Christmas Week: Next year will be different!

Next year I will not be so disorganized. This is always my lament when December 24 rolls around each year.

Actually, I'm not all that disorganized, but today seems crazy. Trying to finish stories for a deadline, make a salad, wash dishes before tackling my to-do list. Such craziness for one day of the year.

I had another post in mind. However, this one is going to have to do as I simply don't have the time. I'm still not dress. Darling daughter is eating lunch in her pajamas and I need to do some things before dear husband walks through the door.

So dear readers, I apologize for my hurried Merry Christmas greetings, but I wish you and yours a very happy holiday and I hope Santa is good to you.

Christmas Week: handmade Christmas

A lot of our gifts this year have been made by hand. One popular craft has been salt dough ornaments. I made several batches of salt dough ornaments for darling daughter to decorate for Christmas gifts. Many are now hanging on our tree. I think one mitten (or glovies as darling daughter calls them) has about three googly eyes.

Although they were a lot of fun, they were a lot of work in terms of giving darling daughter a bath. Despite the fact she loves to paint, she still manages to get a lot of it on herself instead of the craft.

They are fairly easy to make. In fact, my Kitchen Aid stand mixer came in handy in making the dough. If you are interested in making some yourself, here's an easy recipe.

Salt dough ornaments:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup warm water

Mix all three ingredients together and roll out onto a floured table top or counter with a rolling pin. Roll the dough fairly thin. You don't want it to be thick as your ornaments will be puffy once they are finished baking in the oven. With cookie cutters, cut out the ornaments and place them onto baking sheets, preferably lined with parchment paper. Using a straw, poke a hole in your ornaments to thread a ribbon through for hanging. Bake for 300 F for about 45 minutes or when done. Don't let the ornaments brown. If they are going to be decorated by the younger set, you may want to give your ornaments a base coat of paint before the kids go nuts with the glitter glue.

Christmas Week: The tree

Over the years, I've had many Christmas trees, many of which were real. It took a massive tree accident two years ago, an angry phone call to dear husband where I told him it was all his fault the tree fell over, threats of throwing the tree out the back door and the thought of opening my grandmother's Christmas gift (a pre-lit artificial tree to replace her circa 1984 plastic balsam) to get the tree we have today. Yes, it is fake. But it doesn't shed needles. And if it was to fall over, there wouldn't be a massive dirty puddle to clean up.

This year, darling daughter was an active participant in the tree decorating ritual. She tells everyone "I helped Daddy decorate the tree." Actually she told a fellow mom friend that same phrase over and over again last week. We get it. You helped decorate the tree. Oh toddlers, so cute, but so repetitive.

I miss not having a real tree. I was at the Real Canadian Superstore recently and I love walking past the real tree display, enjoying the evergreen pine smell. Sadly, there weren't many trees left. Either there must have been a real run on real trees this year or there are more people, like me, who don't want to deal with pine needles stabbing into feet or cleaning up messy puddles.

Christmas week

My posting record in the last two months has been pretty spotty. Regardless of the fact I have a ton of work to do before Christmas arrives on Saturday, I thought I'd give myself a little challenge of sorts: Christmas Week.

First post this week are photos of our trip to Parliament Hill. We took darling daughter downtown last night to see the lights on Parliament Hill. If you are in the Ottawa area, you have until early January to enjoy the free light show. We also toured the grounds, where darling daughter had to call every statue she encountered "beautiful." We made a brief stop to visit the cats on Parliament Hill. (Yes, there are a colony of cats on Parliament Hill. They've been there since the 1970s and they have an uber cool cat house). A couple came out to say hello before we had to pull darling daughter away because she could have stayed there all night. Enjoy the photos.

An update

I've been neglecting my blog. It is gathering dust. To my blog, my sincerest apologies. But I have been busy. Very busy, so I thought I'd write a short update.

House: The reason I've been so busy is that working on my house. More specifically, I'm trying to get it ready for sale. The last couple of weeks have involved major decluttering, finding contractors to do some minor work, working with a realtor, and getting advice from a stager. Although we started looking for a new house, we've put that task off until we get this house ready for sale. Who knew it would be so much work?

