This morning Miss G woke up to discover a jingle bell on a red satin ribbon and this little note in her snowman advent calendar. She was beyond excited.
Tag Archives: Christmas traditions
Printable Advent Calendar Activity Cards
Like the last minute mama I can often be, last night I whipped up a several pages worth of activity cards to fill Miss G’s advent calendar with. {Ahem… How’d you sneak up so quickly, Mr. December?!} Last year, I wrote the activity cards out by hand each night before going to bed, but getting them all done in one go and having a bank to choose from come midnight each night sounded like a nice change this time around.
Christmas Day {2012}
Our Christmas was lovely this year. We awoke to our usual morning call – “Mama, Mama! All done! All done! Grae Grae had a nice sleeeeep”, had a little family snuggle in bed, and made our way into the living room so that Miss G could open the little gifts in her stocking. It was filled to the brim with bath fizzies, miniature kitchen utensils, wooden stamps, a couple of little clothing items, an owl puppet, and some of her very favourite nuts and treats. Grae opened the tiny packages carefully, admiring each before moving on… She was thrilled with all of her new goodies.
With her stocking opened, we took a little present break and made a big Christmas breakfast together.
Brad and Gracen’s jobs? Playing with our freshly made gingerbread play dough and entertaining the crowd.
With breakfast eaten and cleaned up, we gathered back around the tree for our gift exchange. Gracen opened her gifts (plus helped everyone else open their’s) and spent a few minutes investigating each, before thanking the gifter and moving onto a new package.
She was hugely spoiled with new clothes {these little black boots included}, games, puzzles, a doll stroller, and wooden kitchen accessories, as well as this giant dress-up kit filled with all kinds of costumes and accessories.
After a lazy rest of the morning and early afternoon {plus a good nap for Miss G}, we all got dressed and ready for the big Ogasawara family Christmas dinner.
My mom and Rorie were able to come out and join us, which Gracen loved. She toured around the house showing Grandma Sue the gifts she’d opened earlier in the day and then settled in to play with her gingerbread play dough again.
As usual, christmas dinner was absolutely delicious. Gracen’s favourites included the turkey and rosemary smashed potatoes.
Afterwards, us adults visited with full bellies and glasses of wine while Grae snuck in a few last minutes with two of her very favourite new things – a vintage doll from Grandma Sue and a stroller to push her around in from Grandma Charlotte.
It was a good day. And only the start to our special days with family this holiday season…
Merry Christmas from our family to yours.
♥
A Christmas Eve Tradition
Christmas Eve was always special for me growing up. We usually spent it at my Grandma and Grandpa Routhier’s house with all of our cousins and did Christmas dinner, mass, and our big gift exchange that very same night. It was the one night of the year when my brother and I got to stay up as late as we wanted and eat all the treats (including pop – gasp!) without having to ask our mom first. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but we always said that we celebrated on Christmas Eve because we were French.
While Brad’s family does the classic Christmas Day celebration, we’ve held onto a tiny piece of my childhood Christmas Eve tradition with a little gift opening for Miss G on the night of the 24th. Each year, she gets two small gifts to open – one a new pair of Christmas jammies, and the second, a special Christmas book to add to her collection.
Tonight Grae opened candy cane-striped footie jammies (her favourite) and a hardcover copy of A Porcupine in a Pine Tree: A Canadian 12 Days of Christmas under the glow of the Christmas tree. After a warm bubble bath, we read her new book as a family and tucked our little candycane-striped girl into bed for the evening.
♥
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A Gingerbread House for Grae
Grandma Charlotte and Auntie Judy have had plans for a gingerbread house decorating afternoon in the works for several weeks now. While Auntie Judy took charge of making the gingerbread pieces and assembling the house, Grandma Charlotte collected all kinds of {healthier} decorations so that Miss G could decorate and snack a little along the way too.
With all of the prep work already done, today, we popped over to Auntie Judy’s house {conveniently located just down the farm’s lane way} to let Miss G decorate her first ever gingerbread house.
After Auntie Judy whipped up a quick batch of frosting, Gracen got started with ‘painting’ the icing onto the house using a popsicle stick.
Her decorations included all kinds of dried fruit and nuts, as well as sesame sticks and breadsticks, and while not the most traditional of decorations, Grae didn’t mind one bit.
She completely covered the roof and two sides of the house, then decided that doors and windows were required on the front and back.
Afterwards, with the help of Papa, a fence was added to the backyard.
Tadaaa! The finished product.
♥
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Stanley Park Bright Nights
Today my little lady and I headed down to Stanley Park for our second year at Bright Nights. Last year, Miss G was just a tiny little thing still riding around in the Ergo, but this year was a whole new ballgame. She rode the train and pointed out things with one hand while holding my hand with the other, she cruised around the displays taking in the lights, she made friends with the Frosty the Snowman mascots that were strolling around the park, and enjoyed a warm milk and a bag of popcorn as a special treat.
Here’s our evening in photos…
All aboard!
Beautiful light displays.
Through the tunnel.
Chillin’ with Frosty.
Firefighter Grae.
The happiest little girl.
Taking it all in.
Magical.
“Mama, take Grae Grae’s picture!”
