On the last day of Christmas...

It's the last day of Christmas, so I think I can still get away with some Christmas photos, can't I? We had a very drawn-out celebration, opening gifts over many days due to sickness and family and friends' travel schedules. We had three little open-gifts-with-friends moments, a quiet Christmas day with just our little family of three, and a big belated Christmas with my extended family of ten. Each one was special, and it was actually really nice to draw it out over time.

Checking out her new tree house with Tim.

Checking to see if Eric liked her present. She'd thought of it herself--"we should get him some yarn, so he can make himself a hat"--and chose the yarn from our stash.

Opening "her" stocking on Christmas morning. (I haven't actually made her one yet. This is one of a set of three my mother made for me and my sisters when we were little. I loved getting to share it with her, and she loved it, too.)

Playing with the amazing mouse family made for her by our 7-year-old friend, Jenna.

Stockings (again, from my childhood) awaiting my family on our belated Christmas morning.

Everyone gathered here, like I like it.

Playing with a game from "Great Jane," in the Christmas dress from Granny.

Silliness with Bob and Alexa. (Our family Christmases seem to always require a silly-costumes shot.)

Three cousins look at Lucy's annual grandparent-gift photo album.

Enough partying.

The perfect gift

There are many stories to tell this Christmas, but for now, here's just this quick one--the story of a girl and her bike. I'd suspected that Lucy was just about ready for a balance bike (truly a brilliant invention!), and had my heart set on a Skuut, but for various reasons, we went with this sturdier style. I'd worried because I thought it was ugly, because it wasn't exactly the one I'd thought I wanted, because it wasn't a lovingly mama-made gift. But, oh, the joy! It turned out to be the perfect thing. She rode it Christmas morning, and again in the afternoon, and the next day, and today all the way to the post office. She's already starting to experiment with lifting her feet to glide, and you can see the glee on her face. "I'm always riding my new bike. Because I'm loving it."

What an incredible thrill to give a gift that brings such joy!

15th activity of Advent: ornaments

Our tree is both extra-beautiful and tinged with sadness this year. My mother and sisters and I recently divided our family's ornaments into three piles, and now my tree is full of childhood memories, my mother's felt dala horses, my grandmother's and great-aunts' crocheted snowflakes, and even more red, straw, and white. I don't want to think about why she gave them to us now, so I'm just trying to focus on the beauty.

14th activity of Advent: wrapping gifts

Well, let's get a start, anyway.

Here are a few wrapped, but not yet done up with bows and tags (that part comes after bedtime, when I can concentrate). The poor lighting doesn't show it well, but these packages are spectacular. For wrapping paper this year, we're using our vast collection of Lucy's paintings and drawings from the past year (with her permission). I don't think we've ever had such beautiful gift wrap!

For a while, Lucy helped to choose each piece of wrap and to apply the tape to the gifts. Then she moved on to creating "a road" with tape and the discarded pieces of paper I'd cut off.

Everything is more fun this Christmas season, with this cheerful, chatty helper by my side.

13th activity of Advent: chocolate-chip cookies

Growing up in Andi's house, if there were chocolate-chip cookies, it must be Christmas.



(Lucy was pretty sure the cookie dough ought to be squished before baking.)

We must have done them right, because Andi declared "now that tastes like Christmas!"

11 activitiy of Advent: animals and lights

Lucy and I added the sheep to the creche. They were a bit lonely, so we added the shephards, too.

Soon they were rearranged. And again later. Now the big woolly sheep is on the roof of the stable. (That big woolly sheep was a later addition to our childhood creche, made by my cousin at church. It's lamb's wool, and irresistible to cats. It will never look perfect again!)

This creche is the one I grew up with. I find it hard to let it be played with (though it's wood, and mostly sturdy), because we didn't play with it as children; it was for looking. But even though I worry for the fragile bits, I love seeing how Lucy plays with it, and have to let her. (But I happen to know another creche is on its way for Christmas, just for Lucy.)

The tree is up. There were lots of spare greens from the bottom of it, so I've begun using some of them for decoration elsewhere (shown above is my kitchen, looking into our main living space).

Lights...not so much. These are all the strands we have left. Sigh. LEDs, here we reluctantly come. Maybe by tomorrow it will be fully lit.

(edited to add: Oh, thank goodness, there are still normal lights in the world! It's now lit top to bottom.)

10th activity of Advent: cutting the tree

One of our favorite traditions at Christmas time is cutting our own tree. We've been doing it for years, usually with good friends.

This year, Lucy led the way.

We tried a new farm this year.

It's an old farm, in operation since 1955. Some of the trees are the original ones, planted all those years ago. They use a method new to us: "stump culture." Rather than cutting the tree at the ground, you leave a stump with some branches, which will bend up and become future "trees." Fascinating and sustainable.

It was a new perspective, looking up and trying to judge height, size, and shape from the ground. (Here, Tim uses Lucy to measure a tree.)

Dave had never cut a Christmas tree, so he got the honors.



Goodbye, trees. We'll be back next year.

