Cookie Exchange

This year one of the ladies in our church had the great idea of having a cookie exchange.  The basic idea is to make one batch of cookies, slice, or something like that.  Make 10 for each person, bag them up, and a plate to share then get together and have a cuppa and swap our goodies.  It was such a great idea and so helpful to me, I usually do a lot of Christmas baking but have not been well enough this year to do as much as I usually do. 

Yesterday a few of the mums from playgroup came over and got to feast on all this. 

I made Spiced Christmas Tree Biscuits you can get the recipe here.  The day I baked for the swap was the hottest we had had in ages, the mixture did not like the heat at all. 

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Such a long time has passed since my last post, my computer got a virus and we lost everything on the computer, I got bronchitis and school holidays have started.  That mixed with the continued morning sickness has meant I am so not ready for Christmas and have not been blogging or on the computer much. 


I finally started to get the house decorated last week for Christmas and though I would share a few photos and some traditions I have started to make Christmas decorating less stressful with you children under foot.


While my hubby and I do the "boring" jobs like set up the tree, string the lights and do the little fiddly things I have a few things that I get the children to do to keep the busy while they are waiting to trim the tree.

I get the children to decorate their own special tree, this tree they put on the decorations they have made at school and playgroup and any fav's they have made in the previous years.  They have so much fun decorating this I let them do it all and resist the tweeking urge I get. 

It is a simple metal tree that I ordered from ebay from the US and it is perfect for the kids.

On top of the TV cabinet I put most of the stuff the children have made or their favourite decorations.

 The next thing I get the children to do is fill any glass bowl or vase, display plates I can find will baubles.  They love doing this and it keeps them busy for ages. 

When I went to take a photo of the tree I discovered someone had moved all the ornaments.  I will tweek it and post a new photo soon.

The next 3 photos of some easy and pretty decorations my children made.  I use glass baubles and get them to fill them with glitter and pretty things in what ever colour theme we are going with that year.  These glass baubles can be used year after year, just empty them and full them up again.

 Last year I got the Children to paint wooden Christmas shapes then we covered them in glass glitter.

A bit of a close up of the tree I usually do not use tinsel but the children love it and it is only for a few years.  I also usually use white fairy lights but this year my hubby got to the lights before me and let the children talk him into using the coloured ones.  Oh well.  My neighbour is getting me a real Christmas tree 4 days before Christmas for the family room and I am going to decorate it :) 

Every year I splash out and get one nice Christmas decoration this year I got this sign cute hey :)

Last year I made these little trees as table center pieces they were so easy just glued beads on little glittery Christmas trees. 

I put out a nativity the children can play with every year, usually we make a stable and manger but this year things have not gone to plan.  I also put out some stories about the true meaning of Christmas.  In a later post I will tell you how we have handled Santa in our family.  Both my husband and I have never grown up with Santa, and we really want to focus on why we celebrate Christmas and reflect on the real meaning of Christmas. 

GIFTING and the origins halloween

Yesterday we attended a birth celebration.  The family is from Zimbabwe so this was the first birth celebration I had attended, from what I understand it is cultural for the women to stay home after the baby is born for about 4 weeks and then they have a big welcoming celebration aka PARTY.  :)

I love to give gifts homemade or bought.  When I give gifts I love to include something homemade or special in gifts if I can, even if it is just the card that I have made.  (Sometimes it is impossible to do and I did have a few years where I did not do this much.  I had 3 kids 3 and under at the time)  We need to be realistic on what we can do and realise there is a season for everything.  As much as I love to make things and find it relaxing there was a year or two when it was totally impossible to do I had to focus on getting through the day, not on whether I had made a gift or card.  One thing I found that even if you are unable to make a gift or card you can always be creative in the wrapping.  Nothing nicer than getting a gift, that it is obvious someone has taken a lot of care in wrapping.  And wrapping can be quick, easy and not expensive.  A ribbon with embellishments, tea towel, it does not take a lot to dress up a gift.  At the end of this post I will post some pics of nicely wrapped gifts.  There are plenty out there google for ideas.

Okay back to the birth celebration, for the gift I made a name hanging for the baby Taanaye.  It did not cost me anything to make I just used bits that I had in my craft box.  This is such a cute and inexpensive gift to make.  I usually make these for friends after the baby is born or for their first birthday.  If you have limited funds it is surprising what you can make that is both unique and worth more to your friends than if you spent a lot on the latest designer outfit that the baby will soon grow out of.

Sorry about the photos I was in a hurry and took them on my bed, next time I will take them on  a white table.

Click on photo to make it bigger

I used buttons, scraps of material, flowers to decorate it.  You can use anything. 

This is a quick craft to do, the bit that takes the longest is putting the letters on this time I printed the letters I needed then glued them on, using hot glue ran some around the paper that I had cut down to size and quickly applied glitter.  You can use sticker letters, little wooden or cardboard letters, cutouts from paper you are recycling.  I once made one for a friends child who is into music and I used old sheet music.  I will post detailed instructions and put a link here soon.

  

I wrapped it all up in pink tissue and finish the package with a white organza ribbon.  In the gift I also included a cute summer all inone and a lovely card.  I put all of the gifts in a gift bag with lots of scented tissue paper.

Wrapping ideas

Christmas is coming up and one thing I love to do is use an ornament as decoration for the gift that they can reuse on the tree the next year.  For the children I often use candy canes or Christmas candy shapes.  I will do lots of posts about Christmas in November/December.

Waste-free Holidays

Martha Stewart has lots of tips and ideas about wrapping.

Halloween

Last week while shopping I noticed a lot of halloween items out.  Yes it is that time of year again.  Every year there seems to be more and more halloween items available and more and more houses and shops decorating for this holiday.  In my old blog I did a post about halloween and its origins as I did not know much about the holiday as we in Australia never use to pay much attention to it.  But with the world becoming a smaller place and the influencing of other countries and cultures through such mediums as television, Internet, some Aussies are starting to celebrate halloween.  This post gives the history and background to halloween, I looked into this as I wanted to know why we as Christians do not celebrate this holiday, and also wanted to be able to give informed answers to my children not just hear say.  I would suggest you check my facts and research for yourself there is so much information out there and this post is a summary as I could have written a book with what I found out.

I believe we should not just go on hear say, it is our responsibility to check the facts and the bible in regard to anything we are taught whether it is from the pulpit, books, newsletters, homegroups or blogs.  We should be informed so if we are ever questioned as to why we do or do not do things we can give answers that are correct and backed by the word of God instead of answers like because that is what we do.

Click on the above pumpkin to go to the post.

Some of the links in my old post are now not available I will find some more and link them here.  So check back in a few days if you are interested.

What about Halloween.
Halloween : Treat or Trick?
Halloween -  a harmless ritual? by by Jean Claude Boulenaz (Teen Challenge, Brisbane, Australia)
Should Christians Observe Halloween This is a great post lots of history and information backed by scripture.