ornaments

Partners

Last year, I completed our “12 Days of Christmas” ornament set from Hallmark, which left me wondering what we’d add to the tree this year. After all, that series gave me 12 straight years of not even having to think about what our annual addition to our holiday decor would be, because I knew it was whatever came next in the song. As soon as I saw this “Partners” statue ornament, though, I knew that this year wouldn’t be a problem, because it’s the perfect way to commemorate the Disney 100 year (and Turkey’s, Bunny’s, and my trip to Disneyland this spring!).

2022-23 School Year–Christmas School

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

This year’s Christmas School theme was Christmas in Germany (and Austria). Everything came together in an amazing fashion, so that we had lots of experiences, read lots of stories, did lots of baking, and made some cool crafts. But first, an ornament craft to remind us of our summer vacation…memory spheres:

Back to Christmas in Germany. We got to meet the Christkind (an angel who is often the present-bearer in Germany) when we were at Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, MO:

We made five different German Christmas cookies that we had never made before…Lebkuchen (German-style gingerbread), Vanillekipferl (vanilla crescents), Pfeffernusse (spice cookies), Kardamom Plaetzchen (chocolate dipped cardamon cookies), and Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars). We got to try some new baking techniques, which was a lot of fun, and the house has smelled amazing!

We also made five crafts inspired by Germany or of German origin…painted hearts inspired by Lebkuchenherzen (gingerbread hearts), a Weihnachtspyramide, ornaments inspired by the German flag and printed with words related to Advent, Fröbelstern (elaborately folded paper stars named for Friedrich Fröbel, the creator of the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg, Thuringia, Germany), and the German classic, Zwetschgenmännle (prune people).

Here’s a look at the Weihnachtspyramide in motion…I think it was our favorite craft!

We visited our town Christkindlmarket several times this month:

And we even got to attend a Weihnachtsgottesdienst (German Christmas service)!

It’s not often that Christmas School comes together this well, and provides us with so many fun opportunities…I really enjoyed it!

Nikolaustag

Happy Nikolaustag!

We started the day as we start every St. Nick’s Day…with stockings. The children always receive a new ornament, and this year, the ornaments came from our trip to Disney World. I had such a fun time picking them out at Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe the Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Square back in June!

We always decorate the tree on December 6th…in addition to our Mickey Ears ornaments (and the final installation of the “12 Days of Christmas”), we also added an ornament made from marble from the steps of the US Capitol that we picked up when we toured the building over the summer:

For dinner, as I did last year, I made Döner Kebab. One more year, and it will be a full-fledged tradition!

For dessert, I stuck with the Disney theme and made Mini Gingerbread Bundt Cakes with Orange-Vanilla Sauce from a recipe on the Disney Parks Blog:

We always have wassail on Nikolaustag, too:

Now I feel like the Christmas season has really begun!

Twelve Drummers Drumming

The day I have been low-key dreading since since 2011 is finally here…I have completed my Hallmark “12 Days of Christmas” ornament collection.

Back then, I wrote:

“What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to realize just how old my children will be by the time I get to the drummers drumming! Turkey will be 19–almost 20! And that means Bunny will be 18, Moose 17, and Ladybug 15. And I’m not even going to think about how old the unborn Chickadee will be–I refuse to think of her as anything other than a tiny baby!”

And yet, here we are. Turkey will indeed be 20 in a couple of months. Bunny is 18, Moose is 17, and Ladybug is 15. And even if I didn’t want to think about it then, the fact of the matter is, the baby with whom I was pregnant in 2011 is now 10, almost 11 years old.

Time marches on. And while I hoped then that my children would slow down growing up a bit, as we all know, it doesn’t really work that way. And so, one short year at a time, I finished my collection, all while my children grew up right before my eyes.

2021-22 School Year–Christmas School

This week was a lot of fun, because it was Christmas School! Once Ladybug took her science test, and Chickadee finished up her science assignments as well, all we did was read A Christmas Carol and Letters from Father Christmas and bake cookies, do crafts, and watch The Nutcracker.

