25 Days of Christmas Day 8

  Today's Goal:  Get downtown to the Heritage Society's Candlelight Tour.  The Heritage Society maintains the upkeep of several homes from the 1800's that are housed in the middle of downtown Houston. Each Christmas they decorate them, bring in carolers and re-enact several day today scenes in each home. It was very beautiful and the weather was amazing.  I am just going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

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25 Days of Christmas Day 7

  Remember the tag line on my blog?  Well I am willing to try anything.  I am discovering that teenagers like to do their own thing on Friday nights and well, I had Bible Study Christmas party to attend.

We had sooo much fun! Of course, no Christian function would be complete without some good food. Well, no function in the South would be complete without food. So we ate and then played games.  You've never seen someone's true self until you see them play Cranium.  How old are they?  You will find out based on the Humdingers they either know how to hum or how to guess.  Were they good spellers in school?  Just have them do a few sgnilleps and you'll know.  Are they a drama queen?    One copycat and you will know.  I recommend everyone to play Cranium with some of their closest friends, just not their most competitive friends..it could get ugly. Sadly, I am a competitive gamer and I get ugly.  :(

So since I don't have a true 7 Day of Christmas...here is another to do from my Christmas on a budget.

Remember this is to be Cindy Lou Who themed...so what is the Nutcracker doing there?    Well he is part of tradition so he stays no matter what.  Each year, we go to the Nutcracker with my father.  This Nut is from the first time.  The rat king's autograph is on the bottom of his left foot.  I won't bother you with the details of why we couldn't get near a Nutcracker.  Little girls dressed in their beautiful gowns, hair tied back perfectly with a bow can act more like Halo 4 soldiers when it comes to trying to get an autograph.  So we went for the Rat King.

The balls are from a huge Christmas decor package from Sam's.  The jar usually has dried rose petals from all the bouquets my husband as given me over the years. But at Christmas time, they are put in a Walmart bag and it is filled with holiday goodies.  The wine glasses are part of the decor from my wedding (also done on a budget...but not as nice...Pinterest didn't exist back then.)  So so easy to do.  Just find some small balls, put them inside the glass and turn upside down.  Top with more balls.  

You will notice that most of my ideas for decor are not original.  I eat and breathe Pinterest.  You will find most of my ideas for Christmas right HERE. 

More to come.

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Day 6

  I don't know if it was my lack of cooking skills that scared the children away from baking cookies tonight or if it was the homework. In either case, all the kids, including my daughter, did not want to participate in baking cookies.  Bummer, because they really are the best cookies.  I made them last year and my family talked about them for days.

So I thought I would share one of my Christmas projects.  We are changing our Christmas theme this year  We usually do the traditional colors.  My daughter has asked for a Cindy Lou Who Christmas for years.  So this year we were taking the plunge on a budget.

My first project was the mantle.  I wanted to take a quote from The Grinch and have it across the mantle in Grinch green.  So I bought some paint...kidding.  Years ago, while window shopping at Home Depot (it must have been date night), I saw these vinyl wall pops on clearance.  They were on clearance for $2.00 each. So I bought some in each color.  I knew they would come in handy some day...even if that day was 700 days later.

This isn't all of it but you get the idea.  It came in squares and rolls.  I wish I could say I pulled out my Silhouette, found a Grinch font and cut it on my Silhouette.  But I don't have one.  So I pulled out Cricut Expression and my Gypsy and started to design.  I decided one of the fonts on Lyrical Letters would look the closest to a Grinch style font.  If you have never cut vinyl on a Cricut, I find it is best to change the pressure to 3 and let the Gypsy choose the speed.  This will cut the vinyl but not the backing.  Once you cut the letters, pull off the extra vinyl on your mat, so that all that is left are your letters and/or words.  They place your transfer paper over the words.

Trust me, it is worth getting transfer paper to transfer items from the mat to the mantle. I gently rub the paper over my words.  Because my quote was longer than my mat, I cut the transfer paper into word size strips.  Then when I got to the mantle I gently pressed the paper against the mantle until I had all the pieces lined up.  Once they were lined up I pressed the letters onto the mantle.

