Christmas Eve

In our family, Christmas Eve was always the main event. Christmas Day we would spend at another relative’s or have everyone over at my parents’ house. Christmas Eve was always more of a select group.   My siblings and I, my parents and my grandparents were often the only people there.  Occasionally other close friends, relatives, or random people that needed a place for the holidays came as well. Uncle Henry was a permanent fixture on Christmas Eve until he passed when I was ten.  Occasionally one of our uncles and a cousin would spend it with us as well if they were visiting my Grandparents.  And I even remember a Christmas Eve where two climbers my brother had met up at the Monument (i.e. Joshua Tree National Park) came.  Generally though, Christmas Eve was just for us. 

Christmas Eve was also when we opened all the presents from everyone which of course influenced my preference for Christmas Eve as a child.  We would get a present from Santa, a plate of cookies and a full stocking the next morning which was great too.  Christmas Eve always had a ritual about it because it was the same every year.  Christmas Day changed depending on who we had it with.  During the day on the 24^th, my sister or I would bake Christmas cookies.  Our dinner that night was always fish (a tradition from my father’s family) and usually salt potatoes, peas and we could never forget the rolls (Grandpa had to have his rolls).  After dessert and topping off the wine or eggnog and brandy (of course we kids only had that when we were older), we would move into the living room where our Christmas tree stood looking beautiful.  When everyone was settled down into the couches or chairs one of us kids (always me once my siblings got older and didn’t want to anymore) would pass out presents.  After opening them and thanking the givers, we would explore our new treasures while spending time with each other.  I have so much nostalgia for those Christmas Eves. 

Everyone is back home in California.  My oldest brother flew out from Japan with his girlfriend, my other brother is there, and my sister drove up with her family.  It makes me sad that we are so far away.  The Christmas focus has moved onto the next generation. Holden, his future sister and the girls will be getting all presents to open.  We are having a quiet Christmas Eve here in Little Rock with nothing much planned. We will wait until Christmas morning to open the presents because the girls are not so tired then (and me too).  I do have dough prepped to bake today so we’ll have Christmas cookies like always.  Hopefully in two years, my family and I will get to be back at the home I was raised in for Christmas and celebrate in the traditions that have made such a lasting impression on me. 

Christmas Preparation

I checked the weather forecast for this morning and we may actually get some snow on Christmas Day.  Keeping my fingers crossed.  Gotta love a white Christmas. 

The girls both have colds but so far it is only runny noses and a slight cough and hopefully they don't get worse.  Anna also seems to be sick, at least her eyes are runny (not unusual with her allergies) and her nose is dry and hot.  I hope every one is feeling better for Christmas and for Oma's visit right after Christmas. 

In the meantime, I am trying to find time to bake cookies.  I made some Lebkuchen earlier in the month which turned out disappointing.  Today I am making Rugelach, which I think is a recipe I got from Ina Garten.  I've made it before and it was yummy so hopefully I don't mess it up this time like I did the Lebkuchen. 

I am also working on some last minute knitting projects that will hopefully be done on time.  By on time I mean either when my mother flys back to California on New Year's Day or when we fly out in mid-January.  I also have a little felt project to make for my nephew that should be done in the next week.

I knitted a ruffle scarf because it looked interesting and possibly like fun to knit although it wasn't really.  It was quick and easy though so no complaints. 

One present I have been working on for a long time is a pair of Iphone compatible gloves.  It is my first time knitting gloves and they are not as difficult as I thought they would be.  Even knitting the conductive thread into the tip of the index finger and thumb is not as difficult as I had feared.  And best of all, it actually works.  I can use an Iphone without taking off the gloves!

Yesterday turned out to be a relatively warm and sunny day for December, so we headed over to Two Rivers Bridge Park for a walk.  The girls got to walk around the picnic area and see the Arkansas River.  Miss D wanted to join in a game of soccer that another family was playing.  Anna, as always, enjoyed getting out for some exercise and a chance to meet other dogs and people willing to pet her. 

 

We even let the girls loose while we were walking the trails.  To the amusement of everyone passing by us, they spent most of the time helping me push their stroller along. Our double jogging stroller has a bar right above the basket underneath the seats that is the perfect height for the girls to grab and push.  The only problem of the day was we lost one of their hats, which I'm really bummed about.  And I have no idea how it happened unless someone else picked it up in the couple minutes it took me to realize one was missing and took it home with them.  

Christmas Decorations

I love strawberries.  My grandfather grew them for years when I was young.  There is nothing like a fresh picked strawberry.  That said, if you get lucky, some store-bought strawberries can be pretty good.  These were pretty good ones.

