Christmas Is. . . (Part 2)

Christmas is Christ and setting up the Nativity.

 (This year's nativity set up -- for those who haven't seen the new wall color in my living room -- you get the idea in these pictures.

(Below: the set up a couple of years ago)

I love when Jackson sets it up.  He gets it.  There really would be breathing room only, and everyone would probably be crowded around the Son of God. 

Christmas is Homemade Treats

Pictured above are the turtles I made last year.  My grandma made these every year while I was growing up, and they are my favorites.  I didn't make any this year.  My other favorite treats include white chocolate pretzels (or anything else smothered in white chocolate) and sugar cookies.  My mom makes peanut butter cups, chocolate covered cherry candies, coconut balls, Rice Krispie Balls, Mexican Wedding cake cookies, and oodles more. 

Christmas is Counting Down
 This is the calendar I found at Target a few years back. In normal years, it's filled with scriptures and candy each day.  This year, I'm lame.  There's nothing.  Both boys, however, did have the traditional chocolate countdown calendars.  Jackson made a chain as well with some friends last month.   Jackson has already informed me that there are only 367 days until Christmas 2013. . .

 Christmas is Family
 We love having Christmas at our house, but when we don't have family come to visit, we are terribly lonely.  So, this year, we are going to fix that and make sure we see our family.  Jackson's counting down to that, too.

Below is pictured my Sister-in-law holding Cole and my niece (not her daughter) last year in November.

Cookie Christmas Tree

 A couple of years ago, my mom gave me a Christmas Cookie Tree Kit (by Wilton).  This year I finally decided to make one.

To make a cookie tree, you need a large cut-out cookie recipe that you love such as a gingerbread or sugar cookie recipe and a frosting. (My recipe uses 5 cups of flour to give you an idea of how large I mean.) I chose to make my all-time favorite sugar cookie recipe.  It's one from my high school Home-Ec teacher.  They taste better than the Lofthouse cookies, in my opinion.  The secret is sour cream.

I chose my grandma's ornamental frosting.  It's 1 egg white, 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, and 1 cup powdered sugar.  I made two batches of frosting, but I really only needed one.

I cut two cookies from each cookie cutter size.  I used my grandma's ornamental icing that I use for Gingerbread men.   I piped white around each of the stars.

I filled the stars with green frosting and then put red hots on each of the tips.

I took the picture below so you could see a difference in the frosting after I adjusted it. I added some corn syrup to make the frosting a little thinner, shinier and smoother.   The cookie on the right was the frosting without the adjustment.  I liked the character the "before" frosting added, but I also like the smoother finish.

After the frosting dried, I began building the tree.  I stabilized the bottom cookie by putting some frosting on the tray so the cookie wouldn't move.  As you stack the cookies, be sure to place a large dab of frosting on the middle of the cookie before placing the next one on.  Alternate the stars, so they look like branches.

Instead of using both of the smallest cookies as branches, I used one as the star topper.  Since I forgot to set aside some frosting to dye yellow, I used the sprinkles that I had.  I stuck a toothpick in the bottom of the cookie and put it through the middle of my tree.
 

As a sugar-cookie lover, this tree looks so delectable.  My husband complimented it when he got home from work.  I'm still deciding who is going to get the tree.  I think I'd like to start a new tradition that we give a sugar cookie tree once a year to someone that we think really needs a lift or that we want to thank for a special reason.  We'll see.  :) 

Christmas Is. . .(Part one)

This year it took me a little longer to get into the Christmas season.  Perhaps it was because our water heater died the day after Thanksgiving causing a flood and postponing Christmas festivities for a couple of weeks until we replaced the carpet in our house.  Perhaps it was the sudden business I delved into for Parent Council (the PTO group for Jackson's school) right before the holidays.  Either way, the "bug" bit me a little late this year.

Matt and I have been married for 12 years, and yet I still feel that we're still deciding what Christmas traditions we are going to carry on year after year.  Sometimes it's difficult for me to let go of my childhood traditions, and other times, I find I'm trying too hard to start new ones.  This year I started really thinking about what Christmas is to me.

