On the Seventh Day of Christmas. . .

. . .we made a gingerbread house.  We decided to make it easier on ourselves this year and just buy a kit.  Last year we made everything from scratch.  What I didn't count on was having to 

deal with a broken roof.

  

But not to worry, a lot of frosting and a little hot glue later and . . .

 

. . . voila!  Lovely.  

The funny thing is we had given up on it after the roof caved like four times and said, "That's it, take a picture and call it good."  And then it quit falling in. So the girls, and a few friends, really laid on the candy.  

It looked so good they kept eating it like Hansel and Gretel.  I even snuck a piece. . .those pieces really aren't meant to be eaten.  But it looks good enough to eat--and it will adorn my counter at least until Christmas.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas. . .

. . . we doubled our fun.  

We started the day with a church Christmas breakfast and craft activity.  The girls had a great time making ornaments and count down chains and count down candles.  

And they helped tie a quilt they had made blocks for in primary.

Plus I put together and passed out Advent books.  They had a story a day all December with songs and scriptures that went with them.

In the evening we went to the annual Festival of the Nativities.  They have hundreds of nativity sets on display.  A large portion were sets from other countries.  dozens of different cultures were represented.  To make it fun you get a list of things to find in the nativities, like the nativity in a gold globe, or a tear, or Jesus in a swing.  We only found about half the things on the list before the girls were ready to move on.  

Here is a set from Alaksa.

  

They had musical numbers in the chapel, and harp players on the stage, as well as a live nativity.  We sat in on an a capella group that was really good.  

Then we were off to the children's rooms.  They had a dress up area where you could be Mary or Joseph or any number of other characters.  Once you were dressed you could pose and take pictures in a stable.  The girls looked so cute.

And finally we were off to Joseph's workshop were the girls watched a man whittle wood figures and they got to make paper manger scenes. 

 

It was an action packed day filled with fun and creativity. And now we are all going to bed early. Yay! 

On the Fifth Day of Christmas. . .

. . . we made homemade cards.

Hannah made cards to put on Christmas gifts. . .

She used hole punches--round and snowflake shaped--and a silver markers to dress them up.

. . .and Sig made cards to put on our neighbor gifts--for when we get around to doing neighbor gifts.  They were really cute and she did them completely unassisted.  I love her ingenuity.  She decided they needed ribbons so she found some, cut it into small strips, looped them through the hole punch and attached the ends with glue dots.  They turned out pretty cute. . .

And I tried out some cute 3-D cards I saw in a magazine recently.  I don't know what I will use them for, but they turned out cute. 

One of the things I loved about where we used to live was the neighbor gifts.  Everyone gave them and they were all so varied.  I loved trying to come up with something creative.  We would receive anything from cookies, to personalized chapstick, to chips and homemade salsa, or homemade spice mixes.  We were always filled with anticipation to come home and see what had been left on our doorstep each night.  For the last few years I have done the same thing.  We will be doing them in another week or so.

Do you give neighbor gifts, and if so, what do you do?

On the Fourth Day of Christmas. . .

. . .we satisfied our sweet tooth.  

Peppermint and Christmas go hand in hand.  And what would make candy canes better?  Chocolate, of course.  So we whipped up a batch of Peppermint bark. It was a simple activity--less than an hour.  But we all got to lick our fingers so I say it was a good night.

For the recipe go here.

On the Third Day of Christmas. . .

. . . we finally got our lights on our house.  And we made paper snowflakes.  We make them every year and hang them from the ceiling in the play room. 

Usually we make this traditional flat kind. (We found this really great website for patterns.)  But not this year.

We decided to try something more complicated.  Turns out it's actually easier for the girls to make these than to cut all those tiny pieces out of the fold and cut kind.

Start with six strips of paper. (These pictures aren't great.  I forgot that my ISO was set really high so it created a lot of noise in these pictures.) I took an 8.5 X 11 piece of paper and cut in lengthwise into .5 inch strips.  You will need 12 for the one snowflake.

Cross the two stripes exactly in the center and glue in place. (I used double stick tape--it's faster).

Then glue 2 strips over the horizontal strip.  (Opposite of the middle one--it's hard to see in the picture.)

Weave two horizontal strips on each side of the center horizontal strip--crossing over the 1st and 3rd and under the middle strip.

It should now look like this.

Next, turn the top right corner strip back so that the backside of it is facing you.  Match it to the top right horizontal strip--turning its backside to face you also.

Repeat on all four corners.  It should look like this when you are done.

Repeat above steps until you have two.  Lay one face up with the other face down on top of it so that the straight strips match up with a turned loop.

Match the straight strip to the point of the loop.  The edges will stick off the sides.  You will trim those later.  Glue each straight strip to a pointed loop.  Trim.

It should look like this.  Done.

We put one on our tree, because we don't have a star.   We have a snowflake theme going anyway.  

Here they are with their lovely creations.  Unfortunately we only ended up with three.  Perhaps we'll make more tomorrow.  

Do you have any fun paper crafts ideas for the holidays?

Movie of the night:  Borrowed Hearts (It's old, but I love it)  & Rockefeller Center Christmas Concert

 

On the Second Day of Christmas. . .

. . .we got our tree.  And decorated our house.

The great thing about living in the Northwest, is the over abundance of Christmas tree farms. There is a large one near us that is quaint and festive. It sports a gift shop in an old barn, a petting zoo with barnyard animals, free hot chocolate, wreaths, and a hay bale ride--not to mentions rows and rows and rows of trees.  There is even a cute little farm house at the front.

The girls thought the tree cart was cool and raced it in the lanes between the trees.

The scenery was particularly lovely with a dramatic sky for a backdrop--luckily no rain!

Here it is.  Our tree.

It takes two to cut one down.  One must hold and one must cut.  Oh, and one must take the picture.

I even bought a wreath to put on my front door.

And of course, we had some of the free hot chocolate.  Mmmm.

Then we came home and made our home lovely for Christmas.

What did you do?

Don't forget to check out my photography blog and see if you can guess what my up close and personal pic of the day is of.

Movie of the night:  Polar Express

On the First Day of Christmas. . .

We made our advent chain. 

 

In case we aren't doing enough to count down the days until Christmas, we can always check the chain.

 

It hangs in full view from my panty door.  Shortly after completing the twenty-five links, the girls found the scissors and cheerfully cut the first one off.

Movie of night:  How the Grinch Stole Christmas