Christmas Countdown 20a - skating village display

When I was a little girl, my grandmother loved Christmas. She had lots of decorations, many of which she'd brought back from Germany and Austria (and maybe Sweden and Denmark). Our family on that side is German, so she may have visited some of my grandfather's family back then—it was my great grandfather who came over to America so many years ago.

One of her prized decorations was a winter skating scene, with little lead figurines, each interacting with the winter elements in his own way. Skaters, snowball-throwers, gentleman callers, riders in a one-horse open sleigh—they all played across the dining room table on a large oval mirror usually used to display perfumes and hairbrushes in her bedroom.

I was lucky enough to inherit the set last year, after sending my dad on a treacherous mission to his attic Christmas boxes, and I wanted to figure out a display this year.

The pieces are tiny, and I believe they are lead. No wonder she wouldn't let me touch them.  I've been using white cotton gloves from the photo lab where I worked after college to handle them.

Last year, I made some winter displays in apothecary jars, and for the Christmas dinner table, that I'd meant to put away in January. Only I couldn't! They are just too sweet! The scenes have been changing with the seasons.

I don't have fall evergreen trees, so this really is the summer display.

It doesn't have quite the impact of the other scenes, but the figurines in the jars solves several challenges: It keeps the figures out of reach from Starboy's touch, while letting him look up close, and it keeps the figures from being knocked over in our tiny house.

Unfortunately, only about a quarter of the figures will fit comfortably in the jars. Here is a gentleman pushing a lady on a sleigh, a couple ice staking, a boy playing on the ice, and a woman wrestling with her umbrella.

In the other jar, on epsom salt snow, another ice skating couple, a couple in a one-horse open sleigh, and a snowman.

 Aren't they charming?

 Brrr! Cold today!

This whole deal wasn't great from Starboy's point of view, because I didn't need much "help" and I didn't want him to touch anything. Unfortunately a lesson in patience for him, and valuing "special" things, which in itself isn't a bad thing. But maybe not his first choice in an advent activity. Them's the breaks, as they say.

Winter Nature Table - Christmas countdown 21a - Solstice

I'm not sure whether the solstice nature table counts as an advent surprise or not. I guess it depends on how flush you are with ideas. Last year, I decided it counted.

This year, I have a few additions to the table. First, Starboy's wonderful wooden Christmas tree, that he made with Techman a month ago and I haven't taken the chance to post about yet. I LOVE this tree. He "decorated" it by coloring the whole thing with sidewalk chalk. And I LOVE that he and Techman made it together.

Next, the frozen pond. It reminds me of my grandmother's snow scene that she used to put out on her dining room table, when I was small. It was a skating scene and she would spread the whole village out on the mirror from her vanity.

Then, some netting to pose as snow, a new piece of snow/felt (that I once again cut too small and it doesn't cover the whole table, sigh), and a new pinecone christmas tree decorated with glitter and pom-pons. And of course, the pipecleaner snowflakes.

Backlit. Sorry.

Today's book was excerpts from The Shortest Day, by Wendy Pfeffer. If you choose the pages carefully it still sort of sounds like a story. The book is a bit wordy to read in-depth to a preschooler, but it will be handy in a few years when he's able to better understand the concepts.

Christmas countdown 20 -- Christmas tree elf ornament, USB tree

I couldn't resist this darling ornament published at Buzzmills. It was fun to make and quick to pull together. It took Starboy a while to find, and he thinks it's a hedgehog, despite knowing that it's supposed to be a porcupine like Sylvia likes.

Starboy's still under the weather, and it's been a quiet day after a longish night. He is enthused to re-discover a little fiberoptic USB tree we were given last year, that changes colors in the dark. He waited for hours to be able to turn it on. And he's enthralled.

Starboy has been excited to hear about snow, snow, snow, and made a sled so his stuffed animals could go sledding on a hill made out of a chair with a fleece blanket and a layer of white netting over it. So today we read "White Snow, Bright Snow," a classic by Alvin Tresselt.

Christmas countdown 16 - enjoying the tree

A very busy work day at school followed by a long meeting kept us from doing much in the way of special Christmas stuff today, and Starboy was having a difficult time falling asleep. So Techman set him up with the special Christmas pillows as a bed under the tree in the living room and eventually he conked out nearly two hours past bedtime.

Tonight's bedtime reading was "A Forest Christmas" by Mayling Holm, which is a lovely story about the forest animals getting together for a Christmas Eve party. Very simple illos as well.

*Sorry, originally this post was numbered Christmas Countdown 17.

Christmas countdown 15 - Swedish Christmas fair

 Today's exciting adventure was at the SWEA Christmas fair and Santa Lucia pageant! Starboy loved the Swedish pancakes for lunch. He also liked the challah-like buns.

 I didn't get any good pictures of the tomte, straw goats, dala horses and much, much more. But there sure was a lot to see!

 Folk dancing in period dress!

And many hilarious t-shirts and mugs.

An Astrid Lindgren book would have been perfect today! But we read it yesterday. I swear, a better plan next year. So today we read "Snow," by Uri Shulevitz.

Christmas countdown 12 — cinnamon star ornaments

This holiday favorite comes courtesy of 5 Orange Potatoes. We've made them before, but I can't link it because Blogger's search function is kaput. Pressing onward.

 The dough is equal parts cinnamon and applesauce, with a little white glue as a binder. You can leave them out several days to dry, or put them in a low-temp oven for about 90 minutes. We made extras to hand out to the senior citizens at the rec center tomorrow, when we go to sing Christmas carols with Starboy's school. The kids at school made some, too.

 I could go blind with the nighttime lighting in my house. Photography fail.