Warm milk to end a lovely {and chilly} night.♥
Just for Fun: Santa Photo Comparison
While we don’t have a Santa photo for Gracen’s very first Christmas (we were living in Kuwait and didn’t really have the opportunity there, so we planned on getting one taken in Paris while we were on vacation, but ended up spending 3 and a half days in the Frankfurt airport and never making it to France due to weather conditions…), here’s a comparison of Grae’s santa photos for this year and last. It’s amazing what a year does, isn’t it? In the first one she still looks like such a baby, and in the second, she’s clearly a little girl (*sob*).
♥
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Gracen Visits Santa {2012}
Gracen’s always been a shy little girl around people she doesn’t know (men more than women for some some reason). In fact, she started really playing strange between 3 and 4 months old when most babies are still so young that they don’t mind being passed around in the least.
Last Christmas, when we went to visit Santa at a nearby mall, we were thrilled with the fact that both the photographer and Santa were very sensitive to Grae’s cautiousness. Santa took the time to come over and talk to her while she was still in my arms and let her pet his velvety suit, and the photographer set out a little rocking horse for her to sit on instead of having to sit on Santa’s knee. The session went really well, the photos turned out beautifully, and our little girl left happy and excited about Santa Claus, which was the most important part.
Given the great experience we had last year, there was no question in my mind that we’d go back to the same place this time around. We’ve been talking about it for the last week or so, and though Grae’s seemed really exciting about seeing Santa, I could definitely sense that she was a little uneasy with the sitting on his knee part.
When we arrived to the mall this morning, we lined up, and enjoyed the entertainment provided by Santa’s playful elves. Gracen went around collecting their trading cards and loved seeing the tree, hugging Frosty the Snowman, and inspecting Santa’s kitchen as the line up moved through Santa’s village. When it came to her turn to visit with Santa, she was happy to give him high fives, but didn’t want to sit on his lap. And you know what? That was absolutely fine with me. Having my little girl feel nervous or uncomfortable all in the name of a photograph is just not worth it in my eyes. Instead, she sat on his rocking horse long enough to snap a couple of quick photos, and then asked to be taken off. Here are the shots we got this year…
I love how the first one starts out very seriously, in the second you can see a cautious smile sneaking out, and in the third she looks like she’s having a good time.
In the end, the photographer asked if she’d like to sit with both Mama and Santa, and she agreed {although she doesn’t look overly thrilled}.
Overall, I’d say the whole thing went pretty well. The photos are a perfect representation of Grae, after our mini photo shoot was done she snuck back to give Santa a quick hug, and she hasn’t stopped talking about him since.
♥
For those of you in the Lower Mainland, these photos were taken at Richmond Centre. I’d highly recommend them as the elves, photographer, Mrs. Claus, and Santa are all absolutely lovely and great with little ones. They have several package options all available for $25 (we always get the disc of images so we can print and use them as we like) and there’s plenty of entertainment as you wait in line. For more information, click here.
DIY {Paper Bag} Advent Calendar
I’m not going to lie. I had grand plans to sew a beautiful bunting-style felt advent calendar that was hand embroidered and could be used year after year. But it didn’t happen… And that’s okay.
Instead, I searched around the internet {a couple of days late}, combined a few ideas, and came up with what easily could be world’s fastest, simplest paper bag advent calendar. It certainly won’t be something we keep for years and years, but it could last two or three. Plus it takes almost no time at all to put together and I already had everything, save the paper bags, on hand.
To get started, I purchased 25 of these flat 5 by 7 paper bags (you don’t want the lunch-style ones that fold out at the bottom) from one of my favourites – Urban Source.
Then, using one of the stamp sets I use for my Littlelest Lulu block orders, I stamped the bags with ‘Dec. 1’ through to ‘Dec. 25’. This job could obviously be done by hand, with letter stickers, or by printing labels from the computer, but I chose to do the stamp route this time around.
Once done with the stamping, I folded the tops of the bags down about an inch from the top.
Next, I selected an area of wall to hang my calendar. I went with this spot because it’s right along the ground and allows Gracen to reach her own bags each day, but you could really do any spot you wish.
Using teeny tiny nails, a hammer, and some baker’s twine, I strung up five evenly-space lines for my bags. (I hung the bags as I went just to get a feel for how it would all look in the end, but as long as you know that the bags will fit in the arrangement you choose, you really don’t have to hang them up quite yet.)
Next, I filled the bags, added a note inside each, sealed them shut with washi tape, and hung them on the lines with mini wooden clothespins.
Originally, I had really wanted craft paper bags, but I actually think the white ones turned out perfectly. They are just see-through enough to show the shape of the object(s) inside, which gets Miss G really curious.
This year, because Grae is nearly obsessed with adding to the tree each day, we decided to make her advent calendar all about ornaments. Some days her bag will be filled with a purchased or previously made ornament to add to the tree, and other days, she’ll have to create the ornament first. Either way, there will always be a handwritten note included that tells her why the ornament is special or what she can create using her materials.
Well… That’s it. World’s simplest, quickest DIY advent calendar. It was ridiculously easy to put together, but I know my little lady will adore it just as much as if I’d had the time to make the elaborate one I’d originally planned on creating. And that’s all that matters. ☺
♥
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