Oh Me, Oh My!

It's only a few more days till Christmas! And my blogging seems to have gone out the window. Maybe after that tremendously long grains post, I got burned out? Many thanks to all of you who read that entire post and comprehended even a bit of it. I am still fretting over how long it was. But I'm glad we were able to share what we've learned, and hopefully it might be of help to others.

Anyway, I still have Thanksgiving memories I never shared, I totally forgot about doing 11 pictures on the 11th, and I have so much I want to blog about! Sooo....here I am, trying to catch up a wee bit before pictures with red and green themes are no longer up to date. My dear daughter is in bed, and my dear husband. That said, I am trying to make this quick.

The first night we turned our little grapevine tree lights on, Natasha insisted on going outside. I wasn't sure what the deal was, till I realized she had never seen lights up close in the dark like this. She stood there for a few minutes just taking it all in, before she declared it was, "Really cold" and came in.  :)

My first big "craft" project to start off December was an advent calender. I saw such a pretty one last year on Pinterest, and decided to try one this year. Here's the one that I fell in love with:

Via

But I saw another picture of one done with clothespins and a simple board, and came up with my own version of both:

I didn't want just candy inside each day's package, so I sort of incorporated a few activities too. Like, day number 5 was when we had a gingerbread house party and made cardboard gingerbread houses with some friends. Day 12's vintage envelope represented the day we kind of sent Christmas cards. (Actually only one real card...due to lack of funds in the card department this year, we aren't sending out homemade cards. Boohoo...) One of the 20something days has a little felt tree inside and I'm hoping to have a sleepover in the living room under the Christmas tree. Haven't told Daniel that one yet! There's a jingle bell in there somewhere, and I was hoping to teach Natasha how to sing jingle bells. So nothing grand, but just fun stuff.

I just finished wrapping all the gifts this evening, and this is a "supposed to be artistic" picture of the tree. You know, those bokeh shots that are so fun to do with lights? Well...we have weird lighting in this house after the sun goes down, so I don't think it's really supposed to look like this. I'll work on that.

Two very random little tid-bits before I end. I know a couple people who, if they wonder something or are in a conversation and a perplexing discussion comes up with folks asking questions that no one there knows, they actually look the answer up directly. They happen to have iphones or the equivalent, so they can instantly discover the answer and wonder no longer. Isn't that amazing? We have such technology that allows us to instantly find things like that. I wonder a lot of things, but rarely take the time to look them up...mainly because when I get close to the computer I forget or simply don't take the time. But the other day, I was tired of wondering and looked up two little things:

• The word "noel". We sing it, we type it, we decorate with it, but what does it mean? I "wikipedia-ed" it, and discovered it's an alternative word for "Christmas" that entered the English language in the 14th century. So, we could actually sing, "The first Christmas, the angel did say..." And for the chorus, "Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas...." 
• You know those little white marks that appear in your fingernails? What exactly causes that? A friend who grew up Amish, was always told to show his fingernails to possible future employers, because supposedly for each white mark you had, that meant you had told a lie. (!) While I didn't really believe that, and I don't think he did either, I still wondered what caused them. I always thought it was when I smashed my fingernail or something. But when I suddenly had lots appear, and I knew I didn't smash 7 of my 10 fingernails, I decided to investigate. Turns out wikipedia says it's called "Leukonychia" and it's caused mostly by an injury to the base of the nail. Or a diet low in potassium. Well, how about that. :)

So, it's time I join the rest of my family and get to sleep. Tomorrow, Daniel is headed off on an Amazon buying expedition and Natasha and I are going to attempt some Christmas cookie baking!