The girls, decorating cookies at a friend's holiday party
Today, January 6th, is Epiphany. This means, for me, that the year is officially over and a new time has begun. It's the last day of the Christmas season. My goals for this year are:
1. Get even more organized and consistent with my tasks and home
2. Read more books
3. Take a fun class
4. Improve my health
5. Get better about written notes, esp. thank-you notes (I was perfect at that until I had kids)
One of my brothers taking his turn as Santa at my mom's side of the family's Christmas Eve party
Since it's the last day of Christmas, however, I thought I'd talk a bit about it. :) Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were some of the best one's we've had, and we celebrated 3 other separate times with family...including a party at my Dad's house the day after Christmas, a holiday party at my mom's, and a Christmas celebration with my Grandma. All of that was fun and good. Giving and receiving was very precious this year. There were many baked treats. And Christ's birth was remembered and celebrated. I felt really good about 'doing everything unto the Lord' and keeping Christ at the center and indeed the reason for everything we do. I've noticed that when I do this, even in the midst of the girls opening their gifts on Christmas morning, they are more grateful for their gifts and also more cognizant of Him.
Our homemade Pfeffernussen
There were also, in November and December, a lot of struggles and difficult circumstances. We didn't complete all of our nativity and advent activities, in fact it was a low point in the school month. We've been struggling with finances and car issues, and there were many friends and family hurting for various reasons. It kind of illustrated Christmas to me, perfectly. Not really at the time, but now that I've had time to ponder. Out of darkness, came Light.
But enough of that! :D This year everyone was tight on finances so we did 'stocking stuffers'. Which meant a lot of handmade or cheaply acquired stuff. Oh who am I kidding, we do that anyways! ;) And it's my favorite. I way prefer receiving handmade gifts from the heart!! Especially if they are useful or something I already wanted or needed. I had quite a nice Christmas, a teapot from one Grandma, the cookie jar I'd been desiring from my other Grandma, a popcorn popper and other fun things from my mom, and just a lot of nice, thoughtful gifts from Hubby and others like a BEAUTIFUL tea mug/infuser (pink and cream and green and BUTTERFLIES!!!) from my Dad and his fiancee and a Rachel Ray cookbook from my inlaws. Among us siblings, however, we mostly pledged to do homemade stocking stuffers. One brother bought us all lotto tickets (someone won a small amount! Like ten bucks but still!) and another brother got me an Agatha Christie novel...his reasoning was "it's a mystery and an old lady, so I figured you'd like it" hahaha (I love "Murder, She Wrote"). Rob's siblings got us a bunch of stuff, actually, including a season of "Pushing Daisies". It was lovely!
Wanna see what my talented sisters made me? From L-R: S1 hand embroidered me a tea towel, S2 put her metalsmithing skillz to work and handmade us a Christmas ornament (the button on it is from S3's wedding last summer!) and some delicious-smelling homemade natural soap; and S3 made assorted chocolate truffles by hand. Plus she got me a cookbook and a copper butterfly cookie cutter, not pictured. (And then a close up of the ornament)
So to all the family and friends who blessed us this year, THANK YOU! It meant so much to us! I really felt overwhelmed, in a good way, by love!
I did make quite a bit (especially for the girls) but I also had a tiny budget plus already purchased gifts at the ready (since I gather gifts for Christmas throughout the year but especially from July on), so some people got a bit more than others >.>. I tried to keep it fair and even. I knitted a lot of scarves, baked a lot of cookies, and crafted/sewed a lot of things...it was fun :)
Remember, for instance, the Holiday Scented Playdough I made? It made an excellent gift for the little ones in my life...I gave it, as-is, to some friends and it was a big hit. For my nephew, I actually bought a $2 rubbermaid and put the playdough plus art and craft supplies in the box for a sort of mobile art box. I know my brother doesn't have a ton of space in his apartment so I figured it was a good size for stowing up high and yet a great way for my nephew to have everything ready to create. For Ginger, I put the playdough in a similar tub but I don't plan on storing it in there, as I actually filled the tub with 'sewing' supplies. Plastic canvas, plastic canvas shapes, kid-safe yarn needles, and yarns I got on sale, plus a sewing kit (also on sale!) that is basically follow-the-holes-to-make-a-stuffed-felt-cat. She loved it! (Especially because I made a similar present for Sparrow, but knitting...found some great kids knit books for like a buck each at a used book store, rolled up some of my old yarn remnants, and found the small kid needles I'd purchased like 6 months ago plus a new thing of yarn for her). Oh, and I stuffed in the remnants of the yarn and shapes and such from our ornament making experience.
Playdough all packed up for a friend! The girls made presents for those friends and wrapped them in the bags we made back in September
The girls made gifts for people as well...mostly pictures and craft projects. :) For the above pictures gifts, Sparrow made a watercolor butterfly attached to a ribbon that flutters behind you when you run and included a glitter crayon cake. Ginger made a 'candycane' ornament out of pipecleaners and made a picture.
