Christmas Card 2011

I love Christmas cards.  I love sending them.  I love receiving them.  Love everything about them.  If you've followed along for a while you'll remember my cards I drew for 2010, and my cards from 2009 and 2008. 

Each year mid-summer I start to come up with ideas for our family's card. I come up with all these ideas and tell myself that I'm going to do them in October so they'll be ready to go come December 1st.  And each year, I wait until the VERY LAST MINUTE.  But, I get them out.  In the end, that's all that matters, right?  Right.

This year I had this idea to do silly photo booth type poses with props.  I gathered a few silly props, bought a table cloth and a fleece blanket for back drops and recruited a friend, Tony, to take our photos.  I had plans (again, I'm great at making them, not always at executing them) to come up with a cute layout and print them myself.  But, I waited too long, was leaving town the next day for a month, and didn't have time to mess with them.  So, I uploaded the pictures to Shutterfly and found a layout that worked.  I love how it turned out. 

The best part this year was that we didn't even try to get a group shot.  No taking 200 shots to get everyone looking/smiling/not blinking/not wigging.  It was perfect for our two year and and four year old. 

Here they are all ready to send.  I find myself thinking I'm going to cut back on my list each year but we seem to keep adding to it.  We sent out 128 cards this year.  I know, crazy.  But, again, I love them and I love keeping in touch with friends and family.  I also send out a monthly recap of our year with our cards each year.  It gives people a glimpse of our year without being too wordy.

Do you send out cards?  How many do you send?  Do you love getting them as much as me? 

Breakfast With Santa Party

I spent December in Texas with family and friends and decided to throw a fun party for the kids while there.  Since my dad has played Santa for years for different functions I knew a Breakfast With Santa party was the way to go.

Between my siblings and siblings-in-law there were 18 kids so I kept it simple and send out an evite.  I know, blasphemy, right?  But, I was busy, didn't have access to my printer or computer and am trying a new mantra of keeping it simple.  We'll see how that goes.

I asked each family member to bring a breakfast item so we ended up with a potluck of pancakes, bacon, breakfast casserole, donuts, juice, chocolate milk and all sorts of yummy hot cocoa flavors.  Breakfast food is my favorite so I was more than happy that morning!  Some came in their jammies and some were dressed for the day.  I opted jammies for sure.

My parents generously opened their house for the event and I did a little decorating.  I found these great foam like snowflakes as Dollar Tree six for $1.00.  Score!  I strung them up on fishing line and my mom and mother-in-law helped me hang them through the entry way and hall with 3M hooks.  I didn't do much else decor wise since it wasn't my house and we were leaving after the party to visit Sea World for a couple of days!  (Love Sea World!) 

I put my father-in-law and brother-in-law to work with my son mixing reindeer food to give out for the kids to sprinkle on their lawn Christmas Eve night.  They mixed together oatmeal and glitter and poured it into Wilton's pretzel bags.  They were the perfect size and shape for the little ones.  I printed this poem (found all over the net) and tied them on with a ribbon:

Sprinkle this reindeer food outside tonight.

The moon will make it sparkle bright.

As Santa's reindeer fly and roam,

This will lead them to your home.

I've seen reindeer food packaged up much cuter in container and shakers and jars.  After considering most of the kids were 3-6 and would be chunking the container after one dump in the yard, I saved my pennies and the Wilton bags worked out perfectly. 

My friend had Santa hat chair covers that we borrowed for the party.  Thanks again, Heather!  So cute!

Here's Santa with a few of the kids.  He said his hat was too hot...we were in Texas, after all. 

He read The Night Before Christmas to the kids while we cleared the table and got a craft ready.

While taking turns getting their picture with Santa, the kids all made a pine cone Christmas tree ornament to take home.  I spray painted some pine cones green earlier in the week then I set out glue, pom poms, jingle bells and pipe cleaners.

My niece, Jessica, was our photographer and took pictures of everyone on Santa's lap. 

These two got my vote for "Cutest" at the party. 

Santa gave out candy treats to the kids who were more excited about that than any other part of the party.

It was a fun morning and I'd love to do it again here.  Now I just need to convince Santa to come visit early next December!





Baby Stocking Caps

While visiting Texas for Christmas my friend, who works in the NICU, asked me if I'd crochet some striped stocking caps for the babies they had as a surprise for the parents for Christmas.  I'd never crocheted hats but looked up a couple of patterns, combined them for simplicity and got to work.  They were FAR from perfect but they weren't actually wearing them anywhere except for a picture.  They were so tiny that they were pretty quick once I got the hang of it.  My mom and I crocheted one afternoon and whipped up 11 of them.  My nieces made the braids and pom-poms.  I used Simply Soft yarn by Caron (my new fav) and don't think I'll go back.  It's SO soft and stays soft.  My mom crocheted my son a baby blanket out of it and, five years later, yep...still soft.  Michael's doesn't carry it but Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart do.