Starboy enjoyed this one: quick and easy.

 A simple bead and bakery string, et voila — gifting goodness. We had at least 40 stars, so he needed an assist with the beading and tying.

And hey, the book even matches today, sort of. I'd rather have made the white stars, but let's not let Perfect be the enemy of Good. "The Silver Christmas Tree," by Pat Hutchins.

Christmas countdown 10 + 11 - Santa mouse and painted ornaments

This is a craft I remember fondly from the third grade—I remember being delighted to make something so cute. We had pink ultrasuede for our tails then, fancy! Starboy and I just used felt.

He wanted his a one-eyed mouse. He's starting to enter that "humor" phase. Next stop: knock-knock jokes.

 We were shopping recently in Crate and Barrel, and Starboy saw these wonderful little laser-cut house and church ornaments. They were beautiful and simple, and he insisted that they were unfinished and needed to be painted. We made a deal that he could keep one if he gave the other two as gifts.

He just used liquid water colors (I limited the palette), and they turned out beautifully. In the next scene, he was playing with all three houses in the rice bin. I explained the deal we'd made to Techman, and he said flatly: "You got scammed."

Wednesday's book could have been Santa Mouse, but instead we read Ann Purnell's "Maple Syrup Season," which isn't even a Christmas book, and had pancakes with syrup for breakfast, which I forgot to photograph, although it was such an utter miracle that Starboy was eating spinach that I didn't want to disrupt the balance, either. We also read "Five Little Foxes and the Snow," about a Gramma who won't let the kids go out and play because it's too cold, but then she gives them mittens for Christmas and they have a ball in the snow. Cute story.

Christmas countdown 8 - candles and gift-giving

Today's advent surprise: A new holiday mug, filled with honey lemon "tea." With a car on it!

Since you can't see it in the photo, here's a closeup from Crate and Barrel.

We haven't seen Miss Molly in a while, since the classes seem to conflict with school and swim schedules. We decided to bring her Christmas gift early: A snowman placemat / napkin set, with some bird napkins and an outlier Halloween napkin.

 Starboy didn't want the gift to be a "surprise," So we just tied a ribbon around the set, and added one of his hand painted ornaments. She loved it!

Molly had two crafts at her Sunday workshop — winter light! Starboy loves hand rolling beeswax candles.

And he had great fun creating this tea light out of glitter pipe cleaners and air dry clay.

Today's story: "On Christmas Eve," by Margaret Wise Brown. It's about four kids who sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to see whether they got any loot, and they are rewarded with hearing Christmas carolers outside. A lovely story. But I hope Starboy doesn't get any big ideas about sneaking out of bed and roaming the house in the middle of the night.

Christmas countdown 7 — school winter faire!

Well first, I just realize that if this is a "countdown," we probably should be counting from 24 to one, not going up from one to 24. Ah, well.

Anyway, for two months, our school community has been feverishly crafting and plotting creative adventures for our first fundraising faire. In spite of the fairly overwhelming process—I recommend longer than two months to dream up and execute something like this, if at all possible—no blood was shed (although there were a few tears: Rain! RAIN!) and the day was simply wonderful.

I chose the bake sale, out of fear of becoming fully immersed if I worked on the "store" crew, which is what I really wanted to do. At first volunteerism was low for the bake sale, but in the end a lot of families rallied, and probably a third of them participated. Faire-goers bought all day, and we didn't have much left at the end.

The kids helped make pipe cleaner chains for our winter wonderland.

Our decorations chairperson was AMAZING — so many lovely, simple, gorgeous ideas, like these snow scenes.

The shop had lovely, lovely handmade items. I adore these stockings, but can't bear to hang stockings that I haven't made, so I'm hoping the knitter will share the pattern!

 Another family's dad (Grandpa) made these beautiful flapping seagulls. Wonderful!

I didn't get any photos of Starboy enjoying himself, since I was at the bakesale table. Mommy fail: I should have taken a break. He crafted two snow globes and spent many tickets vying for trinkets at the Stocking Surprise booth (feel for what's in the stocking and see what prize you get).

It was a great, but exhausting day. I spent 11 hours at the school, and I was there until 10pm the night before. But we raised a lot of funds and it was worth it!

Today's book was "Christmas Tree Farm," by David Budbill. It would have been more appropriate to read on the day we get our tree, but, I don't have this all planned out and anyway it's a short term loan from the library and we only could keep it for a week.

It's a nice, straightforward story of how Christmas trees are grown for sale, with really great illustrations.

Christmas Countdown 5 - ice skating!

Starboy opened today's paper advent calendar door and found ice skates. He knows Martin and Sylvia enjoy ice skating (are you beginning to see a theme?), and he gave me a confident "Yes" when I asked him if he'd like to try it. There's a rink in Santa Monica and one in Pershing Square downtown. We headed downtown straight from school because it's closer.

 It turns out they have appointed times you can skate, so we had to wait for the next session. Rye chose gorp at the cafe, so he could pick out the M&Ms and not eat any of the rest of it.

For an extra $5 (on top of the $8 fee, the $2 skate rental, and $7 parking) you can get a granny walker for the littles. It's genius. Starboy didn't want to give it up. But his skating improved about two hundred percent or more in the hour we were there, from cartoonish slippery feet to actually standing and gliding (while being pushed). It was so awesome.

 

I have a great pair of leather skates. At home in the basement. Ah, well.

It's not quite the same as Rockefeller Center, but it is pretty when the lights come up at night. And we both had a ball, even though Starboy was soaking wet and freezing in the end.

Today's book was Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, a wonderful story about the pioneer snowflake photographer. Only Google this if you have a half hour or more; the photos are addictive.