It has been a few years since I have had/made the time to make Christmas cards. This year I had the perfect picture and sentiment in my mind and was determined to get cards made. I also planned to get them done without purchasing new stamps or supplies. I did buy cream card bases and envelopes and more gold embossing powder at Hobby Lobby. But otherwise, all my supplies were already in my stash.
So many hours and days later, 30 handmade Christmas cards were completed. I intend to keep one for my December Daily album and send the 29 others. I am happy with how they turned out, and the picture of the boys is one of my absolute favorites from this year.
Y'all, this picture just makes my heart smile. There is definitely some tickling going on in this picture. Love how much these three love each other.
We are a cozy, blanket kind of family. If we are curled up watching tv or reading books, we are covered with a blanket. There are heavier blankets for Fall/Winter and lighter ones for Spring/Summer, there are always blankets.
One of the things I wanted to capture this year was our love of curling up and being cozy. I have taken a few pictures throughout the month of people in various states of coziness. Jude loves to get out of bed and immediately go into the living room and get under a blanket to finish waking up. Carter prefers to stretch out under blankets, which makes it challenging to find blankets to fit his length. Ethan usually just wears his all day, all over the house (We call him Linus because of his Charlie Brown-Esq blue blanket). He also has quite a few that he claims as his and uses on his bed nightly. It's like a weird, teenage boy nest of blankets. Strangely enough, I haven't taken any pictures of him wrapped up in blankets yet, this month. Jess uses a blanket sometimes, but only if he is sitting for a long time or if it is colder than usual outside. I, too, like to get cozy up under a blanket and read, especially in the evenings before bed. But I have a problem; once I get warm and comfortable, I fall asleep. It's become a running joke around the house, and I believe bets are being made on how quickly I will fall asleep. Good grief! :)
Here are a few cozy pictures so far this month. I will be taking more and adding them to Day 16 in my album.
Can't wait to put all this coziness in an album. The only thing missing is a fire in the fireplace. Surely we will find time for that next week during Christmas break.
Jude and I were able to work in a bit of tree decorating between Little Rockers Marathon practice after school and basketball practice this evening. Carter and Ethan don't love decorating the tree as much as Jude does. They will help, but being big, goofy teenagers in weird, gangly bodies does not always bode well for the ornaments or the tree. That being said, I will always take any help I can get as long as the tree and decorations remain mostly unscathed.
Monday's are pretty tough on Jude, with running after school and then basketball practice at 6:30. Once we got home, he was definitely ready for a bath, a book, and bedtime.
We are reading through Christmas books each night, and tonight he wanted Snowmen at Night so that he could look for the hidden objects as I read.
After I tucked him in, picked up the house a bit, and did the dishes, I was ready to turn in as well. I found Smokey curled up on our bed, as he does every night, waiting to snuggle up against me until Ethan comes in to get him as he goes to bed.
Such a quiet reminder of how much we all get into a daily/nightly routine that grounds and comforts us. I am so looking forward to the two week Christmas break to reset and restore my home, myself, and my people. So very thankful for quiet, beautiful moments.
Friday was "Caps for MES" day. Kids can pay a dollar to wear a hat to school every first Friday of the month. The money raised goes to support their kid's closet for any child who needs clothes, shoes, or a jacket throughout the year. Since it is December, kids were able to wear Santa or holiday hats if they wanted to, and Jude did. We dug around in the Christmas stuff Thursday night and found a Santa hat. He quickly put it on and wore it around the house. This is a pretty significant change for him. Jude does not like to draw attention to himself in any way, so I was worried he would wear it to school, kids would make fun of him, and he'd take it off immediately. So I was quite surprised to see him come down my hallway after school, still wearing his Santa hat. I asked him if he wore it all day and he said yes. I asked if anyone else wore one and he said they did, but not a lot of kids and that some kids looked at him and laughed, but he didn't care. Super proud of his willingness to be himself and to ignore others who would dampen his sweet Christmas spirit.
Friday night, we took the boys to the Arlington to eat dinner, then to walk around downtown and look at the lights. Cracking and eating crab legs does not make for a quick meal, and I love that we always take so long to eat when we are at the Arlington. It's enjoyable to sit, eat, and visit without being in a hurry to get done and off to somewhere else.
The Arlington also had it's huge gingerbread house up and decorated. We were in a while back, and they had the basic structure in place but hadn't started decorating it yet. I made a mental note to try to go by next year between seeing the structure in place and seeing the completed house in hopes of seeing it actually being put together.
I love spending quality time with this crew.
I spent Saturday catching up with house cleaning and a little bit of decorating. I planned to finish the big tree, but after all the cleaning and the fact that I read way past my bedtime on Friday, I was exhausted and sat down to watch the Polar Express with the boys and Carter's girlfriend.
