The end of advent (and some Christmas craft success)

Last day of advent today :) We have been a bit more laid-back with the advent activities this week. We haven't been opening all of the advent parcels (we have skipped some days/activities) and we have been focusing on reading Christmas books, rather than the short bible passages. We have had some successes with craft though...

* Christmas tree ornaments made from pipe-cleaners and beads

* Some Christmas chalk drawings on the pavers. These were drawn by Daddy and coloured by Mr Sociable. It was a great chance for them to chat about Christmas things.

* Christmas gingerbread biscuits - I made and decorated these without kid-help (can you tell??).

* Collage picture of the shepherds and angels that Mr Sociable made for my Nana. We will give it to her at Christmas celebration tomorrow.

* Mr Sociable glued the pasta onto a paper plate with PVA. I gave him some suggestions ("more pasta", "look, there is a gap there", etc.), but otherwise he pretty much did it himself. Once the PVA glue was dry, I sprayed it with silver paint. It is hanging on our front door.

I pray you have a wonderful Christmas tomorrow, spending time with family or friends, and celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Advent update (Days 1-11)

We are almost halfway through our advent calendar. Some activities have definitely been more successful than others!

The Good
The trip to the city (Day 10) was a definite winner - a fun day! It was also a chance to look at the displays and talk about the Christmas story.

Putting "baby Jesus" in the manger was popular with Mr Sociable. He liked giving "Jesus" the crown and has been dropping gold-coloured decorations into the manger as gifts from the wise men!

Jesus in the Manger (Days 3 & 4)

Mr Sociable has enjoyed reading the Christmas books. Today he read "The Nativity" with Franky and they had some discussion about the book (including "How do women have babies?").

Opening the "Jesus Storybook Bible" (Day 1)

Day 11

The Little People Nativity set has got a lot of play this week - mostly by Mr Fun, who likes to carry it around, pressing the button so he can listen to "Silent Night"!

Little People Nativity (Day 6)

Our playgroup Christmas party went really well. We did lots of Christmas-related activities - some crafty, some not. I even made some Christmas Story dress-ups!

Testing out the shepherd's costume, with a bonus trumpet!

The Christmas sticker frieze. This one was perhaps not-so-good, but it was funny! Mr Sociable and I had some different ideas about where the characters should be located!

Note: the shepherd on the roof, angel lying on the ground,
donkey out in the field (rather than the stable)

The Not-So-Good
The paper-plate angels were a bit of a fizzer. Mr Sociable is often not a big fan of paper-craft - but I was hoping he would be lured by the glitter and decorations. Sadly, he didn't get past the colouring part & was keen for the activity to be over. Mr Fun actually did do some colouring (with help). The angels are hanging on the tree, but I don't think they will be ones to cherish from year to year!

Cut-out plate, ready to decorate (Day 2)

Mr Sociable's orange angel; Mr Fun's coloured angel

We ended up abandoning the Lightening McQueen calendar, as it distracted from the "main event". Every day, Mr Sociable just wanted to eat chocolate rather than participate in the activity or do the readings.

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate...

Changes to make
I think we are losing the flow of the story, breaking it up into little bites. I think that for the remainder of advent, I will include longer passages of the Bible, rather than one or two verses at a time. So, we will read either a section of the bible or one of the Christmas books each day.

The week ahead
This week is Mr Sociable's 4th birthday and his preschool Christmas concert. So, I have planned pretty low-stress activities (with the possible exception of the pasta/PVA glue/paper-plate wreaths). I'm looking forward to videoing the concert tomorrow and sharing it with Franky tomorrow night!

Christmas in the City (advent day 10)

Today is Day 10 of our advent calendar and the activity was to go to the city to see the Christmas decorations. We all had a great day (and we are exhausted tonight!).

The window displays at David Jones had a Christmas carol theme. Each window had the music for a different carol, with moving marionette-style puppets. The first question my engineer-in-the-making son asked was, "How do they move Mummy?" I pointed out the strings that were attached to the puppets, but that was not sufficient... "But what makes the strings move?"

Next, we stopped for sushi lunch. This was the first time Mr Sociable had tried sushi. Sadly, he doesn't seem to share Mummy and Daddy's love of raw fish!

We went to the Queen Victoria Building to see the Christmas decorations. Mr Sociable loved the model train display at Hobbyco. The kids watched the musical clock at midday and were mesmerised by the Santa area. I'm not really into Santa, but if I were planning to take my kids for a Santa pic, this is the place I would do it. The lights and crystals in this beautiful Santa area were quite magical!