Work: I've got a freelance writing job (maybe). It has been more than a year since I've written professionally, so I've been working hard when it comes to dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

Knitting: I'm a knitting machine. I'm taking my knitting everywhere, including on the road. Last weekend I was in knitting heaven: a total of two knitting meetups. I've got projects I need to get done before I start 2011, the year of selfish projects.

Running: Still running. But inside. My friend and coach, C, refuses to run in the summer because of heat. I've decided to refuse to run outside in the winter due to cold. I'm a chicken. I don't wanna. So I won't. Even though the treadmill is boring as old heck, it has become a good friend.

Christmas: I'm out of the loop this year when it comes to Christmas. Since we've been busy with the house, I just don't have the inclination to get in the Christmas spirit. I want to move my couch out before I put up the Christmas tree. It remains to be seen if that happens in the very near future.

O Christmas tree update

Earlier this month, I blogged about my worries about getting a Christmas tree. I thought I'd give provide an update. We decided to go with option three: get a big tree and let the chips fall where they may. The tree has been up for more than two weeks now and it is still standing. We may be tempting fate for not having it tethered to the wall, but luckily there have been no incidents involving the tree crashing to the floor.

We cashed in $29.05 in Canadian Tire money to pay for the tree. Between the sale and the CTC money we redeemed, we got the tree for $38. I'd like to point out that was about seven years of CTC money that I collected. From all reports by dear husband, the CTC cashier wasn't very thrilled that she had to count out $29.05 in said Canadian Tire money. Too bad. Maybe you shouldn't be giving it out if you don't want people to save it and spend it.

Okay, back to the subject at hand -- the Christmas tree. Like I said, it is still standing, but it is a great source of amusement for darling daughter. She likes the ornaments, in particular, a green angel ornament that is in the shape a bell. Several times a day I have to tell her to stop playing with the tree, that is for looking at, not touching. And several times a day she refuses to heed my words and continues to play with the tree. I caught her yesterday playing with one of the red plastic balls.

Since erecting our plastic artificial tree, I have learned that I'm not a fan. Having a fake tree is definitely not the same as a real one. Some days I have the urge to water it. However, having a real tree was not an option this year. I'm still stinging over last year's tree debacle. Plus, I do enjoy the fact I'm not picking pine needles out of the bottom of my socks.

Gingerbread dreams

I think I got the shaft when I was a kid. Until yesterday, I had never, ever decorated a gingerbread house.

In fact, I don't think I was aware of the gingerbread house decorating concept until I was in college. One day before the Christmas holidays, one of my rez acquaintances mentioned she was going to decorate a gingerbread house.

After years of debate, I finally bought a gingerbread kit this year. After yesterday afternoon's step class, I made an an emergency stop to the Bulk Barn to get some extra peppermint swirls, Christmas Smarties and gum drops, before racing home to decorate with darling daughter.

Although darling daughter didn't do much decorating (she tried to shake off the icing on her hand), I had a great time, sticking peppermint swirls on the roof, edging the roof with gum drops and sticking Smarties on the windows. It was so much fun, which begs the question, why the hell didn't I do this when I was a kid? When I posed that exact question to my mother, she pish poshed me, saying it is a Christmas tradition that I can start with my own kids. (Apparently, she didn't decorate gingerbread houses when she was a kid either). It is definitely a Christmas tradition that I want to continue to do. It's so much fun. And yummy too. I can't wait to break into that gingerbread house.

The problem with wrapping paper

Hi. My name is Valerie and I'm a wrapping paper addict.

I'm not fooling. I'm a wrapping paper addict. I love, love, LOVE wrapping paper. I just adore it. But the problem with wrapping paper is that it collects. There are only so many gifts you can wrap in any given year. And I fall in love with new wrapping paper patterns. I buy my new loves, fall in love again and buy my new, new loves. Yep, it is a nasty, costly cycle. I've had a wrapping paper problem since I was a kid. I was always buying it or asking my mom to purchase it. I think she is still using some of the wrapping paper I bought.

