Serenity RV

This is a little video I threw together of our trip to see the CP Holiday Train from our 2011 Advent Calendar. You can hear the excitement in their voices!

This looks awesome to me! I was searching for instructions on how to make a box or envelope or some creative way to fold an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper before Christmas. I had a gift certificate for Emily that I wanted a nice presentation for. It was one that I printed from an online store, so it was simply a piece of paper, not a card or anything. In the end, I followed this tutorial for folding an envelope and then sealed it with wax. Along the way, I found this 3d Christmas Tree Pop Up Card Tutorial and thought it was awesome! It would be a lot of work, but it also got me thinking about those small desktop cutting machines and how those could really make this type of thing more approachable and less time-consuming. More importantly, it would make these things more repeatable if you wanted to send several. Anyhow, check it out!

We have come to the end of our advent calendar for 2011. For the final day, we continue a tradition started years ago. On Christmas Eve, the whole family sleeps in the same room. The “star bed” is the second bed in our bedroom. It was named by the kids after the sheets that it had for a while which had stars on them. We started this tradition for practical reasons. There is a second part to the tradition too.

On Christmas morning, we all wake up in the same room, at nearly the same time. The kids get to watch a movie while Em and I shower and prepare things, usually food. The kids are of course excited to start the festivities, but they are kept in the room until we are ready, usually at least till the movie is done. They like sleeping in the same room as us and though they don’t enjoy the delay, they do like the movie and the company while they wait.

Thus concludes our advent calendar for 2011. I think we have started a new tradition this year. I can’t see us skipping this idea next year. Having all the activities scheduled made things hectic at times, but we did a lot this year! We did much more than we had managed in previous years and I think we all got a lot out of it. The season seemed more festive and though active, was less stressful. I’d call it a big success.

For our final movie night of the advent calendar, we decided to do a longer film. Elf is a fun story about a human raised by elves in the North Pole who goes to New York to find his father. It’s a fun movie what our family enjoys quite a bit. It became an instant classic in our house from the first viewing several years ago. “Buddy the elf, what your favorite color?”

Something that many people wish to do each year and never seem to find the time, driving around looking at Christmas lights seems to be more of a rarity today than it used to be. We’ve managed to do some driving around each year, and this year we had this day marked out to make sure it happened. For us, this wasn’t our first outing to look at lights this year, but it was the first where it was planned ahead of time. We had looked at lights at least one other time when coming home from a grocery shopping trip.

Not too far from us there is a house that each year puts on a huge display. They have music playing and everything. That house is the one pictured above. We drove around neighborhoods we hadn’t in past years. LED lights are popular this year, and white lights were also on the rise. It was a very nice evening.

December 21^st was the winter solstice this year. To honor the solstice, we ate dinner by candle light. We did something similar last year and the kids had enjoyed it then. They liked it this time as well. Em made a real nice meal of roast, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and vegetables.

Puppy chow is something the kids really like. For those who don’t know, it’s Chex cereal covered in chocolate and peanut butter and coated in powdered sugar. Its one of the few mainstream snacks that isn’t too difficult to make free of Daniel’s allergens. The kids helped make the treat and each got to sample a little before dinner.

The winter solstice approaches, and so day 19 had the kids completing an early craft for solstice. They cut the coffee filters they had painted into snowflake shapes. A couple were even saved for me for when I got home. I made my shapes and they will be hung on the door.

Last year, we went to Wannemakers and looked at all their trees and decorations and the kids had a blast. We decided we’d do the same this year. They each got to pick an ornament for the tree last year so we planned on the same for this year.

It seems we waited a bit too long this year, or Wannemakers changed how they did their displays. Last year they had several trees all done up in different themes. Those were missing this year, or were sold before we visited. Still, the kids got to look and choose ornaments for the tree. Jason had his heart set on a snowy owl that wasn’t so much an ornament as a bird decoration meant to sit on a shelf or something. We talked him into something that could actually fit on the tree. He chose an eagle.

For Daniel, the choice was a nice glass train ornament. For Meredith, it was sparkly pink presents. Malcolm’s ornament is a glass snowman. They all went on the tree that night.