had a fake tree. My dad doesn’t like the bother of a real tree. When I have my own family I want a real tree. Actually, I’d like to have a tiny tree in my room, but that hasn’t ever worked out yet.

    ~When do you decorate?
    Usually shortly after Thanksgiving. This year I think it was a week after.

    ~Who decorates?
    It used to be everyone, but now it is mostly Mom and the little girls. Certain of them have very specific tastes/styles/ideas.

    ~Do you decorate your room?
    My room is usually in a state of disorder as far as design and organization goes, so most Christmas decorations either would not match or would be lost in the busyness, but I do have one neat half bookcase that I’ve decorated this year plus a adorable little bell wreath hanging on the doorknob outside my door.

    ~When do you take the tree down?
    Usually shortly after Christmas.

    ~White or multi-colored lights
    White all the way, definitely more elegant.

    ~Outside lights
    We don’t have any, but I love a some white lights with candles in the windows and wreaths and garlands.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    If you want to participate:
    Decorations
    ~Real or fake tree
    ~When do you decorate?
    ~Who decorates?
    ~Do you decorate your room?
    ~When do you take the tree down?
    ~White or multi-colored lights
    ~Outside lights

  • Culture and Entertainment

    Christmas Movies and Books

    In addition to watching Hallmark movies (more on that later), we re-watched a lot of childhood favorites plus some old classics. I’ve seen all of these before (although A Charlie Brown Christmas only once and didn’t remember it well) except Polar Express. I had few more new to us movies from the library but couldn’t motivate anyone to watch them with me before they were due back.

    Christmas Sing Along. I hardly paid attention once I realized it wasn’t the one I thought.

    Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Sing Along. I enjoyed this; its quite short to an adult. I thought it lasted forever as a child.

    Polar Express. We didn’t even finish this as we were so bored. It was both weird and boring. I’m not ever sure I’ve been that bored.

    The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

    A Charlie Brown Christmas

    Frosty. As cute as always.

    Its a Wonderful Life. I liked it better this time around, but I still don’t greatly enjoy it, especially as a Christmas movie since it has SO much angst.

    White Christmas. Still waiting on Holiday Inn from the library. I’m thinking I will still prefer White Christmas.

    Hallmark was rather a disappointment this year. We only had the second channel temporarily, so we didn’t get to see to many old favorites (they’ve seemingly moved most of them over to that channel). And most of the movies didn’t get a super high rating from us except A Perfect Christmas. A Nutcracker Christmas, Christmas Cookies, and Finding Father Christmas were cute in my opinion (the latter is on the second channel) but nothing like our favorites.

    I didn’t do much Christmas reading because I ordered so late. I read Christmas with Anne, marking down food references: turkey, plum pudding, and mince pie featured in almost all the stories, and nuts, candies, taffy, and fruitcake made a couple appearances and raisin pudding at least one appearances. This seems so 19th century and British and Canadian. Only fruitcake is familiar to me (in name, we don’t usually have it). We have turkey at Thanksgiving and ham or beef at Christmas and Christmas Eve.

    I read one prosy, sententious story from Christmas from the Heart three. I haven’t been inspired to read more. I have Letters from Father Christmas from the library now, but I might just wait until next year.

  • Daily Life

    Blogmas: Decorating, Christmas Cards, Celebrating and Advent Calendar

    I’m going to combine a couple Blogmas days as a Q and A

    How do you decorate? Real Tree or Artificial Tree?

    The three younger girls are the main decorating committee and they’ve got a nice little pattern. For the family room they decorate the tree with a light hand (we use to have an excessive amount of ornaments) and the stair railing, and we have new stockings this year (so cute). For the dinining room they put a smaller tree in the corner, put lights on the sideboard, and hang ball ornaments from the chandlier. We also have Christmas china on the table. 


    We have artifical trees. We’ve had real a couple years. I plan on having real at my own home (and real branches for decorating), both because I prefer genuine and to cut down on storage space. I’ve wanted to get a little tree for my room, but I’ve got so much stuff the decorations would get lost. I am thinking of hanging snowflakes from the ceiling and window where they will be more noticeable.

    Quiet Christmas or Family Filled Loud Party Christmas?

    I think we are pretty moderate. We can get loud, but we aren’t really “party” people.

    Christmas Cards (do you send them, show us your favorites this year, or tells your favorite cards to send whether vintage, or bright and colorful)?

    I collect pretty ones, I want to keep one of each of my favorites. I don’t always send them, but they are nice to have on hand. We used one in a package we sent. I think I will send one to my grandparents for fun and maybe as a thank-you to friends for our gingerbread house decorating party.

    Advent Calendar?


    We have this little kiddy one from our childhood that the three little girls use now. I’d love to have a wooden one; I’m considering asking a family friend, the one who made our cedar chests, if he could make me one because I would like it to be solid and specific (long rather than square or tall). I would also like to have a chocolate advent calendar  one year.