Tag: Christmas & Advent

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creating Christmas * day 3

The Family Newsletter

I must admit I do like to receive a yearly update from our friends and family, the ones that we don’t see very often. It is a great way to keep in touch. I find they all differ in their content…some are more serious and some quite funny others tell of their travels, holidays, and achievements and for others they can express a good or difficult year.

I find it is good to be able to join in and congratulate, sympathise or make a mental note to make contact more frequently if anyone seems to be struggling with their life through illness or just a bad patch. We all need support at sometime in our lives.

There are some surprises too like the time I found out my cousin who I see very little of, save for major birthdays and funerals, makes the most wonderful patchwork quilts!

I have sent and received them for many years now. At one time I had to handwrite each one, sometimes onto airmail paper – (those lovely printed Christmas ones) and it took a while though they would probably be much shorter back then. Now I write everything into a word document, add a few pictures and send it by email. My blog is such a useful tool to run off a quick newsletter as I can reuse a few photos and see in an instant what we were doing in any given month.

I am not sure if the newsletter, like postcards, is a dying custom or even a custom at all. At one time I would write letters throughout the year (remember them?) to friends and family who lived away, so I suppose this is the equivalent of many letters through the year but all at once.

I wonder how many people reading this send a family newsletter or receive one?

Sorry I was a little late posting this today – it has been a rush so excuse any garbled bits and spelling etc. Mum rang me just after midnight last night thinking I had rung her disturbing me from my slumbers…so a sleepless night afterwards.

Back tomorrow X

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creating Christmas * day 2

The Joy of Giving

This is quite an appropriate time to talk about giving and it is done in memory of my dear friend K. It was her funeral yesterday and a lovely celebration of her life.

No-one could have had a better friend; even with the 20 year age gap we got on so well. What made K so special was that she was a true giver, she never expected anything from me and she would ring just to see how I was (ironic when she was so ill herself). She was always there with a warm welcome and ready to give you a cup of tea and piece of cake whenever you called. She had an equally wonderful way of saying goodbye as you left with a hug, a lot of thank yous for calling and then would wave you off from her steps outside her door, never going inside until you were out of sight. She made you feel special.

Knowing she was terminally ill and not much time left she had organised her funeral in advance and started to get her affairs in order to lessen the burden on her family afterwards. One of the most touching things, and I have a tear or two as I write this, was that the day before she became unresponsive she had made her daughter promise to get the Christmas present she had intended to get for me and it sits in the envelope beside me with a card.

Her daughter said it is a little thank you for the help we gave her since her partner died last year. DH and I gladly helped her. Her eldest son gave a fitting tribute and she had left little individual thank you messages to be read out acknowledging each of her children and her wider family for their love, help and support that they had given her throughout this difficult year. How lovely was that. She gave her love and appreciation to everyone, even at the very end of her life.

I am missing her so much….just the little things like when one of her favourite programs comes on the TV ( we both had a love of watching dear Robbie on his canal boat expeditions) or when I am in Sainsbury’s and I don’t bump into her halfway down an aisle all the way round the store, or like yesterday when we called at the local garden centre and I saw the poster for their Afternoon Tea which K and I thoroughly enjoyed for Christmas and her birthday.

So in memory of K I gave to the charity of her choice the Scottish Air Ambulance Endowment Fund. She was always grateful for their help when she needed it on holiday in Scotland and had to be flown to a hospital in an emergency.

As readers will know in past years I always try and make a few items for the craft stall at the coffee morning in our local church it is largely a gift of time on my part making something that will sell without spending a great deal on materials. This year I made these little bags of Christmas. The transfers for the candles, the bags, the chocolates and the oranges were quite inexpensive and all I had to buy, the rest of the bits and pieces including the candles I already had in my Christmas stash waiting to be made into something sellable.

It was a busy morning despite the wet weather and I was able to catch up with old friends over a cup of tea and a cake. They managed to raise £5,000 for the Crisis charity who will make sure as many homeless people as possible have a Christmas dinner on Christmas day.

Giving is so important and as K showed everyone by her actions, giving is not just about giving money. So although I give to my favourite charities at Christmas before I embark on my Christmas shopping I will take a leaf out of K’s book and give in other small ways too with a welcoming guesture like she would….a smile, a few words an acknowledgement to anyone that passes by.

Christmas is for giving…so like my friend I will give joyously from the heart. X

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creating Christmas * day 1

The Advent Calendar

Doesn’t everyone just love an Advent calendar.

No matter what shape or size, whether full of goodies or just little pictures, opening each individual door to discover a surprise each day is still as exciting now as when I had my very first one.

For all of my childhood the calendar would be of a Christmas or Nativity scene with a small picture behind the door, it wasn’t until sometime in the 80’s that I first bought one containing chocolate for my daughters and now they are very much the norm and this has escalated in the last few years and you are likely to find anything from a tea bag to gin.

