*one of my absolute favorite things about christmas in AZ is having fresh navel oranges. i didn't realize how excited i was for them to be ripe until i tasted my first one of the season and finished it plus a second whole one, in two minutes flat. and they were huge. if you haven't ever tried a freshly picked navel orange, grown in the AZ sunshine, then i'm sorry. you haven't lived until you do. trust me on this.
*i'm thinking the chance of our neighbors giving us homemade salsa or bean dip for christmas next year, in missouri, is pretty slim. or fresh squeezed orange juice from the previously mentioned navel oranges.
*my mother in-law makes delicious caramels every year to pass out to neighbors and friends and i thought it would be a good, fun tradition to carry on for our family. she gave me extra foil wrappers and everything. i was gung ho. here's how it went down: first two batches - rock hard {my thermometer was off}, next batch - turned out ok, next batch - gross and grainy {forgot the karo syrup}, last two batches - kind of hard but manageable. thats a 50% success rate. the jury is still out on whether or not caramels are making a comeback next year. i might have to leave that tradition to my mother in-law.
*i totally planned our tree decorating around nap time. as in, when both girls would be asleep. i figured it would be easier, faster, and obviously look better. i love how my tree came together this year and it even registered a few compliments. well, two days later i read a friends blog post and what a wake up call it was. for DAYS afterward i looked at my cute little tree and felt so guilty. all the evenly spaced ornaments and carefully placed berries that looked so cute and coordinated suddenly seemed stiff and uninviting. i contemplated taking all the ornaments off and starting over with girl's help but just decided next year would be different - i'd make it a family affair. thankfully a few days ago my mother and sister in-laws helped my girls make cute ornaments with their little hand prints which are now "clustered perfectly" and "match perfectly" with the rest of my red, white, and silver tree.
i love it.*decorating gingerbread houses stresses me out. i don't have one bit of creativeness in my body so i just imitate and copy the picture on the box. that makes for a very generic gingerbread house that never looks quite as good as the original. starting next year we're just using graham crackers - then i'll have to come up with something on my own.
*speaking of lack of creativeness - i made a really cute advent calendar with my in-laws {they had all the supplies and instructions and i literally just copied them}. i might get a picture taken and link to the instructions posted after christmas.
*next year my goal is to be done christmas shopping by thanksgiving {slim chance, i know}. i have felt so frazzled the last few weeks and feel like i'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. hopefully the next few days at my house will be more calm and centered on the true reason for this season!!
7 comments:
marie,
we do only stockings from santa. and nothing wrapped from him. I don't like to focus on santa too much, or give him undo credit.
and i'm totally with you - love arizona winters - fresh oranges and fresh salsa for Christmas.
can i get your mailing address? email me at sarahhaslip@gmail dot com.
gracias!
that's "undue" not undo.
eric and i were having the same discussion last night. we decided not to worry about it this year cause landon wont know or remember... but next year we will start the whole santa thing...on pyp i saw there is a post/forum about this very topic. one idea i got was to have a special "santa wrapping paper" only gifts from santa get wrapped in this paper to distinguish it from other gifts. i still dont know how many gifts will be from santa but we have a year to figure it out.
In my family, Santa filled the stockings and left us ONE UNwrapped gift. Everything else was wrapped from Mom and Dad/siblings. Good luck deciding!
~Janelle
Santa always brought us lots of unwrapped gifts. Ray's family did wrapped so we are always debating the issue. I told him that since Carter can't unwrap his presents this year I am not taking the time to wrap them. I guess we will see how things go in future years! I guess it is hard for me to imagine things different than they were for me growing up.
I really enjoyed reading about all of your Christmas tidbits! Hope you guys have a fabulous Christmas!
I love reading the different santa ideas! At our house, Santa brings one present to each child and it is wrapped in "santa paper" that is only used for those five presents (five kids). The present has the initial of the child on it and it's by their stocking in the morning. I like wrapped because as the kids get older...there is A LOT of middle of the night "peeking" . .has he come yet??? I don't want the guy getting all the christmas credit, hence one present! It is definitely fun to mix up family traditions. I grew up with the Sweedish tradition of opening all gifts on Christmas Eve. I was more than happy to trade that tradition for Christmas morning!! I have also found that she who does the most work usually makes the most decisions regarding these things!! I am blessed to have a husband who is just happy with anything!! Hope all is well there. And Happy Anniversary!! Love to all. :)
We're figuring out the Santa thing too. This year didn't matter too much, but next year we will have to get down to business. Note: I also got a caramel recipe from my mother-in-law. It is great because if they don't turn out, you can scrape it out of the pan, add another cup of cream and try again. I remade mine because they were too thin and needed to be in a smaller pan. It worked great. Let me know if you want the recipe.
Post a Comment