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 - 6 - candy cane beading

A holiday classic—beaded candycane ornaments. Don't mind that Valentine's heart. We were listening to a Valentine's story and Starboy said he wanted a heart-shaped tote. I had to look up the directions for these Scandinavian hearts we made in my fifth grade class, but they are just as beautiful 35 years later.

No book today. Starboy spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa while I helped set up for our Winter Festival at school, and they built a tile patio for the dollhouse as well as playing with Lego trucks. We'll have to double up another day this month.

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.

Christmas countdown 3 - jingle bell necklaces

I grabbed some bells to make necklaces to sell at our school's winter festival, and Starboy was thrilled to help out. I cut holly leaves out of felt and put a little slit in them, then added a few red beads we had on hand. The ribbon and bells were on sale at Jo-Ann. We made 27 of them (three bells came without a ringer! No wonder they were on sale!).

Today's book came from school: "Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear!" by Don and Audrey Wood. The mouse wants to protect all his Christmas loot from the bear, but then realizes that a big ol' scary bear might be lonely and needing a little Christmas, so he decides to share his gifts.

Christmas countdown 4 - labyrinth

Starboy has been delighted to hear about how Martin, of Martin and Sylvia, took over the family job of building the advent spiral out of rocks and tree branches and small candles. The story is lovely, of determination, pride in working hard to complete a job, growing up. It's from last year's Christmastime Audio Book at SparkleStories.com.

Unfortunately, our yard is too small for a decent spiral — at least this year...maybe next year I can figure it out while his feet are still small—So when I discovered that there's a proper Chartes labyrinth right here in LA I knew Starboy needed to try it. (And it was free!)

I found out later that the center of the labyrinth is a place of transition. "You can go to the empty center and get something you feel you do not yet have, or you can leave something in the center that you no longer need." I don't know that I did either of those things, though Starboy may have. I encouraged him to walk slowly and quietly, and later I learned that running and dancing is just fine.

The Peace Awareness Labyrinth also has some stunning gardens, in a very tiny space. Starboy enjoyed the koi and searched for a place to leave a gift for the fairies there.

In the Martin and Sylvia stories, the characters often go out into nature and in a quiet moment, they discover unexpected things, like a fawn and a doe munching grass, for example. I was surprised to look down in this lush, manicured garden and discover a single four-leaf clover in an unusual spot. I don't think I've seen one in 35 years. I remembered that day, and I did not need to be reminded how lucky I am to be surrounded by an incredible husband, an amazing son, a warm and beautiful house, friends locally, from long ago, and online, and so much more.

What a lovely moment of magic.

Starboy said this was a fairy church, because there was no place to sit and settle, as there would be in a proper fairy house. He would not leave his fairy gift here.

The gardens were filled with fountains, cascading waters, dappled sunlight, rich hues.

Starboy finally left his gift for the fairies up near a reflecting pool. He said he'd seen some up there, and they were more likely to be attracted by the blue tile than the gardens below. I disagreed, but he was quite adamant. We did both think the fairies would enjoy the acorn he gave to them.

I've been making labyrinths at home to share with Starboy and the kids at school. Starboy was drawn to these right away.

This are for tracing with a finger, as a cheap and insufficient version of these. I used air-dry clay and the lid of a giant nut jar. I think it looks terrible, and recommend the Etsy ones. But it will be fun for the preschoolers to trace.

I also made some cretan labyrinths using felt and puffy fabric paint, following some great directions from a web page I now can't find.

Today's completely unrelated book: "Mim's Christmas Jam," by Andrea and Brian Pinkney. A well-illustrated story about a hard-working Daddy coming home for Christmas, slightly edited for preschooler language (bad words like "mean" and "evil").

Christmas countdown 2 - winter lunch napkins

Today's advent surprise: Snowman placemat and napkins in the lunch box!

The book was Santa's Snow Cat.

Christmas countdown 1 - Christmas parade and hot chocolate

 Somehow Starboy knew that today's advent calendar picture was going to be hot chocolate. Either he remembered from last year, or he peeked, since the doors won't stay shut any more.

So we had to bring some to the Hollywood Christmas Parade. Which turned out to be a dicey proposition—they advertised a 5:00pm start, so even though this was pushing the 6:30 bedtime window, I wanted to give it a shot. But it didn't even start until 6:30! The late night didn't set us up well for the week, but it still was a fun parade with a local, Hollywood flair.

Starboy thought the vintage fire engines were fun, but loud. He also enjoyed the display of movie cars (Back to the Future 1 & 2, Ghostbusters, Herbie the Love Bug and more), even though he has no idea what any of those are.

There were lots of actors, the author of Elf on the Shelf (I know—really), and the grand marshall was astronaut Buzz Aldrin! Starboy was excited to see a real astronaut, but the photo didn't turn out.

Tap dancing Christmas trees.

We watched from the front of the Cineramadome, which was an additional Hollywood flair. They were selling their trademark caramel corn, but I resisted!

