Do you have plans for the Christmas afternoon blahs?
Growing up my parents always gave each of us four kids one movie each and so every Christmas afternoon we happily spent watching our new movies.
This year for the boys I am trying something similar, but with a twist; I am going to wrap a big basket of new-to-them books and save that gift for Christmas afternoon. Both boys adore books and previous years when they have received a book under the tree they have wanted everything to stop so they could read the book – a problem when we were giving them four to five books each.
I have been collecting books from the second hand store for them – ours has an excellent selection of older {as in written a long time ago} picture books and just about every time I go in I can find a gem. For .20 – .80 cents this is both an inexpensive and meaningful activity that the whole family will enjoy come Christmas afternoon.
Already have Christmas afternoon plans set in stone? Make this a Boxing day tradition. Or Christmas Eve. Or New Years.
Next time you are at the store buy:
- a variety of story books
- a basket to collect them in
Keep the basket stored out of site and add to it as you collect more books.
You might want to search ebay for “lots of children’s books” – maybe adding in a favorite author to narrow your search a bit more.
This is part of the Preparing for Christmas series.
Click here to see a round up from my Preparing for Christmas series.
I just finished making some homemade vanilla extract to use as gifts {including some for a bridal shower where we are to bring a kitchen themed gift – I thought a large jar of this along with some measuring spoons and tea towels would be cute}.
The vanilla needs to steep for 8 weeks and there’s currently only 7 weeks until Christmas so this won’t be ready to use by Christmas, but I plan on just adding a note that it can’t be used until the beginning of 2012. What a wonderful way to start 2012 – a fabulous bottle of homemade vanilla!
To make your own homemade vanilla you need:
Vanilla Beans
Vodka {4oz per vanilla bean} - we used half rum and half vodka
Tools:
Cutting board
Sharp knife
Glass jars for storing the vanilla extract
How to make homemade vanilla extract:
Cut the vanilla beans down the center.
Place vanilla bean in glass jar.
Add 4 oz of vodka for each vanilla bean.
Shake and store for 8 weeks. The extract will continue to get darker as it sits.
Sharing on
Advent Calendar from Two Packs of Gum
Our boys love gum. Someone gave Wesley 4 packs for his birthday this summer and both boys still talk about it.
Gum = best thing ever.
Last year I saw an idea to use a pack of gum for a Christmas advent calendar and I tucked it away in my mind to use this year – I can’t wait to give each boy their packs of gum on December 1!
Their very own packs of gum = better than the best thing ever.
I scrambled up all the numbers. To make things tricky.
Did you know packs of gum come with 12 pieces? Two packs are perfect for a countdown from the 1st through Christmas Eve. {And I may end up putting some gum in their stocking!}
What is a Christmas Advent Calendar?
Our advent calendar is simply a way to count down from December 1 – December 24. A lot of people connect the calendar to an activity, a part of the nativity story or a mix of both. I am keeping it simple and ours simply is being used as a count down. We do plenty of other activities throughout the month to talk about the Christmas story and what the season is about. Maybe one day I’ll be organized enough to coordinate daily things with a calendar they open every day. But for now that doesn’t sound like much fun.
If your kids are fanatic about gum too next time you’re at the store buy:
-two packs (per child) of gum (I bought Dentyne Ice, 12 per pack)
Decorate with extra paper (gift wrap, scrapbook paper, whatever you have on hand!) and number each foil side of the gum with numbers 1-24.
Store until December 1st.
It took me maybe 20 minutes to collect the paper, stickers and double sided tape and then decorate the 4 packs of gum and clean everything up.
If a piece of gum a day isn’t your style of a Christmas Advent Calendar here is a list of neat ones I found online:
-You could make something similar to this Library Card Advent
-This is in Italian, but Google translates and it’s easy to figure out regardless. Trim Santa’s beard countdown
- Candy countdown (you could buy marked down Halloween candy now and recover with Christmas paper!)
-Countdown Christmas tree – move the wooden beads up the tree. This is super unique and beautiful! Just not a very child-friendly advent
-A list of activities you could do each day for your advent calendar
And I caught this just in time to add to this post – my friend Tracie did Random Acts of Christmas Kindness last year with her girls and just today posted about it with links to downloads and other advent ideas too!
