Christmas ornaments

I want to share a tradition that I made up for my kids, that seems to continue to resonate with them, and one that I think they will do with their kids.

Each year Santa brings each child an ornament that is found on the Christmas tree Christmas morning.  The ornament is of Santa himself, and each has the kid's name and the year sharpied somewhere on the back.  

So, every Christmas since they were born, they have received an ornament; at this point my eldest is 26 so she has her 26th ornament coming this year. 

Needless to say, our tree has become a Santa themed tree just due to the shear numbers of Santa ornaments there are, (we have three kids) and it is amazing that no two are alike. When the kids were small the ornaments were soft, unbreakable Santa's, and as they grew and became involved with activities Santa would reflect their current passion; dancing or wearing a soccer kit, or drinking from a stein...  To this day, they are excited to see their past Santa's on the tree and hunt for the new ones, first thing Christmas morning.  

If you decide to do something like this with your family you will find it amazing that some year's you can't find Santa ornaments:   snowmen are in, or cardinals.... and so then you start the hunt earlier in the year to be on the safe side.  Also, due to this on going need, you visit Christmas stores on your vacations in foreign lands ( Montreal, Canada was ours) looking for unique Santa's, and  "the hunt" becomes very pleasurable if you do it early.  If you wait until now and start looking, that will be the year there are none to be found and you will be panicking!  

I know people who have taken this idea and done snowmen, or birds (not limited to cardinals) or snowflakes... whatever you decide be sure you can create one in the event of a barren year at the stores....

When the girls have a home of their own and feel they are ready, I will give them their special tub of ornaments so they have a start on their tree decorating, and I will have to be sure to get a smaller tree, until I start collecting Santa's for myself.

Hot, chic window treatments- paper shades- really!

We have been renovating our 1920's craftsman house for awhile now, and as we work on a room we take everything out.  But  it feels very naked and exposed working in there with the windows just bare and yet, we don't want to put up anything that will get ruined... the perfect answer?  Paper shades.

For about $3 you can get paper shades from Home Depot or Lowe's and cut them to the size of your window, regular scissors do it.  They come with a very sticky top band that you literally press onto the wood trim and voila! Instant privacy.  They are accordion style and actually look nice from the outside- they also come with 2 clips that you can use to "open " the shades.  My favorite is when you put one clip in the center having folded the shade about 1/3 of the way up, and it makes a pretty fan look.

My daughter came home and said one of her friends who has a very nice home in Oyster Bay, LI uses these on all his windows- and has them set up in the fan look!  Haha!

So when you are driving about looking at homes, know that some of those pretty window treatments are really just paper folded in a clever way.  

Tip:  IKEA has them that are actually something a bit nicer for $4- live it up!

Making your gifts

For this Holiday Season our family decided we would all make our gifts to each other.Homemade gifts, sincere movement?  maybe... anyway:
Some rules:
it can't be a regift of a bought item
it can be something new that you create on, modify and make into something else
it should be something the person might actually want ( I added that rule)

We have had a tradition for years of making a "family gift" each year that we produced ourselves, and gave to the extended family.  When the kids were small we did a lot of painting of items like umbrellas, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.  But we also created works of art culminating in a mosaic yard glass ball" for each family from old bowling balls.  It was a great family project each year, even when we were crazy busy, we all would look forward to it, and create something for about 25 people.
When my oldest went off to college we decided it was just too hard when she got home on the 23rd of December, to continue the practice, but we all loved the experience and talk about the various gifts often, especially this time of year.

Since this year some of us are not making much money,  we decided making homemade gifts was a good alternative.  What I have discovered is that Pinterest is an amazing place to find great ideas- some even have instructions of how to do things, and I have actually seen some of the items we did listed as cool christmas gifts!  So, I think the trend to make christmas gifts is a national movement, and if any of you are also making some, if not all of your gifts, let me know.

I am excited about the gifts I have decided to make, I just wish I had another month!  I will take pictures when they are complete and maybe put them on pinterest too!   ( although I am not quite sure how to do that...)  Here's to the Homemade craft movement!