In no particular order, other than the way they come to me as I compose this post, here is my list.

1.  Christmas is snow.  

 

 There just has to be snow to be a real Christmas for me.  This year it finally looks like it's going to be a White Christmas, which makes my heart leap with joy. 

2.  Christmas is decorating Gingerbread Men, Women, Children, Trees, etc.

I've done posts before about our decorating festivities, but it just isn't Christmas until we paint cookies.  I use a different recipe than my grandmother did for the cookies, but I use her frosting recipe.  As a girl, we hung them on the tree and waited to eat them until after Christmas (no, it's not gross, they're like ginger snaps).  We take our decorating seriously.  It's always so much fun.  The thing is, though, I feel like we always need a crowd because that's how it was when I was young.  The entire family gathered around our table (how 10 of us did it, I don't know) and decorated our hearts out.  Jackson doesn't care for the decorating part, he just loves the candy. 

3.  Christmas is Christmas lights. 

This means we drive around looking at lights, and we hang lights on our house.  We were late getting our lights up again this year, but we have them!  Jackson was the director -- told Matt where to put lights, and Matt was the assistant.  Just as in real life, the director burned out faster than the assistant did.  As a girl, we drove around Panaca looking at all the lights, and now Matt and I take the boys around town and to the neighboring cities to look at lights.

4.  Christmas is singing Christmas carols.  

When I was little, we'd gather around the piano as my mother played the carols, and we sang.  We sang primary songs, hymns, and the traditional carols.   I love to play Christmas music, and so I start playing on Thanksgiving Day, if not sooner.  At our house, we sing carols on Christmas Eve.  I'm excited because this year, Jackson can play at least two different Christmas songs for us!



So, I think I'm going to post more later.  This post is now getting lengthy, and I have so much more to share, but I'll continue it more as they come to me.  

Hats

See that link on the left side of the page?  That one that says, "Maple Tree Knits"?  That's my sister-in-law's hobby.  Want to see how talented she is?  She had our family for Christmas this year, and these are two of the gifts she made (technically three since Jackson got a hat and a scarf).

Lisa made me a cute pair of wool socks (love them!) and made Matt a "Jane" hat.  (If you've seen Firefly, you'll know who "Jane" is, but you can see that hat here.  You don't have to listen to the music, just watch until you see the knit cap.)

Okay, this wasn't meant to be an advertisement, it was meant to show my sister-in-law how cute her handi-work is on my kids!

Eggs, Pancakes or Pudding?

A while ago, Jackson watched this video:




After watching it a few several bazillion times, he decided he really wanted a mixer for Christmas.  Of course, he really wanted one like "Mommy's" -- a Kitchen Aid.  It had to be just like the one in the video.

Since I'm that kind of mom, I went out and bought him one on sale for $299.95 right away.

Uh, yeah, right.  Actually, I tried very hard to convince him that he couldn't have one of those until he was much older, but we would see what we could do.  Well, my mom, being the awesome grandma that she is, went searching for just the right mixer.  This is what she found:

You have to admit, it looks pretty close to a Kitchen Aid, or at least to a real mixer.  The mixer promises to even be able to mix pancakes, eggs, or pudding.  Today we decided to try it out for "real."  Jackson decided he wanted to make scrambled eggs for breakfast (one of his favorites).   Five eggs in the mixer seemed to overwork it a bit, and the whisk and the paddle both just seemed to push the eggs around without scrambling them because the mixture was too thick.  This tells me that next time we need to either scramble one egg at a time or use the hand-crank, OR that the option needs to be changed from "eggs, pancakes, or pudding?", to "egg?"

Despite trying very hard to look mean, menacing, and annoyed, the chef really is very cute (in my very unbiased, motherly opinion):

Giggles More Galore

Good news:  Cole laughed without peeing through his outfit!  He is still, however, true boy.  He laughed hysterically at my raspberry spitting sounds.  :)

Bad news:  Jackson lost his glasses at school -- nowhere to be found.   Yup, awesome.  Good thing for Jackson that I just wrapped all of the presents, otherwise I might have to return them and get him a very non-exciting present.