To cut back on toxins and harmful chemicals, I have gotten rid of most of my candles and potpourri. I still have a couple of bags of potpourri, which I still put out because they are pretty, but I no longer add additional scents to them. I now use essential oil in my Young Living diffusers. I am currently diffusing Christmas Spirit essential oil, and I love the way it smells. The smells of orange, cinnamon bark, and spruce are perfect for the Christmas season without being overpowering and nauseating.
After the movie, Carter took Jennifer home and dropped Ethan at a friend's house to spend the night, Jude and I switched the tv over to Food Network and watched some of the Holiday Baking challenges, till he fell asleep on the ottoman.
Sunday, we went to church for the yearly Lessons and Carol's performance by our church choir. It is a Sunday we always enjoy. The Christmon tree was up, and it looks beautiful sitting in the sanctuary. I can't wait till the Poinsettia tree is put up as well. I love the Christmas season in our church.
After church, we ate lunch at home and then headed to Hot Springs to do a little shopping. It started out a bit rough because the big boys were indecisive, and Jude was under everyone's feet as we were shopping. We finally got it under control (we aren't used to shopping altogether) and got a few things bought to go under the tree.
Once we got home, the boys all found some sort of technology to play on, while Jess and I worked in the kitchen. Jess worked on deer jerky for a friend, and I made cookies for the boys' lunches this week.
I love the weekends, especially when they are filled with all my people.
Today was an off day for me because I didn't feel well. After school, Jude and I went home, and I got in a hot bath to warm up & get rid of the chills I was experiencing. Jess and Carter went to watch Ethan's basketball game, while Jude and I stayed home. I hated missing his game, but I definitely did not feel up to going. Somedays, your body has to remind you to slow down and not overdo it.
Jude played with Dax and watched Food Network and Christmas movies while I napped and read on the couch.
Wednesday's are usually our night to relax and recharge in the middle of the week. Everyone's schedule is different (because of youth activities at church and after school practices), and we are not usually all home together until after 8:00. We often eat leftovers, or the boys eat at church, so the majority of the evening is spent doing simple chores and visiting with one another.
After I picked Jude up from the church, we ran through Sonic for drinks (grape slush for him and cherry Dr.Pepper for me) and $.50 corn dogs. I had stopped by Wal-Mart after school and bought the animated Grinch movie from last year. Once Jude spotted it in the sack, he immediately wanted to watch it when we got home.
He insisted that I watch it with him, so I worked on Christmas cards and watched the movie with him.
Once the big boys and Jess got home, we were done watching the movie, and I wanted to share the Santa Tracker on Google with Jude. Ethan immediately sat down and started showing him how to play one of his favorite games on Santa Tracker.
After Jude was in bed, the big boys wanted to watch Christmas Vacation, so we put that in to watch until we all got sleepy and decided to go to bed. We'll probably restart and watch that one this weekend.
The Lights on Moline Street is one of our very favorite places to visit during the holidays. We will drive through and enjoy all the lights multiple times before Christmas. It is so lovely to have such a festive place in our own community.
Tonight was our first time to drive through and see the lights. It was fun to see that they had added more lights this year (the lighted tunnel and more stars) and a nativity scene. As we left, I asked Ethan and Jude if they were curious about how and when the Lights on Moline started, because I sure was. When I got home, I did what any 21st-century researcher does and turned to the Internet. On Facebook, I asked Malvern natives, Ben Dial, Phyllis Dial, and Greg Hughes, if they could tell me more about the history of the lights. Very quickly, I had responses from all three with useful information and a handful of other people who knew the history. I even had a Facebook Message with a newspaper article link from 2012.
What I learned was that the Lights on Moline are put up each year by the Burns brothers. The lights started about 20 years ago as a way to lift the spirits of their mother when she was sick and confined to the house. She was able to see the lights from her window. The lights have continued every year since, and the display has gotten bigger each year.
One of my goals for this season is to decorate slowly, intentionally, and to enjoy the process. Tonight, I spent a little time pulling out a few tabletop decorations and then spent the remainder of my spare time going through our collection of Christmas books with Jude.
When Carter was little, I began buying Christmas picture books for him each year, and I continued that tradition after we had Ethan and then Jude. We have accumulated so many now that they won't all fit in the wooden box I display them in, so buying new ones every year has wained a bit. It has to be a pretty good Christmas book for me to buy it now.
I asked Jude tonight to pick out some of his very favorites, and I wanted to record his choices. I am going to link them here using Goodreads. I also included a few of my favorites as well.
