every december, when i was a child, my mother had a simple but beautiful advent calendar. i can’t remember it exactly but i do recall a wood one, where behind each intricate door were nice chocolates that my mother would have picked out. as exciting for her as for my brother and i. mama, please correct me here. either way, each day of december, our little family of four would open the number of the corresponding day and have a treat. simple as that.
jp’s family had a different activity every night for advent. his mother, he recalls, planned items and outings and foods for the whole family to partake in each day leading up to advent. he doesn’t remember the advent calendar.
i’d like a mix of both; simplicity and surprise.
with our little family, each holiday i feel this intense urge to create our own powerdriver traditions. ramona is still young and, essentially, oblivious. but soon she won’t be. and she’ll be excited about the little things our family does each year. so last year i made stockings and this year i made an advent calendar. bc i wanted to take the tradition of my mother’s thoughtful and beautifully made advent calendar and jp’s mother’s tradition of nightly activities based on what was opened each day of advent. ramona won’t care much for the advent calendar i made. at least not this year. and she won’t care much for the activities, except for the hot cocoa. at least not this year. but they’ll be there. the traditions. at least the start of them. and my humble attempts at making our little family our own.
this year i made a simple, modern advent calendar based on the tutorial from weekday carnival. jp helped me diagram the triangles on a piece of wood that we had initially planned to use for our bathroom vanity. i used gold nails, fancy black & white twine, and numbers printed on heavy cardstock. (my strings weren’t all as taut as i would like so, if you try this for yourself, make sure you pull your strings tight and double twist at every nail).
here’s what i have planned for each day of december (written on the back of the respective day) to get in the christmas spirit:
- decorate house for christmas (it’s small so we only need an hour!
- watch “a christmas story”
- make paper snowflakes
- make popcorn and watch “a charlie brown christmas”
- buy new toothbrushes for the family!
- write a christmas wish list and include non-tangible things
- read the birth of Christ in the gospels
- spend special family time with the farm yard animals
- have a candlelit dinner
- hang mistletoe
- have a sweet treat for breakfast
- make pepperkakor cookies
- declutter for christmas (boxes of vintage stuff, mo’s toys. basement)
- make an egg nog cocktail. egg nog for the little ones.
- go on morning winter hike
- go for a drive to see christmas lights
- drink hot cocoa while watching yet another christmas movie
- enjoy hot cocoa for breakfast
- go thru and read winter and christmas books
- bake some more christmas treats
- put coins in strangers’ meters
- determine new years resolutions
- have a sweet treat for breakfast
- take a photo w santa
here are other posts i used that have additional festive ideas for how to celebrate the days leading up to the 25th.
need ideas for christmas gifts? don’t forget about my giveaway from artifact uprising. leave a comment on this post to be entered to win.
Hello A Denver Home Companion Readers! My name is Rebecca I’d like to send a big thank you to Emily for having me here today. I’d also like to congratulate Emily and Jonathan on the opening of their new restaurant – very exciting – well done guys!
This weekend marks the grand kick off to the holiday season and I’ve got gifts on the brain. My husband John and I call the first of December ‘Game On’ as in, let’s get the celebrating started. For the month of December we leave little treats around the house in unusual spots for each other. Picture me opening the refrigerator to find a new scented oil or opening the medicine cabinet to find a chocolate bar. In preparation for this tradition I put together a gift guide of things I am thinking of gifting John this year.
one :: two :: three :: four :: five :: six
thanks, rebecca! i’m making sure jp reads this bc i’d sure love to find little treats hidden throughout the house 😉 you’ve given me great ideas of things to hide for him.
also, rebecca makes some beautiful jewelry that’s on MY christmas wish list.
max‘s mom told me about a colorado-based company, artifact uprising, that takes your instagram photos and turns them into beautiful books. well, actually, it let’s YOU take your photos (instagram or otherwise) and turn them into beautiful books. we all know how much i love instagram (i use it way more than my fancy-schmancy camera) and how much i LOVE local companies, so i went to their website and ordered some books for myself.
i went for the simple softcover, instagram-friendly books. i got a large (8.5×8.5″) one for our family and some other secret, surprise goodies for christmas presents. when the finished products arrived on my doorstep (quickly too!) i was thrilled by how they turned out and told the company so. i now plan to use artifact uprising for all of my photo album needs (i am done with the days of printing and cutting and cropping and double-stick taping!, which is how all my other photo albums are). seriously. have you seen their hardcover books?! swoon.
and look at this colorado beetle kill pine calendar they offer. i think i may have to order one for the new year.
what a surprise, i was delighted to find out that they enjoy reading my blog! they have kindly offered you, dear reader, a chance to win one of their small, instagram-friendly, softcover books. just in time for the holidays! please leave a comment below with a link to your instagram profile so i can check out your photos! if you don’t have an instagram account, just leave a comment. earn extra entries by tweeting this giveaway, following artifact uprising on facebook, or blogging/pinning the giveaway (please leave a post for each additional entry). a winner will be announced monday, december 3!
(this giveaway open to readers located in the usa only). (bottom four photos courtesy of artifact uprising).
Hi, foxy readers. My name is Cora and holy smokes I’m excited that Emily invited me to guest post here! You can find me over at Miles, Papa and Me blogging about my dreamy baby Miles Waylon Wolf, my ginger fella Steve, and all of our fun thrifting finds. Fortunately, I’m a stay-at-home mama so to keep ourselves busy and earn a couple bucks I decided to open a space at an antique mall here in our hometown of Portland Oregon. Between wrangling an active one year old and cooking dinner I try to squeeze in a little craft time a few times a week. Since the holidays are here and gift giving is approaching, I wanted to share with you a quick and easy DIY to dress up your favorite night cap.
supplies
- cork stoppers (available on Etsy)
- crystals (check your local rock store or bead shop)
- hot glue gun
- paint
instructions
- Start off by painting the cork a color of your liking.
- Once the paint has dried, hot glue the top of the cork and press the flattest side of your rock to the glue.
Voila! Super easy and fun for your holiday party!
*Feel free to keep your cork its natural color or add lace. After finishing my stoppers I realized they were too big to fit in a wine bottle, so I would definitely suggest buying tapered corks for a better fit.
Thanks so much for having me here. Come say hi over at my blog or on Instagram (username milesmama)!
thanks, cora, for spending some time here today! i love love love this project.
ramona loves shoes. shoes was actually one of her first words (followed quickly by boots and socks). and one morning, i found her in my closet pulling my flats and stilettos and boots and flip flops off my shoe shelf. she found out how to put her feet inside them and it’s been non-stop clopping about since then.
the first time ramona ever threw a tantrum was when she couldn’t quite get the shoes to stick on her feet. lucky for us, we captured it on video.
p.s. happy thanksgiving, all! this year we’re lounging around at jp’s parents’ house w a ridiculous amount of food and booze and card games and televised football. last year we did a big orphan thanksgiving at crema coffee house. how are you celebrating thanksgiving? is it the same every year?
welcome