In 2023 I bought these lovely Advent boxes from the Tiny Box Company and filled them with little presents for both my daughters. (This is not a paid recommendation)

This year I had ideas to make some little stitched chocolate parcels and hang them from a branch, but that was a bit adventurous for the time I had, and then whilst looking for some card the other day I came across one that I had started a few years ago and never finished.

It is just a basic homemade, very traditional style calendar with no sweets, just pictures; but such fun to make and easy to do with the children too.

Just collect together any pictures from old Christmas cards, tags or wrapping paper – even Christmas pictures from magazines are fine. I had a mixture of materials and where a picture was too big for the window I just copied and reduced it on the photocopier.

Then make a plan of 25 differently shaped rectangles on a sheet of A4 paper, leaving a margin around the outer edges. I used a piece of thin black card for the front of mine.

Cut out the 3 opening sides with a sharp knife. Fold back the door to the inside of the card on the uncut side. This prevents the doors springing open too soon on the finished calendar.

Using the same plan on a sheet of white A4 paper cut out suitable pictures for each window and stick in place on the sheet.

Cut some double sided tape to fit around the outer edges and one or two pieces in the middle (this will hold the two sheets firmly together). Place the right side of the picture sheet to the underside of the door sheet carefully aligning the edges and press firmly together.

Stamp a number onto each door one through 25 and add a bit of decoration. Mine is quite basic and a bit rushed. I always prefer to have the 25th day a picture of the Nativity and the largest window.

Behind today’s door No 1 is a cute festive penguin.

If you want to hang it on a wall then just punch a couple of holes at the top edge with a hole punch and thread through some cord or ribbon.

Whatever style of Advent you have for yourself I hope you will enjoy opening it. X

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creating Christmas * preparing…

Like many bloggers my Christmas preparations are in full swing and I find myself in mild panic.

Having started the initial preparations and made a note of all things Christmas in my notebook I am wondering if this will be the simple and stress free Christmas I am planning, hoping for after all.

But I am raring to go now….the Christmas spirit is quite infectious – all around decorations and lights to mark the season are appearing daily in our village.

I love the time spent preparing, decorating and gift-giving but I must admit it seems to get harder to fulfill everything on the list that I want to do. The reward at the end of spending time with my friends and family and keeping up those traditions…new ones that we have made and old ones that we love to continue, is well worth the ‘busyness’ beforehand.

As part of the big pre-Christmas clean up I was determined to finish cleaning the oven this week, it had taken a while with a number of interruptions – but now it is sparkling clean – a good refresh before I begin baking the cake and making the nutroast. Cleaning out the freezer will be next…it is frost free but needs a bit of a wipe down and sort out.

Usually, throughout November as part of my plans I start stocking up on all those basic items like toilet rolls, washing up liquid, matches, foil and other household bits and pieces so I don’t have to worry about them just before Christmas when I have other things on my mind; and really I just want to focus on the absorbing the lovely array of Christmas goodies in the shops rather than the necessities. 

My initial preparations for Christmas always begin with an inspiration notebook – clippings from magazines, ideas from pinterest and I keep a note of any local events we might go to.

I have booked the hairdresser, a visit to Santa (with grandchildren of course) and the pantomime, scheduled every known appointment, event, birthdays and inset days on my calendar and moved unecessary appointments into January and have made a note of the last posting dates.

I check in last year’s notebook for the page that tells me what didn’t work last year to avoid the same mistakes this year. I always try and persuade DH that leaving the outdoor lights until ‘later’ is not a good idea as often the weather can be quite bad, making it an unecessary battle with the elements whilst balancing on a pair of steps and putting up strings of lights in wet windy weather and then connecting it to the outdoor electric socket. I also make it a rule never to decorate or paint beyond October and not to make appointments, like the dentist, if it can wait until January. These kind of things eat up time during the last few weeks running up to Christmas.

Each year I like to plan to do something a little different. Something that is festive and allows us to take time out for a day or two. This year I booked the linocutting workshop (the results you will see in another post), and I am hoping to visit Mrs Gaskell’s house in Manchester where they are doing readings from Christmas poems and stories.

Once my cards are made or bought I keep a decorated Christmas box to put them in together with the list of people who I send them to and an updated address list and stamps. I can then write my cards in any free moments or whilst watching the TV. Updating the addresses is something I must do before I can print the labels. Finish making the cards is even more critical!

I like to assign a space for presents. If they end up scattered around the house I am likely to a) forget them or b) the grandchildren might happen upon them. I usually clear a shelf high up in my wardrobe where little eyes cannot see.

So that is me more or less prepared for getting through the next 24 days. I hope you will join me for my daily creating Christmas posts starting tomorrow. I will try to document my Christmas task of the day each day as I create our joyful Christmas – although I fully expect this might not go quite to plan!

Back very soon. X