I brought them to our knitting holiday party.  Saw the idea on Pinterest and they are perfect.  Festive, healthy, easy and delicious.  I used vanilla wafers as the base and piped cool whip onto it.  Then trimmed the hull off the strawberry so they would stand flat upside.  I sliced the tip off to add the cool whip pom pom.  This is an idea I will keep using every year.

I finished getting the rest of our decorations up.  Last year I bought garlands at Michael's after Christmas when they were 70-80% off.  So we are a bit more festive this year than last. I hung the girls' stockings  up and they are waiting to be filled by Santa.  And this year I actually put pictures into their stocking holders instead of having them blank like last year.  Very proud of that fact!

 

I hung one garland across the doorway in the girls' playroom.  It was conveniently the perfect length.  I thought of stringing out Christmas lights around our front door so the neighborhood could see it but thought it was better to put them up in the playroom so the girls can see them.  The girls like it when I turn them on in the evenings.

Our tree is one of those small rosemary trees I got at Home Depot.  I've been good so far about keeping it on a sun lit window sill for a few hours each day and not watering it too much.  Hopefully I can keep it up and keep it alive. 

Handkerchief Mouse Tutorial

The whole family was horribly sick this whole week.  What a wasted week!  Nothing got done except the basics needed for survival.  The house is a mess; I really need to mop the kitchen floor.  But today I actually have energy and Kevin is home to help watch the girls while I put things back in order so there is hope for us. 

Here is a tutorial I've been meaning to put up.  When I was little, tante Hertha, my great aunt from Germany, would visit and make us mice out of my father's cloth handkerchiefs.  I was old enough to know that they weren't real but I could not for the life of me figure out how they would almost escape by jumping out of her hands.  I later learned the trick along with how to make the mice themselves.  Recently I have gotten requests to learn from family members that have forgotten how to make them.  So here we go.

You will need one handkerchief or cloth napkin.  The thinner material of the handkerchief is easier to work with, but cloth napkins are usually readily available when you are out to dinner at a nice restaurant and want to impress your dinner companions. 

1.  To begin fold your handkerchief in half across the bias so it makes a triangle.

2. Take the two folded points and bring them in a third of the way along the fold so they overlap.

3. Fold the folded edge over three times ending right before or on where the two flaps cross.  

4. Flip the handkerchief over so that the folds are now facing down.

5. Bring each folded end in a third of the way along the fold so they overlap.

6.  Take the unfolded corners of the handkerchief, wrap it around the folded ends and insert (i.e. cram it all) into the hole created between the fold and the folded ends.

7. Slowly and gently unroll the three folds from step 3 around the unfolded corners inserted into the hole in the last step. You end up with an oblong ball.



8. There are three layers wrapped around the main body of the mouse now.  The bottom layer stays where it is and holds the mouse together.  The top two layers are the handkerchief points that you will need to gently separate from the body of the mouse. To do so find the folded edges of the handkerchief points.

9.  Gently insert your finger under the top layer and follow it around until your finger pokes out the other end on the other side of the mouse's body. 

10. You will need to ascertain which end of the mouse the point is tucked into by deciding where the narrow part is coming from.  Sometimes it is hard to tell, so gently tugging to see which end gives more can help but can also ruin the work you've done to this point. 

11. Gently tug the point out of the rolled up end of the ball.  You want to keep the rest of it tightly rolled so be gentle.

 

 

12.  Repeat for the second layer (the pointed end will come from the opposite side of the first one).

 

 

13. One end is the tail; leave it be. The other makes the head. To do so, fold the point in half toward the body. 

 

14. Two new points are created on the fold. Take those two and tie them in a knot. Now you have the head and the two points have turned into ears.

 

And you have a handkerchief mouse!

 

 

Please let me know if the steps don't make sense, so I can try to clarify.

 

 

 



O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

The girls get a Christmas tree all their own this year.  I cut it out of felt and they are able to move the ornaments around all they want.  I got the idea from a friend and it is so much fun for them. 

 

I bought a 3' x 3' square of green felt at Michael's and cut the bottom triangle out.  Then, with the two leftover triangle scraps, I made the top half of the tree.  It is held on the wall with double sided tape, which works well as long as little fingers don't try to tug it off.  And when that happens smoothing it back down and sometimes a little more tape fixes the problem.  And my friend tells me from experience that after the first week, they stop trying to pull it off the wall.

 

I started off simple with the ornaments because I wasn't sure how well they would stick to the tree.  The balls are just made from bright colored felt and when you press it against the felt tree, it stays put pretty well.   I was thinking of decorating the balls with glitter, but keeping them plain so far has worked out well.  The girls get to practice their colors with them.  For Miss D every ball is blue and occasionally purple or orange when she feels like changing things up. 

 

Miss T doesn't usually say the colors but she shows a ball to me over and over again so I repeat what color it is.  It is neat to watch them learn.  