I store the majority of our Christmas books in a wooden box that I picked up years ago in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Right now, the box is on the floor under the tree. I will probably leave it there even after I get the tree skirt down and clean up the needles that have fallen off the tree. It will remain under the tree as long as Dax (the 9-month-old lab) leaves it alone.
Jude's favorites for 2019 (he chose these from memory since we just got them out for this year):
Jude love, love, loves The Mother Bruce series. Ryan T. Higgins is a genius, and his Mother Bruce series makes me and Jude laugh every time we read it! As a librarian, I recommend this whole series to other teachers and students all the time. It is probably my most recommended picture book series.
I consider this a classic Christmas story. All of my boys have enjoyed it over the years. We also own the original movie narrated by Boris Karloff and the Jim Carrey version from 2000. Last year we went to see the 2018 animated version in theaters. I probably need to pick that one up for us to have in our Christmas movie collection. We love all things Grinch.
I raise boys, they have loved any kind of underpants humor starting at a very young age. The whole Love, Underpants series by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort is such a fun series for anyone who loves good, wholesome underpants humor.
This is a newer copy of the original 1975 version. I love that it has the original 1975 illustrations and text. There are many different Night Before Christmas stories out there, but this one will always be our favorite.
This is another cute one! How Santa Got His Job gives a perfectly logically explanation of how Santa became the man he is today. Santa didn't always know what he wanted to be when he grew up, so he tried out different jobs: mail carrier, circus performer, and chimney sweep. All those attempts of job hunting helped him design the job he truly wanted. Such a creative, fun story that kids will definitely buy into.
Anything that Chris Van Allsburg writes and illustrates is beautiful and thought-provoking. I have seen his books used in classrooms K-12 as a jumping-off point to a lesson and to encourage students to speak about their opinions of the text and illustrations. He creates such lovely, lovely stories. The Polar Express is one I can read and look at repeatedly. I always feel like I find something new every time Jude and I read it. The movie is excellent as well and one that Jude plays on repeat this time of year.
Duck may be one of Jude's favorite book characters. He loves how smart and sneaky Duck is in all of Farmer Brown's Barnyard Tales. This whole series makes us laugh and also makes Jude and I stop and have conversations about some of the things going on in the stories, explanations that help him build vocabulary and background knowledge.
This is another of mine and Jude's favorites. It is full of beautiful illustrations, and the story is a fun explanation of why snowmen begin to look kind of droopy and forlorn the day after you build them. Another reason Jude loves this whole Snowmen series is that on every page, there are hidden pictures drawn into the scenes. I think most of them contain a hidden cat, T-Rex, bunny, and a Santa face, and they are HARD to find. Jude and I spend lots of time searching these books for the hidden pictures.
Carter and Ethan found Walter Wick's Can You See What I See? series years ago and began collecting as many as they could get their hands on. Jude will sit staring at the pictures looking for all the things listed in the story.
I love his choices, but I also wanted to add a few of my own. My favorites have a whole lot to do with stories I remember my Mama and Daddy reading to me as a child. All three of these books are the original ones that I had as a child and are books that I continue to treasure. Because of that, they are not in the Christmas book box on floor because I am not about to chance Dax sinking his teeth into them.
I have read this one and had this one read to me over a dozen times in my lifetime. I have a deep love for the Herdman children. I know children like Herdman's, and I sometimes think that our own boys are the Herdman's (especially when they were younger, and we were trying to keep them still and quiet during church). I wish every church could be inundated by a whole herd of Herdman's and to feel the true spirit of Christmas take over. I love this book!
The Christmas Book by Donna Kelly
This book is so old that there is no image available on Goodreads. I love this book for all the sentimental reasons. I love my mother's handwriting across the title page that shows that my Great Grandmother Taylor gave this to me for my second Christmas. I love that it is a little Golden Book & that in 1978 it cost 49 cents. I also love the beautiful illustrations and the retelling of the Christmas story.
This is another sentimental favorite and probably explains why our kids love a good "I Spy"/hidden picture kind of book. My mother possibly purchased this book through Weekly Reader around 1981. I remember her reading it aloud and me trying to make her wait while I located all the Twelve Days of Christmas objects on each and every page. I love all the little animals in the story and how they portray the Twelve Days of Christmas. This is still one I enjoy reading and looking at every year.
Speaking of the Twelve Days of Christmas, to purchase all the items from the song at 2018 prices (2019 prices were not available when I started looking) Forbes said it would cost you $39,094.93. Wow!
Here is my favorite version of the song being performed. I share this with my students every year. It always makes us laugh. I love creative, fun people!
Thank you all for sticking with me for the entire post. I hope you found a fantastic book to add to your collection, but most of all, I hope my post triggered a fond memory or encouraged you to laugh.
