Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way

After watching Caillou many, many times Nate was really set on going caroling.  Considering we know almost no one that lives around us, I really wasn't up for that.  But we found an event at Caledon Natural Area that offered a "hayride", caroling, and a Christmas story.  It was great and fulfilled Nate's wish for caroling.  The wagon was decked out with Christmas lights.  We rode through the woods in the cold frosty air.  Afterwards we went back to the visitors center for hot chocolate and a reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas.  It was a wonderful night.

Being Silly

Zoolights

For the third year in a row I took Nate to Zoolights at the National Zoo in Washington DC.  We love this event and all that it offers.  The zoo is decorated with all kinds of Christmas lights.  There is a model train display in the visitors center.  For a small fee you can ride a little train around the lion and tiger enclosure or ice skate on the plastic ice rink.  The best thing about Zoolights is that it's free to get in.

These are a few of my favorite things

I was truly blessed this Christmas and I'm very thankful for everything I received.  These are a few of my favorite things...

 I always look longing at the Martha Stewart glitter at the craft store.  I think some new years decorations are in the works!

 I heart this Vera Bradley saddle bag.  I like across the body bags, especially with a 3 year old to chase after, and this one is a beautiful print.

This was one gift that I was not expecting, but was pleasantly suprised to get.  I'm moving away from processed food and this will make a huge difference!  Bread is one thing that Nate will eat and I'm already thinking about the things we can make.

Merry Christmas

I love Christmas.  It's my favorite time of the year.  Having a little boy who loves it just as me is just icing on the cake.  Here are a few special moments from our holiday.

I really made a point this year to emphasize that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because of Jesus' birth.  We went to church on Christmas eve and Christmas morning.  We had a cake for baby Jesus and we talked about why we celebrate.  That being said, Nate was still showered with gifts.  We had a great holiday.

A Visit From Santa

I have to say that while the upcoming winter may be boring around here, the holidays are not.  We have had our calender full since labor day.  And the Christmas season hasn't been any different.  I love surprises.  Tonight we were surprised to see and hear an ambulance coming down our street.  Considering there are a lot of older folks in the area and the fact that an ambulance has visited our house I shouldn't have been that surprised.  It stopped to the side of our house and that's when I remembered that Santa was going to get a ride around town a couple of nights during December.

Of course I turned to look at my child and saw he was only wearing a shirt, underpants, and snow boots.  I picked him up and we ran outside to see Santa waving from the back of an ambulance.  I asked him if he wanted to go see him and he nodded yes.  Of course we had to go back inside and find pants as quickly as possible.  Then we ran a block, him in his snow boots, to catch up to the caravan before it pulled away.  Luckily Santa saw us coming.

Nate actually talked to Santa!  He gave his usual response that he wants dinosaurs for Christmas.  Little ones to be exact.  Then Santa gave him a candy cane and wished him a Merry Christmas.  We waved as the rescue squad caravan drove away with sirens and lights going.  My little guy was so full of joy.  He strutted back to the house with is candy cane in hand and then ran in to tell his great grandparents all about it.  I've concluded that it's better if he is surprised by Santa instead of us prepping him.  He went to sleep telling me that the best part of his day was seeing Santa.

Of course, I only had time to grab his pants and run with him, so there are no pictures, but at least there are these special memories.

Gingerbread Party!

Nate loves nothing more than candy, so he was very excited when we decided to have a Gingerbread House Decorating Party.  In the theme of not spending lots of extra money this season I tried to decorate and craft with things that I already had.  For decorations I bought glittered foam trees from target ($1), red polka dot wrapping paper from walmart ($.97), a bag of mini marshmallows ($1.25).  And that's about all I spent on decorations.  We got big plates and napkins at target for a decent price.  We spent a little money through oriental trading to get gingerbread dessert plates, a craft, and stickers, but I did my research and got free shipping.  So the most money was spent on treats, candy, and building supplies.

Because we can't live on candy alone I made soft gingerbread cookies, cake pops, a fruit plate, and salsa with chips.  Here's a couple of pictures. 

 I washed out 4 vegetable cans and covered them with red polka dot wrapping paper then I filled them with mini marshmallows.  They were used to hold the cake pops and candy canes.  I taped the glitter trees to wood skewers and stuck them into the marshmallows as a decoration. 