I hope this has inspired you to get a step ahead on whatever it is you’d like to do for your Christmas advent this year.
Click here to see a round up from my Preparing for Christmas series.
“You must be cheerful and happy remembering you are somebody’s sunshine.”
Encouraging Quotes by Stonewall Jackson to his bride, from Beloved Bride: The Letters of Stonewall Jackson to His Wife by Bill Potter
We needed some wall art for our church nursery so I offered to do a crayon flooding piece. I did the crayon flooding a little bit differently this time than last time I did crayon flooding so I thought I would photograph and share the steps here.
I started with a 16x 20 canvas – these routinely go on sale at Michael’s 5 for $15 and when they do I buy a pack – it’s a great price and I love these large canvases!
I decided to hand hold the crayons for the crayon flooding – it gave me more control and I didn’t have the hassle of trying to get the crayons to stay at the top of the canvas.
I lined my colors up in the order I wanted them to appear on the canvas and then just picked up the crayon as I was ready to use it.
Holding the crayon with one hand and the heat gun in the other I was able to control the stream of wax by moving the direction of hot air and changing how the crayon was tilted.
The difference in the long wax pieces, the thicker wax pieces and the more 3-D wax pieces is all controlled by the direction and proximity of the heat gun and crayon.
The above picture was my original creation for the church nursery wall art, but I decided it wasn’t quite to my liking and so I layered it with several other colors – and forgot to photograph the final piece!
Fun, easy and inexpensive!
Part of the Preparing for Christmas Series
Two favorite Christmas Drinks
Snowman Floats
Snowman Floats are a favorite special treat at Christmas time. I like to keep all the supplies on hand for last minute get togethers – it’s festive, yummy and a little bit different.
We love the combination of peppermint icecream and Gingerale, but adapt to your families tastes and dub it any fanciful Christmas name and make it a yearly tradition!
You will need:
-Peppermint Icecream
-Gingerale (I use Green tea flavored gingerale if I can find it!)
-Straws
When ready to make serve in pretty glasses and garnish with a candy cane.
Eggless Eggnog
The other of our favorite Christmas drinks is Eggless Eggnog. I enjoy eggnog in all forms – my grandma use to make it with raw eggs (from her own chickens) and it was delicious, even if it creeped me out a little bit!
I found this recipe a few years ago and it is a fun eggless variation of eggnog.
This needs to sit in the fridge for a while before hand, so make sure to account for that when making it!
Ingredients:
- 1/2 gallon cold milk
- 1 package (3.4 ounces) Instant French Vanilla Pudding
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract*
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon*
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg*
*I added more of these because I like them 
A few hours before serving:
- In a bowl whisk 3/4 cup milk and pudding until smooth.
- Add remaining ingredients.
- Refrigerate until serving.
Click here to see a round up from my Preparing for Christmas series.
Christmas is fast approaching – can you believe it?! I can’t – this year seems to have sped by! In light of the upcoming holidays I have started preparing for Christmas now to make the season less busy and to enable more time with family and friends then.
There is something special about the Christmas season that beckons for special touches – touches that have the ability to bind the family closer, woo the hearts of the children and create good memories.
Special snacks that only happen once a year. Time together as a family making ornaments and reading Christmas stories and giving to others.
And of course, there are the demands that come with the holidays – gift wrapping, cleaning, shopping and traveling.
With a little bit of planning I believe all of these things can be done well, can be enjoyed by all and will help foster the good memories that most families desire to create throughout the holidays.
If a few simple things being done now can make things more peaceful later then I am all for it. Through the month of November my plan is to share simple things I have done now preparing for Christmas next month. My desire is to inspire and help create a peaceful season next month by taking a few effortless steps this month.
Most of these involve having supplies of some sort on hand for when it will be needed next month, so at the end of each post I will include a “next time you are at the store buy” section in case you’d like to do something similar in preparing for Christmas for your family.
The plan is to share these preparing for Christmas posts on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays throughout the month of November.
I hope you’ll join me and share your own ideas and tips that you have found that work well for your family!
~Jessica
This weekend we had the opportunity to have our biannual one on one dates with our children – something we feel rather passionate about and which I share about often. You can see The Heart Behind Our One on One Dates here.