 



For the family Christmas tree, I will get one of those little rosemary trees for our table.  We'll be able to use the rosemary for cooking and if I take good care of it (my track record is not great but there is always the hope it can stay alive) we can use it again next year.  We'll save getting a big tree with breakable ornaments until the munchkins are older. 

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seemed to come amazingly fast this year.  It just flew by.  We celebrated a day late because of my husband's work schedule but it was a nice dinner just the same.  I was worried that I'd spend a lot of time in the kitchen and be tired and stressed about it.  But for some reason this year it was relatively easy to prep and cook everything.

  

The girls loved just about everything except the green beans were a little too crunchy for them.  D loved the mashed potato, sweet potato and pumpkin dish and kept asking for more.  I cooked it in the slow cooker and it was so easy and laid back to do and tasted great. 

We needed something to eat for lunch on the day we cooked so Kevin made our usually pumpkin fried rice dish early in the day.  He added a few more vegetables and some Chinese sausage to round out the dish as a meal and it still tasted delicious as a Thanksgiving side dish. 

We brined the turkey for two days this year because that was how it worked out between shopping for it and lack of fridge space.  It was juicy and tender but not more so than other years that we've done it for only 24 hours.  The turkey had a lot of extra fat on it, so next year we are thinking of trying a free-range bird instead.  I made the orange cranberry relish a day in advance so the flavors would get a chance to really blend.  Next year though I should do two bags of cranberries.  There is just never enough to last through all of the turkey leftovers.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went and got our Christmas picture taken so I can get going on hopefully sending out all of the Christmas cards on time this year.  We really only had one smile the whole photo shoot from my serious little girls.  Miss T picked a good picture to do it in though.

Today is the day we traditionally start putting out Christmas decorations.  I'm thinking of at least switching out the fall wreath but I probably won't do much more until December.  

Blankets

The girls have new blankets for the winter! It was my first time making the no sew fleece blanket.  They were quick and very easy to do.  They are pretty warm and toasty too. 

 

 

Found two adorable, girly monkey prints at Joann Fabrics and backed them with pink fleece. 

 

 

The girls point at the blankets and make monkey sounds, silly monkeys.  Now they just have to learn to stay under the blanket at night so I don't worry about them being too cold in the middle of the night.

 

 

With the corner scraps I made little pouches.  Going to fill them with rice to heat in the microwave and warm our hands.  They would also be great bean bags for throwing games.

Here is the belated picture of our Halloween pumpkins.  The left pumpkin is D's foot and the right pumpkin is T's foot.  The girls helped me scrape the pumpkins out and chewed on some of the seeds while they were at it. 

 

 

Birds of a Feather #2

The costumes were basically finished on time for Halloween.  Although I didn't have time to make the felt shoe covers I had envisioned or fix the mistake I made on one of D's wings, the costumes still turned out really cute.

 

 

These are pieces of D's owl coming together.  I used two strips of the tan material for the wings and tied them with brown, tan and off-white tulle like a tutu.  I spaced the tulle loosely though so it wouldn't be too puffy.  I cut the owl feathers from felt.  I hot glued the pieces together and then stitched the spine of the feather in using the stem stitch and 4 strands of embroidery floss.

 

 

  I wanted the wings to be removable because we would be in and out of the car seat.  I attached the wings to her shoulders using snaps and around her arms with tan hair ties.  And this is where I made a mistake, although you can't really tell that one wing is backwards. 

 

T's peacock turned out lovely, and was easier than D's since I copied it from someone's tutorial (see first costume post) except for the hood.  The blue material was also easier to work with than the tan for some strange reason.  The ball point needle thread would not loop correctly on the bobbin thread with the tan material. I had to switch back to the standard needle which made the whole process frustrating. 

 

 

To avoid more problems on the sewing machine, I hemmed both skirts by hand.  I probably should have made the skirts shorter but didn't not want to risk making a huge mistake when cutting it again. 

   

T wore black tights and D off-white and both wore bright pink shoes when we were out of the house unfortunately. I will just have to edit my memory to include the felt shoe covers that were never made.  At least inside they were just in their tights so the pictures look okay.

 
I was afraid that they would try to pull bits and pieces off of themselves and each other and not keep their hoods up.  But they actually liked wearing the costumes.  D did chase T around a little, giggling and pulling her tail, but the tutu held up well.  Anytime either of their hoods would fall back, D would cry in protest and try to set it to rights again. 

We went to the library for knitting and quilting to show off their costumes and on Monday at knitting they were joined by their buddy dressed as a little green alien.  I would have liked to take them over to a couple of the neighbors' houses for Halloween but Kevin didn't get back until late.  Trying to manage both of them and the steep drive way was not happening this year.  Next year will be fun though.