It got so bad that I had two wrapping paper bins stuffed full of wrapping paper. So I decided to do something about it. No more wrapping paper purchases. I went cold turkey last year. I didn't buy a single roll. Not one. And this year I found the will power not to buy any new rolls. And it is paying off. I am slowly getting through my wrapping paper stash. If I'm lucky this year, I'll downsize to one bin. Seeing my shrinking stash makes dear husband very happy. Over the years he has grumbled extensively about my wrapping paper addiction and how my bins cluttered up the closet. Curbing my wrapping paper addiction is a big accomplishment for me. Now if I could only do something about my Christmas card addiction . . .

Christmas card writing marathon

Good lord, who knew that writing out and addressing Christmas cards would take four hours?

Yesterday, dear husband was home sick. (We were both sick). With the two of us at home, I took the opportunity to write out Christmas cards. I had my day plan: Christmas card writing, tree trimming and some knitting.

Well, wasn't I surprised that this task that I thought would take me an hour to complete took all day. I started around 11 a.m. and except for a half-hour break, I was done around 3:30 p.m. I started getting writer's cramp two hours into my task. I don't remember last year's Christmas card writing session taking four hours. And I wasn't writing anything elaborate either, just a small message underneath the printed greeting and inserting a photo of darling daughter in some of the cards.

Once I was done my Christmas card writing marathon, I was pooped. I didn't feel like writing a blog entry. I had no energy to tackle one of my many knitting projects or drag the Christmas decorations from the basement to trim the tree. Our poor artificial tree is looking pretty sparse as it sits ignored in the corner. Other than the lights (it is a pre-lit tree) there isn't a single ornament on it. I'd like to say today is the day that we decorate the tree, but I'm running on two hours of sleep today. Maybe tomorrow would be a good day to do it as Wednesday is suppose to be a snow day. With 20 to 30 centimetres of snow predicted for the Ottawa area, I may manage to find enough Christmas spirit to decorate the tree with a toddler in tow.

O Christmas tree

This is last year's Christmas tree. Notice the very noticeable tilt? I refused to allow dear husband to straighten it out because I was afraid it would fall again. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe it was a couple of days before Christmas when our very real Christmas tree decided to crash on the floor, just minutes after I watered it. I wanted to cry. I think I may have did. There was pine needles and dirty water everywhere. I do remember making a frantic phone call to dear husband at work, informing him it was all his fault that the tree fell on the floor. He didn't even have a chance to reply because I rudely hung up the phone. It was certainly an afternoon to remember.

I vowed last year we would never have a repeat of Christmas 2008. I'm tired of real trees, their real needles shedding on my floor and their tendency to crash. It is artificial all the way this year, especially with a very active toddler on the go. But the question is should I get a small tree or a large tree?

I have no desire to police darling daughter and tell her to step away from the tree. The following conversation plays in my head when I think of setting up a Christmas tree: "Get away from the tree, please. I said, please move away from the tree. No, don't take the decorations off the tree. Be gentle. I said gentle. Or dear, I don't think that snowflake ornament will be the same. The tree isn't a snack so stop gnawing on the branches. If I said it, I've said it a million times, stay away from the tree. Oh dear God in heaven, I said, STEP AWAY FROM THE TREE." Not a very Christmasey conversation to have with a toddler, in my opinion.

As I see it, my options are the following: (1) have no tree; (2) have a small tree and set it up on a table behind the love seat so I have the illusion of a full tree; or (3) get a big tree and let the chips fall where they may. We haven't decided what to do. I'm leaning on having no tree at all, but that is the Scrooge in me talking. We'll likely get a tree. We'll likely have to police darling daughter in staying away from said tree. And the tree will likely crash again. Not from the help of gravity, but likely by a very curious toddler.

Operation Santa a success, well sort of

This morning I decided it was a good time as any to make a quick visit to our neighbourhood mall Santa Claus. Last year, we went early in the Christmas season and I was able to include the photos of our visit in Christmas cards. They were a hit. If I get my act together, friends and relatives will be receiving similar photos this year of a larger baby with much more hair.