Up on Daddy's shoulders to watch the train display

Waiting for the clock to start

Santa was inside here

The Christmas tree in the QVB was enormous. The kids loved touching the lights on the trunk, and even obliged me with a few photos!

The top of the tree...

and the trunk (see Mr Fun's look of delight?)

Next we went to Myer to chose a Christmas ornament for our tree. I really liked this idea, but it proved to be more difficult than I expected. For starters, the Christmas stuff is on the same level as the toys. You need to walk through the toys to get to the decorations - so it took us quite a while! Once we got to the decorations, I soon realised that they are mostly glass & that Mr Sociable is not quite as gentle as he thinks. We ended up being followed by a saleperson until we had finished making our selection! On the up-side, the decorations were 40% off and we didn't actually break anything.

Soooo much cool lego! (that Harbour Bridge is lego too)

Mr Sociable, feeling very clever

"Be careful with those ornaments."

We walked to Darling Harbour while Mr Fun had a snooze. We bought Mr Sociable his first gelato and went to the new playground. It was lots of fun. Mr Fun soon woke up and wanted to join in!

Mr Fun was tuckered out; Mr Sociable was so excited to see a fountain

Mmmm... gelato from Gelatissimo

Mr Sociable loved all the climbing stuff at this park!

It was nice and cool in these tunnels - we spent a long time in here!

The big slide

The merry-go-round

On the way back to the station, we saw this water feature that I remember visiting with my Mum when I was a kid. Mr Sociable thought it was very cool.

Tonight we added the new ornament to our Christmas tree. It's probably not what I would have chosen myself, but Mr Sociable really likes it! (and it does match all the other mirror balls that we already have on the tree....).

Advent Calendar 2011

There have been lots of great ideas for advent calendars floating around this year. Julie shared some great ideas at Life on a Hill (with a list of kids' daily bible readings for December) and the Useful Box. My friend Glorya started talking about calendars with pockets & I started to think about a fabric calendar. I'd love to make one for next year - my sewing skills are more suited to something like this. Here are some more cool ideas I found:
Harry'sdesk
168 hours
Women Bible Life
All crafts (heaps of ideas on this one)

This year, I went with Julie's present-style advent calendar. I have wrapped a "present" for each day - each containing a Christmas-related book or activity. I didn't buy anything new - the books are all from our bookshelf & the craft from resources from our craft cupboard. Some craft ideas are things I have done in the past (eg pasta Christmas wreaths), others I found on the Useful Box or on craft websites (there are heaps of ideas on DLTK). Here is a full list of our advent readings and activities. I printed labels for each day showing the verses to read from the bible & the activity for the day.

Mr Sociable, finding #1

I also have a Lightening McQueen chocolate advent calendar, which I bought on impulse at the supermarket, before I had spent much time thinking about how we were going to do Christmas this year. Mr Sociable is very excited at the thought of chocolate and he loves Cars!

I am hoping to write a weekly post about how we are going with the advent activities, so check back at the end of next week if you would like to see how the crafts turn out!

Gingerbread boxes - great homemade gift idea

Today I made some gingerbread gift-boxes with Mr Sociable & my friend, Sandra. I am planning for Mr Sociable to give these to his grandparents for Christmas, filled with nuts or lollies (grandparents, if you are reading this, please look enthusiastic on Christmas day...).

One of the finished gift-boxes

I got the idea from the Coles Christmas magazine (free at the registers at the moment). In the magazine, they were serving them as a dessert, filled with lindt balls. Our designs are quite different to theirs:

from the Coles Christmas magazine, 2011

I've made quite a few gingerbread houses from kits, but I've never baked gingerbread before. As a gingerbread novice, I learned a couple of things along the way:

1. It's easier to roll out the dough if you put baking paper on top of the dough, as well as underneath.

Rolling out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper

2. It's easier to peel the scraps away from the tree/box, rather than trying to move the shape onto the baking tray. So roll out the dough on a piece of baking paper that will fit on your tray.

Peeling away the scraps

Trees ready to go in the oven

Trees baked (as you can see, they don't spread a lot,
so you don't need to leave a lot of gap between them).

Boxes cooling, ready to decorate

Mr Sociable decorated a few trees for his preschool teachers and the roofs of all the grandparents' boxes. After that, he lost interest and left Sandra and I to it!

One of Mr Sociable's trees

Lots of trees

I think this recipe was actually a bit too soft to make boxes. It worked really well for the trees and tastes delicious, but the boxes are not as well-formed as I had hoped. I have held them together with pins and lots of icing. I'm hoping they will harden up a bit over the next few weeks.

If you have a recipe for firm gingerbread, you may enjoy making these as a little hand-made gift for someone this Christmas :)