Judah, my 4 year old, was my date this weekend. We started around 5 pm on Friday (which was when he woke up from his very late nap – something we had planned knowing they would be up late that night).
A little bit before he woke up I had been inspired to map out the adventures I had planned for us – following a map is a new interest for him so I thought it would be something he’d enjoy. I do believe it was one of his favorite things of the weekend – having a map to follow! He kept it and put it in his treasure box.
Our schedule stayed pretty close to the guide map.
I had planned on our first two activities to be at the house – letting him play with my big camera (something he loves!) and then playing some games together – but I quickly realized he was wanting to GO somewhere so I ditched the picture idea and packed up a game (the Tipsy Turtle game).
We went to Starbucks, ordered two kid size hot chocolates and sat down for a couple rounds of our game.
Starbucks tip: ordering a “kid size hot chocolate” is both cheaper than ordering the same size in regular lingo (“short hot chocolate”) and it comes at a temperature that will not burn your tongue! It cost less than $3 for our two drinks. Thanks Caleb for sharing this tip!
Next we went to the grocery store to pick up some pizza and treats for the night and went to RED BOX to get a movie. We watched The Gruffalo and it is an adorable short film.
We ate too much food. Watched our movie. Snuggled and read story books and then went to bed.
Next morning we went out to a brunch buffet.
Then we hit up a play ground and had fun on the swings, followed by his second set of driving lessons. (Our date last year included driving lessons too!) We went to an empty parking lot, he sat up on my knee and I controlled the breaks and gas while he steered. He loved it.
We hit up a few yard sales together and then stopped by the library to pick up a few movies to watch together – he was exhausted and we had three hours to kill before the next planned activity. So we spent the time at home watching old cartoons and eating lunch – he also had his ice cream treat then instead of later, as shown on the map.
Our final activity was my favorite – our city has a children’s theater and they do three plays a year and this weekend just happened to be one of their performances! It was a live theater rendition of Cinderella and was spectacular. Judah was delighted and we had a wonderful time laughing and watching the play together.
Our one on one dates ended around 4:30 on Saturday afternoon – a fantastic nearly-24-hours of high quality time spent weaving our hearts closer to one another.
~This concludes my 31 Days of Romance series. Thanks for sticking with me through it!
Click on the button below to find the other posts in this series~
These little people I have been entrusted with are so much fun. We had a busy and fun week with my brother and one of his friends visiting this past week. The boys just love the attention that an uncle brings.
This weekend we are {finally} doing our one on one dates – Paul and Wesley and then Judah and myself. I am so looking forward to it. Spending the one on one time with them has been such a wonderful way to bond and get to know them deeper.
Paul and Wesley will be spending the weekend at a friends home. The friend is out of town for the weekend and kindly agreed to let them stay at his place – a wonder, frugal solution!
I am so glad we will have gotten our one on one weekends in during this Romance series – it’ll be the final post in the 31 days on Monday sharing about our weekend.
In order to focus on the task of romancing my 4 year old this weekend I am going to not post on the 29th or 30th and will be back Monday morning!
I will leave you with entirely way more pictures than you care to see of some of my favorite moments of our Tuesday adventure which included the Children’s Museum, the Zoo, a beat up old gas station and some abandoned cars.
~He makes the best of faces~
~the bond that they share is so special~
~a very favorite uncle~
~Gorgeous fall colors~
~A very favorite – love the expressions ~
~those eyes melt my heart~
~faces of my boy~
~I love run down buildings~
~they posed themselves. GO cool dudes!~
~This is part of my 31 Days of Romance series.
Click on the button below to find the other posts in this series~
I am so thankful for these dear friends – we met Chip and Elizabeth the beginning of this year through church and we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them better over the past months. Last week we were able to do some pregnancy pictures to document her gorgeous belly and get some still-just-a-family-of-three pictures done.
Their story is incredible and grace filled and beautiful. Maybe one day I can convince her to share it on here. When she’s not busy with a toddler and the soon to be newborn that’s due the middle of November.
Jay is so loved by my boys – they refer to him as their little brother and he, in turn, calls them JudahWesley as if they are one being.
I am so excited to meet you little Jackson!!
