This Week In Christmas, IV

Only two more days to go until the big day, and aside from the two activities we couldn't do because we were sick or rained out, we've done almost everything on our countdown list. Tomorrow we'll try hot chocolate for the first time, and on Monday we'll bake cookies to leave out for Santa. Other than that, we're all ready for Christmas to come. A couple of important personal Christmas lessons from this year:

 

1. If you're going to make homemade gifts for everyone, start early. Not in November. I've been scurrying to finish all my gift projects this month, and when I finally finished the last one yesterday, it was a huge relief. On the other hand, I've been a crafting machine for a while now, and it feels a bit weird not to have another pressing project.

 

 

I didn't think of taking pictures of all of the stuff I made, but I did take a photo of this wreath I made for my mother just because I was in love with it. Maybe I'll snap some on Christmas as people open their stuff. 

 

 

 

 

2. Don't put so many ornament projects on the countdown list next time. I'm pretty burned out on making ornaments.

 

 



 Here's our annual hand print ornament. They look like the salt dough ornaments that are all over Pinterest, but I use a different material that makes them shatterproof. Maybe I'll do a post on how to make them next Christmas. Pretty sure everyone in Internet Land is all finished with starting Christmas projects for this year.

 

 

In other ornament creation happenings, we made cinnamon ornaments as grandparent gifts. They turned out okay, but I wasn't thrilled with them. And I forgot to take pictures.

 

 

On Tuesday night the kids took their bath early, and we headed out to our local high school's band concert with them in their pajamas so they could go to bed as soon as we got home. They got a bit restless, but they both said they enjoyed the Christmas music, and on Wednesday morning they identified a tuba on the tv completely unprompted, so mission accomplished. 

 

On Wednesday we baked brownies to take the staff at our public library as a thank you for helping us "grow up smart", as the accompanying card said... and also not kicking us out when we forget to use our inside voices. The kids may have a little brownie batter on their chins here.

The cups are completely unrelated, but Linus was having a blast stacking them, so whatever.

 

 

Last night I decided I'd cut Veda's hair to even up the scraggly ends. I'd been thinking of cutting some bangs for her to help out with her fine hair issues, and when a simple trim didn't seem to be helping much, I decided to get brave and go for the bangs. They suit her, and I wish I'd done it sooner.

 

This is a face that says, "I hate my new hair cut." But she really does like it.

 

 

Today's project was putting out the birdseed ornaments we concocted yesterday. (Yup, MORE ornaments.) Veda was happy to practice some fine motor skills by lacing raffia ribbon through the holes.

 

Here's one of the finished products. Beautiful, isn't it? I highly recommend this project, and we'll probably repeat it in years to come. Aside from being fun to do, it was a great opportunity to talk to the kids about showing compassion for animals and how the birds can't thank us but we can feel good about helping them.

 

 

Hey, want to hear about more ornaments? No? Too bad.

 

 

We had leftover dough from the hand print ornaments, so we used it to make some plain ol' cookie cutter ornaments. And then we painted them with acrylic craft paint. Veda was characteristically very into it. And she seems to have entered a blue period in her work. Powder blue only, please. 

 

 

Linus, on the other hand, swirled all the colors together with his brush and was finished after one ornament. Then he bundled some brushes together into a rocket/rocket boosters/fuel tank combo and got busy with blasting off.

 

 

Two more days. Just two more days. I am one eager Santa.