Growing up, we didn’t do stockings at Christmastime. Don’t get me wrong – we always had more than enough of everything and my parents worked extremely hard to make the holidays beyond special for us. Stockings just weren’t our jam.
Tag Archives: Christmas
Christmas Tree Play Dough and Cookie Cutter Gifts
It’s very likely that our friends may soon disown us for constantly gifting them with play dough… And until then, we’ll probably just continue coming up with clever ways to present it and give it anyways {sorry, friends}. ☺
Christmas is Coming!
When you’re from Canada, Christmas equals cold, crisp air and snow-covered streets {or at least tons of rain and regular frosts if you’re from Vancouver}. Needless to say, that’s not the kind of weather we’re currently experiencing here in Kuwait. In fact, I’m fairly certain that this is the warmest December we’ve experienced in our six years here. Normally by this time of year, we’re wearing down vests and shivering during our afternoons in the courtyard, but this year it’s regularly been 21 to 24 ºC for the majority of the day, which makes getting into the holiday season sort of tricky. Don’t get me wrong – we’re certainly trying. Our advent calendar activities have been helping us along, but it wasn’t until today that I think it finally sunk in… Christmas is coming!
Reindeer Pancakes
Oh my goodness… Miss G and I have been having way too much fun with our advent activities this year! I’m so thankful that I created all of our advent activity cards ahead of time – having them pre-made and ready in a jar has saved me tons of time already, and I never have to worry about coming up with a fun idea because the ideas are already right there in front of me.
Gingerbread People Ornaments
One of my very favourite things about the holidays is making all kinds of fun homemade ornaments with Miss G. I just love it. We gather up our materials, put on some music, chat while we create side-by-side, and in the end, we’ve got at least a couple of new colourful and quirky ornaments to add to our colourful and quirky Christmas tree.
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.
Fingerprint Heart Ornaments
Woohoo! The season of homemade Christmas ornaments has officially begun in our house and we’re already loving it. We always dedicate a morning or afternoon to creating special ornaments for the tree as a family, and then Grae and I add to our collection right up until Christmas {as you do}.
Christmas Tree Play Dough Kit
Okay, so I admit it – we’re a bit play dough kit obsessed over here. We can’t help it. Play dough is something that we play with on a daily basis and having pre-made kits filled with dough and interesting loose parts makes it really easy to delve into the fun – everything that’s needed is right there in a container waiting to be taken out! It also means that Grae can easily help herself to a kit and have a fun activity pre-prepared for independent play times, which I love.
Christmas Day 2013
Besides a Christmas Brad and I spent at Railay Beach a few years back while I was {unknowingly} pregnant with Miss G, this year’s Christmas was probably our most non-traditional. Our tree was a house plant strung with baubles. Our turkey dinner was dinner out at a restaurant. Our usual snow was rain. And our family members came in the form of Grandma Charlotte arriving on our doorstep this morning and surprising the heck out of Miss G (a definite highlight of the day). Different isn’t necessarily a bad thing – in fact, it was a really lovely day and I’m absolutely thrilled we got to spend our first Christmas away as a family of 3 here in Heidelberg – it just would have been that much better with all of our family members here, of course.
Our day started at 5:40 a.m. when Miss G awoke raring to get the day going. We opened stockings in our dimly lit living room, made a big breakfast together, and Brad announced that he had to go for a quick trip to the store shortly afterwards. Of course, he wasn’t going to the store, but to the train station to meet his mom and help her back to our flat to surprise Gracen. It felt like he was back in no time at all, and when he arrived, he opened the door and announced, ‘Look at what I found while I was out!’ He stepped out of the way to reveal Grandma Charlotte with her suitcases in tow and Gracen’s flapping, hopping, and shrieking began. The first words out of her mouth were, ‘What in the WOR-WOLD?!?’ and then she later declared it the ‘Best. day. EVER.’ Gracen helped unpack her suitcase full of all sorts of Canadian goodies and opened a string of never-ending gifts. The rest of our day consisted of a long walk in the rain, a playground stop, naps for everyone in the house, dinner out, and an early bedtime for all of us.
For some reason or another, I ended up giving my DSLR a bit of a break today, I don’t have a ton of photos and several of these are from my phone, but here’s our day in pictures…
The stockings were placed by the house plant with care…
Christmas Eve 2013
What a lovely Christmas Eve we had today… We woke up to the most gorgeous sunrise, and after having some breakfast, enjoyed some low-key time around the apartment. We read books, played with play dough and unifix cubes, and Gracen danced her way around the apartment in her favourite ever dress {from Over the Loom}. When we were ready, we set off to the playground across the street and stayed there for most of the morning until we were chilly enough to warrant bringing hot mugs of tea over to sip on. There were walks and naps in between, and then we all sat down together to make the dinner Miss G had requested – turkey and rice soup. Afterwards, it was back outside in search of pretty lights and a playground to play at. We arrived home with rosy cheeks, and Miss G opened 2 little wrapped packages, just as she always does on Christmas Eve – one containing a pair of cozy jammies and the other containing a holiday book to add to her collection {this year, How Many Sleeps Till Christmas by Mark Sperring}. After she was snug in her bed for the night, Brad and I put on Love Actually, poured some wine, and wrapped up some gifts to place under our house plant turned Christmas tree {hey, you do what you gotta do, right? ☺}
Here’s our day in photos…
Rudolph Lives On
iPhoneography // Boxing Day {2012}
puppy love // Bella’s twin
dress-up day // Christmas {round 2} at Grandma Sue’s
♥
Find us on Instagram here.
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.
♥
Play Dough Gingerbread People
After decorating gingerbread houses this morning, this afternoon I whipped up a batch of delicious-smelling and amazingly soft gingerbread play dough for Miss G to play with.
In addition to the play dough, I set out several things create gingerbread people with, including a rolling pin, cookie cutters, buttons, straw pieces, jingle bells, ribbon bits, and toothpicks.
Gracen dove in as she usually does and the play dough gingerbread people began rolling out of the kitchen.
She came up with so many fun ways to decorate them, some more traditional, and some a little more abstract…
The best part is that this dough smells so amazing that you sometimes forget that it’s just play dough and not actual gingerbread baking in the oven. ☺
♥
For more fun not found on the blog, join us on Facebook or follow us on Instagram.
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.
♥
Keep up with all the Mama.Papa.Bubba. fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.