Good news: Santa sent Jackson a personalized video telling him he was on the nice list.

Bad news: I'm pretty sure Jackson was scratched out and put on the naughty list within an hour.

Good news:  His mother doesn't really want to buy coal.

Bad news:  Jackson is really struggling with giving Cole the present he picked out for his little brother at the Dollar Tree.

Good news:  I think Cole might get a really nice picture of a race car.

Bad news:  I've already gained the 20 pounds for the holidays and it's not even Christmas.

Good news:  My free issue of Fitness Magazine came in today.

Bad news:  I have five loads of laundry to fold.

Good news:  I have clean laundry so I can answer the door instead of making my husband answer it while he's on vacation and while I hide in the bedroom at 2 p.m. in the afternoon because I still haven't showered because all of my laundry is in the process of getting washed.

Bad news:  I'm beginning to ramble in this post.

Good news:  I'm actually posting on my blog*, and now it's done.

THE END.


*This is what you get when I've inactivated my Facebook account and can't give you a play-by-play of my every move there.  ;)

A little late. . .

Well, Jackson's Christmas present (or at least the replacement for the broken one) -- the one he asked Santa for --, came today in one piece, and this time IT WORKS!  I wish I would have been able to get a picture of him playing with it, or at least of it sitting on the front steps "watching" him ride his bike.  Either way, I'm just happy that he loves his "clock with the numbers on it."

What's Your Reason for the Season?

Today Jackson and I set up our nativities.  I set up mine,

  
and then I looked over to see how he was doing on the one I let him set up.  I heard him say to the nativity figurines, "Okay, everybody, come look at baby," and so I grabbed my camera. This is what I found:

 

Who is at the center of your holiday season?

Thanks, Jackson, for reminding me what we're celebrating,

and thanks to my dad for sending me the music video.

Our Christmas Tree

Our Christmas decorating plans started last year after Christmas.  When we went shopping for Christmas clearance items, like we do every year, Matt shared that he'd like to have a decorative "themed" tree instead of one with all our random ornaments.  Since we already had some blue and silver ornaments from many years past that we've kept, but not used in a while, we decided to stick with that idea.  We spent some of our clearance money on blue and silver decorations for our tree this year.

We set up the Christmas tree last weekend but did not decorate it since I knew I needed to get out our color coordinated stuff.  Jackson has been begging and begging to decorate the tree.  I kept putting it off, thinking that I needed to do the decorating to get it "right," and then I realized that he can still hang ornaments since it's all silver and blue, it doesn't matter the order, and he'd save me some work if he just did it all.

Well, I let him go at it after I put on the garland, and I gave him a little bit of advice after noticing that he was hanging all of the ornaments at his eye level.  I pointed to the bottom of the tree and said, "It's okay to put some there," and then I added, "and don't forget to put some on the back and other side of the tree."  The good news is that Jackson DID follow my advice.   The bad news is that he didn't follow all of it, and that (as Matt put it) our ornaments appeared to be reproducing in one area.

 I have since redistributed the ornaments around the ENTIRE tree - just as a precaution, mind you.  I don't need the tree falling over!

Christmas Afternoon

After relaxing, watching Jackson play with his toys, putting in a movie or two, calling family on the phone and on the computer, we ate our Christmas dinner together.

I was amazed that we only had one casualty, a poor stemware glass that didn't dodge Robert's elbow fast enough.
Oh, well, at least the glass didn't get in the food, right?

It was an easy dinner as I planned much in advance and use a lot of ready-to-eat food. Still, it was yummy.

(Kristin, Robert, Jackson, LeMira, Matt)

Following dinner, Matt, Jackson, and I took our trip to the cemetery to do one last special Christmas tradition.

It was cold, and so we didn't last long, but Jackson still wanted to share his microwave with Sissy for a few minutes.


