Family History This Christmas

Christmastime is such a great time to spend time with our families, and often we get to see family that live far away. I came across this article that I thought had some great ideas for ways to link our families (past and present) together a little better!

I know I am going to try to do a few of these this Christmas!

Go Here to check out the article!

The trivia game would be a blast, and I think I might have to do something like that "family tree" next year!

Christmas Fun 2011

Since the Holiday season is underway, I thought I would share are a few of the activities and good finds I have come across. These are simple and affordable, so enjoy!

Storytime Advent:
Anni LOVES books, and so for our "advent" this year I wanted to incorporate the reading of Christmas books. I have been collecting Christmas books all year from the thrift store. I am going to wrap each one individually and have them in a box under the tree to open one each night. This will also help with her urge to open presents early.


Snowman Fun! At the Real Canadian Superstore right now they have "Snowmen Kits" for $9. The kit includes a nice big felt hat, scarf and all the accessories for a decked out snowman! This is going to be fun, and I am pretty sure $9 is cheaper than I could have made it for.




Gingerbread "Boys" or "Girls"--the cheater's version. My husband grew up with the tradition of making gingerbread boys each year. As I have kept up the tradition the last few years I have found the only downside is making the actual dough! Talk about putting your mixer to the test! This stuff is thick. When I saw that Pilsbury had come out with a tube of gingerbread dough for a couple dollars, I decided that was well worth it! I also found this at Superstore.


Costco.ca! I have loved online shopping for gifts this year. Costco.ca is one of my favourite and most trusted sites. They have a real range of items for every budget. For example, my dad is so hard to shop for so I was excited to find him this WWII puzzle! He is a history buff and loves puzzles! Yeah for Costco.ca!

5.Nativity Window Stick-Ons -- I didn't know what to call these things, but you know what I'm talking about. Anni has been having fun playing with these on the window. They came on a sheet at Wal-Mart for $0.99.

An Easy Christmas Gift Idea

For Christmas this year this is what we gave out to some friends and neighbours........

In the bags are bottles of Martinelli's (sparkling apple juice). I just measured out a bottle and made some little bags for the bottles, added a painted word (Dollorama) or a cookie cutter (Ikea)and a ribbon. I made some little cards using paper I bought a long time ago from Scrapbook Steals.com . The mix in the little cello bags is a family favourite....it's called "Sweet & Salty".
Here's the recipe! You won't be able to put it down....it's good!

Sweet & Salty
3 cups Crispex
3 cups Corn Pops
3 cups Cheerios (I used multigrain)
2 cups broken pretzels
2 cups salted peanuts (I omitted the peanuts and added more Crispex....just preference)
1 1/3 cups sugar (I use 1/3 cup of brown and the rest white sugar to make it more of a caramel)
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1 cup margarine
1 tsp vanilla

Mix first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Place sugar, margarine and vanilla in sauce pan. Mix together and cook to softball stage (approx. 2 minutes at a boil)
Pour over cereal mixture and toss together. Spread out on large cookie sheet with wax paper to cool (only takes a few minutes). Break apart and it's ready!

Enjoy!

Homemade Christmas---Meal Planning Calendar by Tess

Here is a great gift for anyone this Christmas! It's a meal planning calendar!
I received mine early, and am so excited about it. Thanks, Tess!
Just click on the title of this post and it will take you to Tess's blog.

Miscellaneous Christmas Decor

It has been a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas.
I love decorating for Christmas, and living on a student budget I have had to become extra creative to try to make it festive and fun.
Here are a few ways that you can decorate for Christmas on a tight budget:

The Tree:
We bought our tree off of Kijiji last year. It was only a few years old and from Costco. We paid a quarter of the price of a "new" tree.

The Ornaments:
I found these wooden words at Dollorama last Christmas and stocked up. My daughter (2 years old) helped me paint them red. The other ornaments are homemade as well, or I found in the clearance section at Michaels at the end of the season in a previous year.

The Porch Tree:

I had really wanted a tree for our porch, but just couldn't swallow paying $80 plus that a lot of places are asking. I had an idea and it worked out pretty well......I just bought the cheapest tree I could find (it's a 3.5 ft Walmart tree--$15), a strand of outdoor lights from Walmart ($8), a square pot ($10) to place it in and then just used decorations and ribbon that I had from previous years. It ended up being under $40 for the tree! I am wanting to add another one next year, but thought one this year was a good start!

The forest shutters and garland: I found these shutters at Homesense last January. The markdown stickers were about 2 inches thick on the back as they had been marked down so many times! They were originally $30 each, and I got them for $0.70 each! I saved them all year and was excited to use them!

The garland is just Walmart garland that I also bought in January at the end of the season when it was dirt cheap. I just doubled it up to add fullness and then added some berries that I already had and some of the dollar store wooden words. Total cost.....about $5.

I think that's really the secret.......buy things in January or at the end of the season, then just hold on to them for the year (that is the hard part, though). You will find some great deals this way!

Stockings

I have been working away trying to get our stockings ready, and am glad to say they are done and hanging!
I wanted something quite countryish and had a hard time finding anything like that. My mother-in-law gave a pattern from Under the Garden Moon to my sister-in-law, and it looked just like what I was thinkning, so I used that as a basic guide, added some of my own ideas, and with the help of Tess and Trina came up with these:

I think they turned out pretty cute, and because of the country look they complemented my imperfect sewing and embroidering skills! I wanted to have our names on them somewhere, and I think it turned out well to just embroider them at the bottom of the sock.

I made a matching tree skirt out of the same background fabric as the stockings and just added some roping I found in the clearance section at Wal-Mart. It's simple, with just the roping and some pleats, but looks much better than the fabric I had pooled around as a makeshift skirt for the past couple of years.

It has been really fun to get ready for Christmas this year and to try to make some things for our little family.

Stockings & Tree Skirts

Now that Halloween is over (yes, it has been one day), it is time to start thinking Christmas!

I really want to make some stockings and a tree skirt this year. Here are a few ideas I have come across on Etsy:

Plus:

Free Amy Butler patterns! So cute!

http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/pdfs/Tree_Skirt.pdf

http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/pdfs/Felt_Stocking.pdf

What are you dreaming up for the Christmas season this year?