The visit went over relatively okay. Although darling daughter didn't burst into tears, she had quite a confused, serious look on her face. Who the heck is this strange man with a big bushy white beard? the look on her face said. Why are you handing me to him? And why is there a woman taking photos of us?

At this age, the only reason I head to the local mall for a visit for Santa is strictly for the photo op. I readily handed over $12 to get darling daughter's photo taken with the big guy. And although she wasn't impressed, I do enjoy the photos. The way I figure it this is likely the last year for a few years at least that we can get photos taken with Santa. I'm sure next Christmas she'll be in that age where she'll burst into tears once she sits on Santa's lap.

The new era of gift giving

I've discovered the secret of holiday shopping.

Life is much easier when you don't do it.

It is as simple as that.

I've decided that I don't want anything for Christmas. I told my mother today not to buy us anything and I told her to pass that message along to my brother. We'll do a gift exchange for the kids, but other than that, save your moolah, I declared.

So if you were contemplating getting me a gift this year, don't bother. Do as the ING Direct guy says: save your money.

Earlier this fall, I spent days decluttering the basement. And it felt good getting rid of stuff. I made numerous trips to Goodwill to unload my unwanted stuff. Anything that I didn't get rid of is now crammed into the small storage closet downstairs. I've got no storage room. And plus, I really don't need anything.

Plus, as a parent, I've got another type of clutter to deal with: toy clutter. Yesterday, I weeding through darling daughter's toy collection upstairs. I introduced new toys and I put away old toys that no longer captures her attention. She'll likely be spoiled this Christmas. And if I was to get gifts, not only would I have to find room for my items, I have to find room for her new toys. Life is already complicated enough. I don't need more complications.

I've already told dear husband he'll be getting a gift certificate of some sort. He's okay with that.

I may sound like scrooge, but in this new era of recessions and downsizing, I say save your money. You'll thank me later.

Toy confusion

This plastic baby bottle with bow-tie pasta and brown rice is darling daughter's favourite toy today. I quickly put it together this morning. And she loves it.

Sometimes I wonder why I buy her toys. Give her a couple of face cloths, a bib or a pair of her own shoes, she's happy for hours. Buy her a new Little People set or an Elmo World phone, they might capture her attention for a couple of minutes throughout the day.

So now I'm on the fence when it comes to Christmas gift giving. I've got three Little People sets sitting in the storage closet for her for under the Christmas tree. (I bought them when they were on sale). While she isn't all that big about the big Little People sets, she does enjoy playing with the actual Little People. But isn't three Little People sets too much for a little girl? The good thing with these sets is that I can keep them and save them for later, or give them out to others for birthday gifts. They certainly won't go to waste.

Some of the moms on one of the online message boards I belong to employ the something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read policy. Plus, Santa may leave a little something under the tree and in their stockings.

I really like that policy. I really do. But I've got a tendency to overspend at Christmas and I don't know if I can hold to that policy. Last year I did okay, but I have done better and stuck to the original plan of being thrifty. Because at the time, darling daughter was only five months old and she really didn't need anything. Plus, it looks like dear husband is becoming worse in the gift giving department. He couldn't resist and bought her several toys last year.

As well as the Little People sets, I also bought her a wooden puzzle and a rattle with bells, for her stocking. So if I think about it, one of the Little People sets could be filed under the something you want category. Since I bought a bunch of books for her in recent month, I'll replace the book with the puzzle for the something to read category.

I'm stumped when it comes to the something you need category. She's 15 months. She doesn't really need anything. So I may just use one of the Little People sets to fill that vacancy or buy her some Fred Penner CDs. We do need more music CDs. And for the something to wear, well, she's a clothes horse. I've spent a lot of clothes in recent months, but I may make her a hat if I find the time.

The third Little People set can always be given to her from Santa.

So yeah. If I stick by that plan, I should be good. But I find it so hard not to cave in and buy more at Christmas. I'll keep you updated in how I do.