On Monday we watched the Dutch National Ballet Nutcracker, made traditional paper snowflakes, and baked Christmas Island coconut macaroons:

On Tuesday we watched the Royal Ballet Nutcracker, made popsicle stick snowflakes, and baked chocolate Madelines:

On Wednesday we watched the Bolshoi Ballet Nutcracker, made beaded snowflakes, and baked Filipino puto seko:

On Thursday we watched the Vienna Staatsoper Nutcracker, made q-tip snowflakes, and baked Czech poppyseed cookies:

Today we watched the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker (my favorite!), made 3-D paper snowflakes, and baked chocolate crinkle cookies:

Several of the snowflake crafts we made could be used as ornaments, but we also had a specific ornament for the year…painted clay ornaments cut out with Christmas cookie cutters I bought just for this project:

In the end, we tried three new cookies recipes (plus a variation on Madelines we had never made before) and two new craft projects. It was fun to have both and old new things to try, and it was nice to have a relaxing week of school!

Eleven Pipers Piping

I can’t believe that today I hung the penultimate ornament in our Hallmark “12 Days of Christmas” series on the tree!

I wonder what the final ornament will look like?

2020-21 School Year–Christmas School

Hymn of the Week–“Where Shepherds Lately Knelt” (Lutheran Service Book #369)

It’s been a long time since we’ve dedicated a week to “Christmas School,” but if ever a year needed it, it’s 2020. So this week was spent making ornaments, baking cookies, reading Christmas stories, and watching different versions of The Nutcracker.

I was especially excited about the ornaments. I had originally planned for the children to make them two years ago, but that was the year I broke my ankle, and I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. Last year I found ornament kits that I really wanted to make, so these beautiful sequin ornaments got pushed back one more year. We had lots of options for colors and sizes:

They were definitely worth the wait (and the seed beads that may be rolling around the kitchen forever!), because they are beautiful!

We also decorated gingerbread houses, something we have done in the past, but it’s been a few years, and I’ve never had a house for each child (the mansion was a group project).

Speaking of gingerbread houses, we did get out of the house to see the gingerbread creations in the store windows on Main Street. We might not have been able to do most of the Christmas activities I had planned this year, but it was nice to do one familiar thing!

This was also “Cookie Week.” I decided we should bake a different kind of cookie every day, and they should all be cookies we don’t usually bake. On Monday, we made eggnog blossoms, Tuesday was chocolate crinkles, Wednesday we baked kolacky, Thursday we made both Madelines and palmiers, and today we baked spritz.

We did a lot of reading this week, too. We finished A Christmas Carol, and made it through most of Letters from Father Christmas (I plan on finishing that next week). We also read a bunch of storybooks:

  • Lucia Morning in Sweden
  • Lucia: Saint of Light
  • The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit
  • Jackie’s Gift
  • The Carpenter’s Gift
  • Fear Not Joseph
  • Madeline’s Christmas
  • The 12 Days of Christmas
  • The Three Wise Women of Christmas
  • The Nativity

It was also “Nutcracker Week.” This is not totally unheard of for us, although this year we were supposed to see a live production. We watched a different version every day:

  • Monday: Ballet Company of The National Opera of Ukraine
  • Tuesday: Dutch National Ballet
  • Wednesday: Wiener Staatsballett
  • Thursday: The Royal Ballet
  • Friday: The Bolshoi Ballet

We saved our favorite, the San Francisco Ballet production, to watch tomorrow. If we have time next week, we’ll watch the Berlin Nutcracker, too…that’s the only one we have on disc that we didn’t schedule for this week.

This was a really fun week of school, but I’m looking forward to taking a break for a few weeks. Merry Christmas!

Ten Lords-a-Leaping

As hard as it is to believe, we’re now at the 10th Day of Christmas in the Hallmark ornament series based on the familiar Christmas song:

I can’t believe there are only two more ornaments to look forward to!