Christmas Day

O Christmas Tree

Baby girl was fascinated by the tree at Grammie and GrandDad's house.

Between the ornaments and the lights it was pretty irresistable.

This is the "tree" at our house. It was a fun place to display the art work that came home from preschool and the Christmas cards from friends and family. I thought it would be a good idea since it didn't take up any room and I thought it was out of Baby Girl's reach.

Never underestimate the resourcefulness of a determined baby.

Christmas Eve

What a fun Christmas this year. We keep it pretty low key, but that is part of the fun. It isn't stressful. My husband did a lot of the shopping which I am very grateful for. He has great ideas. I am always at a loss about what to get his family and he knows just what will tickle Buddy Boy the most.

We had fun at Buddy Boy's Preschool Christmas party. They had learned several little songs that they sang for an audience of adoring parents and grandparents. It was pretty cute. We have enjoyed endless renditions of Jingle Bells, Christmas Bells are Ringing and others.

We spent Christmas Eve with his family. It was the traditional dinner followed by opening gifts. The dinner as usual was delicious. In the past they always had finnan haddie, a Scottish dish of smoked haddock, on Christmas Eve. No one really liked it, but it was tradition. After the family spent some time in Italy the tradition changed to chiopino, an Italian American seafood soup full of yummy crab, shrimp, and scallops. (I pass my mussles and clams to others who appreciate them more.) I look forward to this meal all year long.

This year Buddy Boy was old enough to get the whole Santa Clause thing, thanks in part to preschool, so we actually hung stockings on the mantel and the whole bit. We haven't done that in years past. I was just a little bit lazy. Buddy Boy tried the stockings on first, just for fun. I made them out of fleece so they were warm and stretchy.

Christmas stars

In my quest for Christmas cookie perfection I came up with these little bits of buttery goodness. The recipe is actually the crust for a pear apple tart with a little extra sugar added. It is essentially a shortbread cookie with an egg yolk, lemon zest, and mace. I brushed them with egg white and sprinkled them with sugar and topped them with an almond for fun. This is the best version yet.

I also extended my fascination with wire to Christmas stars. I had the idea for these stars to be tree ornaments. They add a little shine, but you can't see them very well in the branches. They do however make great toppers for packages and plates of star cookies. Again I think that part of the fun of these little things is the shadows they cast.

Cookie game

In the spirit of home made gifts this year, here is a little game that is fun for the pre-school set. In the cookie game you collect ingredient cards until you get enough for your recipe. Just watch out for the rotten egg.

The game is in 3 parts as attachments here. Sorry it is in 3 parts. It will work just the same. Print out the pages on heavy paper/cardstock and laminate if you choose. Cut out the circles and ingredient cards. I used a circle cutter to cut them out. I love my new toy.

Have fun. Let me know if you like it.

Painted cookies

A family tradition from my Grandmother is painted Santa sugar cookies at Christmas time. The "paint" is food coloring so they are completely edible. I tried them this year and this is the end product. The the dough was too sticky for the traditional red plastic Santa cookie cutter so we made candy canes and trees instead. The idea is right and they look kinda cute, but didn't taste that great. I am still searching for the perfect sugar cookie recipe. In my trial and error searching I am wondering if I really like sugar cookies. Maybe I just like frosting and thought I liked the sugar cookies underneath. The search continues. I think I will try something closer to shortbread next time.

Happy Birthday Baby

We had a fun little party for Baby Girl at Grammie and GrandDad's house. The cousins came from over the hill. The balloons and ribbons were a source of never ending fascination.

The birthday cake was a hit. It was in her hair, her ears, everywhere. For Dad the only true birthday cake is chocolate cake with whipped cream so that is what we had. It was a lot of fun.

Christmas music II

I really like this version of a traditional favorite.

Christmas music

A big part of the Christmas season for me is the music. I'm not one who likes it all year long. I think that the fact that it is restricted to a single season is part of the appeal, however, that season seems to be coming earlier and earlier each year. I grew up listening to a Boston Pops Christmas record over and over again along with a stack of other holiday records. We all loved it. We would also watch the Pops Christmas concert on TV. I always wanted to go to the concert so years ago when they came on tour to a city nearby I went. The basketball arena where they played wasn't as magical as I imagine the concert hall would be, but it was a fun evening anyway.

I also love to sing the Christmas hymns at church each year. This is one time that I wish the Christmas season was longer. There just aren't enough weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas to sing them all as much as I would like to. To me the ideal program for a Christmas sacrament meeting would be to sing and sing and sprinkle a few scriptures in between to rest our voices.

I love to listen to Handel's Messiah. That music has such power. In high school I got to perform with a community group that did parts of it one year. That was a lot of fun. I have a copy of the score and some day when the kids are older I want to go to a sing along.

As far as individual songs go, my favorites are more spiritual than carol, Rise up Shepherd and Follow and Go Tell It on the Mountain. One of the records my parent have has a man with a fabulously deep voice singing Rise up Shepherd. It is great!

There's a star in the east on Christmas morn.
Rise up shepherd and follow.
It will lead to the place where Jesus's born.
Rise up Shepherd and follow.

This comes close:

I love the joy and exuberance of Go tell it on the Mountain. Sometimes I think that our selection of hymns lacks a little zing. My in-laws have a recording of Mahalia Jackson singing this that is fantastic, but a little slow.


Here for more holiday music favorites

Autumn leaves a la Calder

Awhile ago I read a newspaper article about Calder's wire sculptures. It sounded like fun. I love the idea of doodle sculpture. We started with pipe cleaners for Buddy boy and later I did my own things with more pipe cleaners and later copper wire. I made a fish and an angel boy with crazy hair. Buddy boy's art was a little more abstract. Here is Red #1. It later morphed into a crane. Blue #1 became a gun, a bow and arrow... I had no idea how entertaining these things could be.


Here are my leaves. I used some real leaves that I collected to get the proportions and the angles better. They aren't exact replicas. I really like them. You can't see the wire very well but the shadow is pretty cool.