More great Christmas books for toddlers

I think it's time for the second installment of great Christmas books for toddlers (original list here). Here are some more of this year's favorites:

Christmas in the Barn by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Barbara Cooney.
Ok, it might be exaggerating to call this our favorite, as I haven't given it to Lucy yet (it's going "in" her shoes from Sinterklaas). But it's gorgeous, and I love it, so I'm including it here. Lucy and I were just talking tonight about how Jesus is depicted differently in many different stories by many different people, reflecting their experience. So this version which seems to be set in New England in more modern times makes perfect sense to me. With the same rhythm as Big Red Barn, it's familiar and new all at once; soothing and peaceful.


Merry Christmas, Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood. Do you know Little Mouse from The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear? (If not, and you have a toddler, you might want to run out and get it right now. They'll love it.) He's back here, barricading his huge heap of gifts so the big hungry bear won't get them. But that bear is lonely, and never gets any gifts. Little Mouse's decision is a lovely message about the true spirit of Christmas.

Lucy and Tom's Christmas by Shirley Hughes. Looks like this one's out of print, but if you come across it used (or for that matter, any Lucy and Tom books, or Alfie books, or heck, anything by Shirley Hughes), grab it up. It took me a while before I picked up her books--they looked too-long and not my style. But once I got started reading them with kids, I couldn't stop. They are so perfectly kids' daily experience. My Lucy loves reading about this Lucy and Tom preparing for Christmas, celebrating with their family, and even becoming grumpy from all the excitement (and being helped back to calm by a walk with grandpa).

The Christmas Book by Dick Bruna. While you're looking for out-of-print books, look for this one. Dick Bruna's illustrations are amazing in their simplicity (and are straight out of my childhood), and the story is told simply and at a perfect level for young children. Apparently, there are some versions of this book with a pop-out-and-use nativity scene included; I'd love to get my hands on that one! Meanwhile, I'll read this one again and again and again.

And the one I want to buy next is

Christmas is Here by Lauren Castillo. I've seen it on several blogs, but finally got to hold it in my hands yesterday. It's gorgeous. I love its simplicity, the fact that it uses the text straight from the Bible, and the way she combines a modern family's walk by a nativity scene with the story of the first Christmas. The close-up picture of the modern child peering into the manger at Jesus grabbed me immediately.

(There are more. I may have to do a third list soon!)

3rd activity of Advent: books in Boston

"Saddle up, girls, we're going to Boston..." was the song singing in my head when I woke this morning. We rolled out of bed and headed off as early as we could for a marathon day of 2-hours-driving-each-way, hanging out with friends, shopping for books for every child on our Christmas list (plus some birthdays), and then--why not?--a trip to a big new Savers thrift store (where we bought clothes and a huge pile of books).

We're the "book aunts," or so we dubbed ourselves when our first niece was born 18 years ago and we started buying books for every occasion. We wanted to be the ones who made sure there were always good books for the kids in our lives. And ever since our friend in Boston introduced us to a huge bookstore with an entire roomful of remaindered children's books, we've made a yearly trek there for our Christmas shopping.

(sorting the books at midnight, with the obligatory cat-on-books in the photo).

We had an amazing time with our friends, who make an all-day shopping trip an event to savor!

Speaking of books, I think it's time for the second installment of great Christmas books for toddlers (original list here). But it's the wee hours of tomorrow already, so I'll have to post those later.

2nd activity of Advent: decorate

Day 2 of the Advent calendar. Time to decorate!

The leftovers from our wreath-making: a pile of possibility.

A hold-up...I wanted to decorate the dining-room windows, but I just couldn't bear to look past ornaments and greenery to this mess for one more season:

We painted these windows oh, about 10 years ago. And we STILL haven't managed to scrape off that paint! At some point, we just stopped seeing it, and life crowded out that project. But when Christmas comes around, I notice it, and cringe. So, today was the day. An hour of scraping before nap, and then another hour after bedtime (it gets good and baked on after all those years!), and the window was finally ready to decorate. (Hard to see, but those are the Christmas-card ornaments I made last year.)

With window-scraping and 3-year-old-help and lots of cleaning required before decorating could begin, we didn't do all I'd like to do. But we got a good start.

1st activity of Advent: Christmas cards

We drew the first card from our Advent calendar this morning.

(Let's just get the season's photo apologies out of the way, shall we? They're terrible. It's dark. Some day I'll improve. Meanwhile, I'm sorry for the rotten photos.)

Lucy's art, a 2-inch hole punch, a pen, a glue stick, and a couple of rubber stamps made some pretty cute cards. I stayed up way too late one night last week assembling them all. Now we've just got to manage to write them and send them. I hoped if we started right away on December 1st, they might make it out before Christmas.

Lucy and I wrote a few while we ate lunch today, and then we did a few more after dinner. It's such fun to have her help this year: "write 'us love them'," "write 'I love you'." "You tell me, Mama. What do you think us should write?" With her help, I actually think they might go out on time this year!