If I had this to do again, I would have chosen to make the font larger. I think this one is less than 3 inches tall.  It kind of gets lost in the final look...to come later.

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Day 4 Stockings Cancelled

  We had some really bad storms come through last night.  All the kids are new drivers and we decided it wasn't worth their llives to have them drive out in the rain.  But the stockings are huge!  The picture doesn't represent the size very well but each one is about 2-3 feet tall.  And I got them at the dollar store.  Can you believe it?

So we will decorate them while we watch The Grinch that Stole Christmas.  Which is good news because I honestly didn't have enough decor for large stockings.  So I have this weekend to get more items for the stockings.

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Day 3 Letters to Santa

  I was worried about writing letters to Santa.  I wasn't sure if the kids would like it.  Ok, I call them "kids" but they are really  young adults.  So I wasn't sure if this would be considered lame and if it would take more than 5 minutes.  But, to my surprise, they had fun.  They watched Elf on ABC family 25 Days of Christmas...I know I know..it is on our list to do next week.  However, they took a vote and have changed that to How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

So they thought long and hard about their lists.  You would think they were writing their last will and testament.  The form I printed out had only a certain amount of lines to write things and they wanted each one to count.  So they colored and doodled around the page, while they thought.  And they discussed Santa and if he was real.  They decided that he was real. Seriously, he is real and they had valid reasons to why he existed.  So, Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  He is the spirit of giving that takes over the world the month of December.  The first gift was Christ.  That precious moment when God came down in form of man...the first gift...but not the greatest...that would come later.

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Day 2 Home Alone

Day 2 was a simple day.  The kids watched Home Alone while they did homework.  They started late because they volunteer at Petco for the pet adoption program on Sundays.  Sorry for the blurry picture but I didn't want to disturb them.

Home Alone is a tradition in our home.  Christmas doesn't even start until we see these movies.  We consider them a classic and a family tradition. I hope my daughter carries it into her children's lives.


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Day 1 The Elfing

 Sounds sorta creepy doesn't it?  Like the title to a new Horror flick.  But it isn't.  It is the exact opposite.  You do something kind for someone you don't know and ask them to pay it forward.  I had never heard of it before but thanks to Pinterest...my world grew a little bigger.  I went to a website and got this:

http://andersruff.blogspot.com/2010/11/free-printable-youve-been-elfed-door.html

She has all three printouts that you need.  The idea is that you get a basket and fill it with goodies and three pages.  The first explains that they have been elfed with goodies.  Now it is their turn to share goodies with two of their neighbors, with a copy of explanation and notices to put on their door that they have been elfed.  (So you don't get elfed twice).  Is "elfed" a word?  Well it is now.  So is "elfing".

So we put together baskets with items to make S'mores, hot chocolate, some candy canes and three ornaments.

So the kids made 4 baskets and took them to three different neighborhoods. Drama 1 (Some of the kids didn't want to make the baskets, they only wanted to deliver them...so they are not in the picture...at the request of the girls.) They decided to take one to school on Monday to start the Elfing at school with the teachers.  The first Elfing...epic fail, according to my daughter.  They went up to a neighbor's door, put the basket at the front door and ran.  Well they hid behind bushes to see what would happen.  Well another neighbor saw the kids running and hiding (he has motion sensors in his yard because he has had some of his yard decorations stolen in the past) and he yelled at them.  When my daughter went up to him to explain, he just yelled, " I don't care what you are doing, leave them alone, they have small children...stay out of their yard.  BAAAAHUMBUG!!!"  Okay, he didn't add the bahumbug....I did. I saw it happen so I went to his house to explain.  He rolled his eyes and said well it seems like a nice idea. and Bah humbug...

Well they were scared after that time but they went on and delivered two more .  These people were more welcoming and one invited them inside her home to see her Christmas decor.  So I will call them a SUCCESS!

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