Sweet, huh? :) Speaking of the girls and gifts, I really enjoyed putting things together for them this year, and delighted in their delight on Christmas morning. I believe I mentioned a theme of 'imagination and faerie tale creativity' with their gifts this year. I didn't want to get them more junk, you know? So they got a lot of quality, and I mean quality, books, some dress up stuff, and things to do to expand their horizons. Legos, for instance. In fact, aside from the plastic canvas and parts in the two board games and a baby doll, that was pretty much the extent of the plastic toys (YAY). Sparrow is really into watercolor paints right now and got a set of real, grown up (but non toxic) watercolors from Hubby's parents for her birthday. But she didn't have a proper palette, so I bought her one on sale as well as two books about watercolors and a watercolors kit, also on sale at Half Price Books (so they were already on sale, plus on another sale. SCORE.). Ginger, on the other hand, is very into ballet right now. So I made a 'ballet kit' for her, which included an instructional DVD, a book about ballet and a couple of ballet coloring books.
So as far as things we bought, we spent very little and yet they received things that will last them forever or will be used up and used for a very long time. Educational AND fun for 'toys' and activities, and my rule for books this year was that they had to be quality. Quality art, good writing, good story, and/or classic. If the story was classic but the art was bad or the art was great but the story was inane, it did not get a pass. I bought a bunch of books for the girls (and others) at the public library's book sale, which meant they were all a buck. Can't beat that! Otherwise I found good deals on amazon.com and ebay and other such sites, plus thrift stores and used book stores. Sparrow, for instance, got a set of easy readers (a Saddle Club, several Boxcar Children, a couple of Magic Tree House etc...all about twenty-five to fifty cents at the used book store) and a set of classics (The Secret Garden, Little Princess, and Black Beauty). She has already read two of the books (Boxcar children #1 and #7)! I bought her a book light to go with that, as that was actually her number one desire for Christmas. She likes to read before bed, and wanted to extend said time. ;) I concentrated more on quality art for Ginger.
As you may have noticed, I like grouping things together in themes. The over all theme was creativity in art and imagination so to speak, but it included different things. Sparrow got a CD player for her birthday from her Papa last year, and she has really zeroed in on liking Toby Mac, from listening to the Christian radio station here. So I bought her a Toby Mac CD and an old school DC Talk cd. Then I thought I would bam it up a notch and found some more cheap but good CD's and a $3 CD/insert organizer. I covered the organizer in pretty fabric and put a velvet monogram on it then wrapped it all up. Success! I also happened to find a copy on DVD of one of my favorite Hans Christian Andersen tales as done by that old school Faerie Tale Theatre, which was one of my favorite episodes of theirs, for CHEAP. AAaaand one of my favorite wooden toy makers, Small Town Toys *happened* to have a Snow Queen figure...and THEN I stumbled across a cheap used copy of this BEAUTIFUL book about the Snow Queen, which was well written and the art (retold by Ken Setterington and the scherenschnitt by Ernst and Nelly Hofer)...ohmygosh. It's all hand-done German paper cutting, called scherenschnitte. Interesting, H.A. Andersen himself delighted in the art and used it to illustrate *his* stories! Perfect. So that became another theme. ;) I'm saving up for Kai and Gerda!
And remember the 'big' themed presents? Well, one of the "Red Shoes" books never came :( and I didn't get the red shoes tutus done in time, so I am saving that for another time (maybe Valentine's Day). But I DID get the Nutcracker one done!!!
Sparrow modeling the Waltz of the Flowers tutu, crown, and wings
If you recall, my Craft Day only involved one of the tutus. I finished the other Sugar Plum/Clara tutus...
And those crowns...
And the other tutus, i.e. the flower faerie/spring/Waltz of the Flowers tutus...
And THOSE crowns...
And some wings!
I wrapped each dress-up set in tissue, then put them together in a brown paper grocery bag along with the DVD (Ginger) of the ballet, the CD (Sparrow), and the books and then wrapped it with more paper. It was a HUGE hit! Click on the thumbnails to see them in more detail:
Speaking of wrapping and themed gifts, everyone else had a theme, too. And I made good use of the wrapping paper and gift bags we'd made, plus the bows I'd made. For instance, for my mom the theme was "three nights of relaxation". I bought her a book and two movies (yes, cheaply!) and made up a gourmet old fashioned homemade cocoa mix, one for each night. I think there was something else, but I can't remember. Either way, I stuffed it all into one of the gift bags, and then affixed a homemade bow and homemade gift tag:
I had a lot of fun trying to find frugal but beautiful ways to wrap presents...the bows and bags went a long way, and I discovered the bows looked amazing on presents and gift bags!
All in all, it was a beautiful and touching Christmas. More sober, and darker in spots than other years. But the simplicity brought on by both economy and love's efforts was truly wonderful.
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