I also used the wrapping paper to make a little table runner to make the boring white plastic table cloth looking a little more lively.  The best thing is that when we were done making houses, we just rolled up the table cloth with all of the dropped candy and tossed it.  I re-purposed my Merry Christmas banner as a decoration.  Luckily at a gingerbread party the bright candy adds cheer.  I used 12 ramekins to display the candy.  Overall it was really fun to put it all together for this guy.

St. Nicholas Day

Our household truly does try to accomplish most holiday traditions, but St. Nicholas never visited our house growing up.  So that was a tradition that I started for Nate.  Basically it is an excuse to give him more gifts and he loved it!

Christmas Craft #5

In trying to cut back the amount of money I spent on all of the little things, I started just making my own gift tags.  It's really easy.  I have a drawer full of scrapaper.  Usually after I make something and there is a little left over paper I will just cut it into a square or a circle and punch a whole in it and I've got a gift tag.  I'll also leave some without holes in order to just tape or glue them to wrapping paper.  Once again this project cost me nothing.

This little guy requested that I take his picture because he was crafting too.  Essentially he was cutting a paper towel with safety scissors.



Christmas Craft #4

I'm really into paper crafts right now, cards, place settings, tags, etc.  So last night I made a banner.  I hung it in Nate's room and I'll put it in the dining room for our gingerbread party.  I have traceable letters that I use all the time, so I used those to trace and cut out Merry Christmas on red paper.  Then I used a Tupperware top to get the right size circle for the letters to be glued on.  I cut out the circles with craft scissors to make a scallop edge.  I punched two holes in the top of each.  Then strung all the circles on some red ribbon.  Nate loves having it in his room and I love that it cost me nothing, but a little time.

Christmas Craft #3

I have fallen in love with making bows.  I always love quick crafts that come together easily.  After making a couple of them it's really easy to knock them out quickly.  We have tons of patterned and colored paper and I see lots of homemade bows in my future.  Here's the tutorial I followed.  It's the Very Bradley blog: http://insidestitch.com/page/2/ .  You might need to scroll down to find it.  Here's just a couple that I've created...

Christmas Craft #2

Just in time for the start of December today I completed Nate's Count Up to Christmas Activity Chain.  That's a really complicated title that I came up with, but basically it's an activity for each day leading up to Christmas.  I didn't go for a count down because we are working on teaching him that each day of the month has a number and they go from 1-31 and so I didn't want to do the reverse and confuse him.  Here's what I created...

And here's a closeup...

I'm loving the idea of using things I already have, because well when you have no money at Christmas time it can be hard to be in the holiday mood.  But luckily I have a creative mind.  The cost of this project was $1, because I had to purchase the wide ribbon.  Here's what I used:
-1 Roll of wide Christmas ribbon
-Red and Green Paper
-A circle template
-Craft scissors that make a scallop edge
-Metallic marker
-Clothespins
-Command Strips to make the ribbon stick to the wall

I took a little time to write out the date specific activities on the back of the circles, but otherwise I'm going to fill in as needed.  Luckily Nate can't read yet, so I didn't have to fill out everything, I can make things up as the dates get closer.  Here are some things we are going to do:
-Go to the bounce house
-Go to a Christmas parade
-Go to Zoo Lights in DC
-Make gingerbread cookies
-Have a Gingerbread House Decorating party

Then I will just fill in with things like drive around and look at lights, make an ornament, watch a Christmas movie and things like that.  I think this is going to be a really fun month!

Christmas Craft #1

Living in a new home this Christmas season means finding new ways to decorate.  We definitely downsized and will have to be creative in using our favorite decorations.  One challenge I have is how to display our Christmas cards that we receive.  After some googling I found that the best solution was clothespins.  Here's what I came up with...

I would garland around the banister, then wound ribbon around the banister too.  I attached clothespins to the ribbon that will hold the cards.  I painted one side of the clothespins with red paint.  I also mixed in glitter with the paint to make it sparkle a little.  It seems like it's going to be a great solution if we can keep little hands from ripping the cards down!

Stay tuned for more craft ideas!