Today's book: "A Porcupine in a Pine Tree," by Helaine Becker and Werner Zimmerman. A Canadian version of the 12 days of Christmas. Very cute. Though completely lost on our SoCal boy.

Christmas Countdown

I can't believe it's almost Christmas again.

I swore that I would be prepared for the Christmas Countdown project this year — pairing books with activities, prepping everything in advance....but as you've probably noticed by the intense sound of crickets chirping the last few months in this space, it's been a little crazy in Co-op Preschoolland. So here I am again, at the last minute, making my list.

Hey, my five-minute career in teaching has prepared me well for this.

Last year, we had a lot of fun exploring new activities and enjoying time together. Now that Starboy is older, a world of potential overstimulation has opened up! There's lots of stuff to do, and since it's such a short season this year, every cool event is scheduled on December 14th. I'm only exaggerating a little.

Starboy is excited to see what's behind the doors of his advent calendar, and to hear the wonderful Martin and Sylvia Sparkle Stories in the new advent calendar audio stories as their family enjoys the season. Highly recommend.

I'm really looking forward to some fun crafting and baking. Check out tags "advent" or "Christmas," to gather together what I've come up with. Or try clicking here for the December 2013 archive (and here for December 2012).

And with any luck I'll get the Christmas card out before February. That in itself would be an improvement over last year.

Fairy Fail

My neighbor sent me an email with a "magical" project: Fairies in a Jar!

The photo, despite being clearly PhotoShopped, leads you to believe that you can create sheer magic in your own home, just by cutting up a glow stick and shaking it into a jar with glitter.

So I do. Did you know that glow sticks have little glass tubes inside? That's what makes the clicky sound when you break them. So I cut the glow stick, then had to figure out what to do with this thin glass tube of liquid. I ended up breaking it up with some pliers and leaving the pieces inside. And I dumped in some glitter, two kinds.

 Let the magic—uhhm.....

 ...be-glop? The jar glowed....but there was no sparkling effect. You couldn't see the glitter.
Techman walked into the kitchen and was momentarily impressed because he thought I had made a DIY glowstick with household chemicals.

Hey, I have super powers.

I shook the jar around. I looked at it in the dark. Techman said, "You know what that is?"

"That's creamed fairies."

Maybe it needs water, like a snow globe? Bad idea. It killed the glow, and all the glow goo globbed together (say that 10 times fast) and floated on top. It went dark within a couple of minutes.

So, if you want to make a jarful of creamed fairies, give it a shot. Might be great in a friendly haunted house at Halloween!

Rainbow Rice *

 While window-shopping a teacher catalog, Starboy spied some "rainbow rice" that he said he wanted for his rice box (indoor tabletop sandbox—highly recommend). I was sure we could make it easily. And not pay shipping.

I started out with our natural food coloring, and noticed that the colors were rich, but not vibrant, as you can see from this first batch of earth tones. Then, I ran out of yellow. So I added powdered turmeric to the yellow and orange, hoping to affect the color. Which it did—but the turmeric also instantly turned my hands yellow. Sensory overload.

And, since I used apple-scented hand gel to set the color, the whole thing smells horrible. Fake-apple-foreign-spice-factory bad. Sensory fail.

Somehow, since the last time I Googled, the techniques on rice-dying have improved. I wish I'd checked this out before I started. It turns out you can set the color (and shorten drying time) with either a tablespoon of plain rubbing alcohol, or white vinegar. So I bagged up the sad, sorry, smelly all-natural rice and started over. (I'm hoping our preschool can use it for something. I think the powdered turmeric precludes it from successful I-spy jars.)

 For take two, I used liquid water color paint and rubbing alcohol. A much greater success! Bright colors! No surprise smells! No tactile aversion strategies! And I also had yellow!

Starboy was champing at the bit to play. I'm not so excited that the colors look like Easter confetti, but whatever. I guess not everything can be brown and green. I like to keep his environment more simple, with solid colors, so he can concentrate, so this is bold new territory. Ha.

* Then shortly after I originally posted this, he informed me that his plastic hamster and plastic mouse did not like the new rice. That he asked for. That I stayed up late making last night.

Too many colors.

"They want plain blue, so they can be in water."

 

* He happily dug right in, initially, but it didn't engage him like the original rice box did.

It's Muriel Mouse's own little Disneyland. But I guess she gets overstimulated there, like everyone else!

Recipe for colored rice

as gleaned from many mommy sites on the Internet

1-2 cups rice (per color)

1 Tbsp rubbing alcohol / white vinegar

2 good squirts of liquid water color

Mix all ingredients together in a sealed zipper bag or a cheap plastic container that can be stained (you never know). Repeat as needed if  you want more than one color.

Spread wet, colored rice onto a tray that is covered with a paper towel, until dry (I like the $2 Smula tray from Ikea for art projects; we have a stack of them). This may happen quickly, but I let ours dry overnight.