Don't ask me what pattern I used.  Like I said, I tried two different ones and kind of ended up doing my own thing in the end.  The ones I tried never would have tapered like this or fit a preemie.

Quick Christmas Wreath

 I left town for the entire month of December but didn't want my house to look totally deserted for fear of getting robbed.  I strung a couple of strands of Christmas lights on the porch and threw together this wreath in thirty mintues to hang on the door.  I had a wire frame on hand, some wide mesh ribbon and a few picks.  I looped the mesh, wired it on and hung it on the door. I'd like to add more to it next year but for this year, when no one came over, it worked.  And I didn't get robbed.  Mission accomplished!

Popcorn Afghan...two years late

Here is an afghan I crocheted for our family's White Elephant gift exchange.  I started it a couple of years ago, (long story) and delivered it this year.  Next time, I'll be much quicker.  Short story is that I put it away, unfinished, and it was out of sight, out of mind.  I used Lion Brand's Homespun yarn in Rococo color and doubled it up so it would nice and thick.  I crocheted a popcorn stitch and love the finished product.  It's big and heavy but perfect for cold days snuggled up on the couch.

Handmade Christmas Gifts

Last year I read on Design Mom's blog her tradition of having her children make Christmas gifts for each other.  And I looooooved the idea.  I'm always thinking of ways to scale back at Christmas time and not make it about more toys and more toys and more toys.  My children are two and four so they needed help but they made their gifts for each other this year.  Not only were they so excited to keep their secret, they each have really enjoying using their gift.
My daughter is two so I let her pick out some fabric to make a pillow case for my son.  He's often asking for character sheets and bedding and I'm just not interested in that.  At. All.  But, I can deal with a pillowcase.  We used flannel and made a tube pillow case.  Just google it.  Quick, easy and all the seams are enclosed and don't need to be finished.  I sewed the sides and back up with french seams and called it good.  So, okay, I made this one but she's pretty young.

My son is four and when I told him we were starting a new tradition he knew exactly what he wanted to make her.  A bag.  A "Tinkerbell" bag to put things in.  I took him shopping to pick out fabric and he came home and helped me cut and sew the bag together.  He loves to sew.  I let him work the foot pedal while I sewed the bag then gave him scraps to sew on while I ironed.

The most exciting part was seeing both faces as they opened their gifts.  They were just as excited to give their gift as they were to receive their gift.  And that's what it's all about.  (You thought it was the Hokey-Pokey, didn't you?)  We just found a new Christmas tradition.  Thank you, Design Mom.

In that spirit, they also made some hand made ornaments and bracelets for their cousins out of puzzle pieces and I crocheted little doll blankets for them. 

Kids Christmas Trees

I was inspired by my neighbor last year to put a little tree in each of my kid's bedrooms this year for Christmas.  I found these 4 foot pre-lit trees at Garden Ridge and knew they'd be perfect for their rooms. 

I looked online for ornament sets and lots on eBay and wasn't having much luck.  I wasn't interested in paying high prices for ornamnents for kids and I didn't want breakable ones in their bedrooms.  I mean, seriously, look at these Target prices. The individual ones were glass.  No thanks to glass and no thanks to $8.00 each.

Then I an idea.  I gathered up several Happy Meal toys* from the basement, added in a few things I found at the dollar store and garage sales and made my own ornaments. 

 

I started by adding little eye hooks to the tops of the toys.  Some of the harder plastic ones I poked at with a needle thing but I didn't even need to pull out the drill.  Twisting them in was doing a number on my fingers though so I did use needle nose pliers for that.  Sorry, little pony.  This will only hurt for a minute.

 

Then I added thin ribbon to hang them on the tree.  I didn't want hooks in their rooms.

 

 The trees were so user friendly I literally took them out of the box, fluffed a few branches and plugged them in.  That's my kind of tree.  Here's the pink one full of Hello Kitty (I did find a few recently in the dollar spot at Target), Strawberry Shortcake, Sesame Street figures, My Little Ponies and Disney Princesses.

 
And here's the blue one full of superheros, Star Wars figures, and Transformers.

 
I surprised the kids with them the night before we went to the downtown Christmas lighting parade.  They have played with them daily since and I'm glad we have a new tradition for their rooms each year.
 
*Before you go all "mother-of-the-year" on me for the amount of toys I have just know that my neighbor works for McDonald's and hooks us up often with sets of Happy Meal toys.  And then I scored at a garage sale because this is all the crap no one wants.  I got an entire bag of boys toys for $1.00.