I, of course, shed a few "Missing My Daughter" tears, then thought of the grand celebration in heaven, and smiled. She was probably enjoying Christmas, too.

Thanks, Robert and Kristin, for coming and enjoying Christmas with us.

Christmas Day

Jackson doesn't sleep in, really. Okay, compared to most kids, maybe he does. He wakes up consistently at 7:15 a.m. on the weekend. School days don't count because I have to wake him up at 6:45 a.m. It doesn't matter what time he goes to bed, he's up at the same time every morning.

The entire two-week holiday break, he slept in one day: Christmas morning.

He didn't lumber out of bed until 8:00 a.m. You're thinking, "How did you get so lucky?! My kids NEVER sleep in on Christmas!" I'm thinking, "Who's kid is this?" I was up at least 5 times the night before Christmas checking on the present and stocking status. You know, making sure none of my brothers had hid my gifts! With seven kids in the house, it's very important to have all of your gifts accounted for before the gift opening ceremony commences.

Anyway, Christmas Eve just before bed and after our friends who helped with the nativity had left, Jackson wrote a note, and left out a sugar cookie, eight baby carrots (one for each reindeer minus Rudolph -- Jackson knew just how many he needed), and a mug of milk for Santa. Jackson was so excited for Santa to come that Matt had to force him to use the bathroom before bed. Jackson's words while doing the "Potty Dance" were, "No, I have to go to bed so Santa can come." Matt's reply, "He'll wait for you to use the bathroom."

In the morning, I decided to be noisy around the house to see if Jackson would wake up. I took the mandatory Tree and Presents picture:After he woke up, it was time to introduce our new Christmas tradition: The Ringing of the Bells. It seemed a great way to welcome Uncle Robert and Aunt Kristin into our home Christmas morning.



Next step was check the proof that Santa came (beyond bringing gifts and filling stockings):



We then opened our stockings, ate breakfast, then proceeded to the living room to open our gifts. Here are some of my favorite highlights.

Gift from Dad:

Gift from Mom:

Gift from Santa:


The whole kaboodle:
As a parent, I've decided that the best part of Christmas presents was watching my kid open his.

Our version of the Nativity Story

When acting out the nativity, you don't need acting skills, costumes, or props. Really,
you only need the following: people to fill the parts, someone to read the story while you act it out, space, and a good sense of humor!

"And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; . . .to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child." Sorry, Mary, we don't own any donkeys or pets of any kind. Robert was the best we could do on such a tight budget. At least he's wearing blue -- that's almost gray.

"And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger that was too small for him; because there was no room for them in the inn." He really could have used a pillow.
"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night." Aren't there supposed to be some sheep somewhere?"And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them:" She really is a cute angel, isn't she?
"and they were sore afraid." and gave deathly looks to all who would betray their fear.
And the Narrator told the angel what to say. She really didn't want to say it, so the Narrator said it for her . . ."Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude [okay, just me. . .] of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earthy peace, good will toward men."

"And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hat made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. and pretended to hold their staffs that they knew would have been really cool had they been REAL. . .

"And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child." But, really, they were more interested in their new staffs that showed up when they arrived at the stable!

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men" and one wise woman"from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east," Who resembles Lady Liberty
"and are come to worship him."

"When they had heard the king, they departed; and , lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was."And they wondered, as did Mary, about the donkey, as he seemed a little snuggly towards the wise woman. . .

"And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." And tried not to step on the sheep that was crawling between their legs. And the sheep resembled, Lo, the Angel of the Lord.

"And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold (applesauce), and frankincense (treasure box), and myrrh (tissues?).""But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." And wondered at the gifts that the "wise men" had brought.

Cast
(in order of appearance)
Mary: Katie
Joseph: Tyler
Donkey: Robert
Lo, the Angel: Lindsey
Shepherds: Zachary, Jackson
Star in the East: Mindy
Wise Woman: Kristin
Wise Men: Matt, Dave
Narrator: LeMira (I know, I never "appeared")