I've been busily crafting away for the holidays.
My mom made a special request this year, all gifts had to be handmade. No pasta necklaces and salt dough ornaments here; I've been on the hunt, and diving into my stock pile of craft books, to come up with some unique and useful gifts I hope she'll like.
I'll definitely share these items and photos with you, but you'll have to wait until after the holidays. Not sure if she reads this blog, but just incase, I don't want to ruin the surprise.
What I can share is this, my Christmas traditions...
1. It's a Wonderful Life
Probably the most classic movie of all time, , let alone best Christmas themed movie. I love this movie, with or with out the holidays, but I enjoy watching it every Christmas Eve night.
While everyone is singing Christmas carols, I'm happily humming the "Buffalo Gals" at the top of my lungs. I'm sure many people have the same experience with their favourite holiday movie, or even song. Owen tells me, it's not the holidays without Bruce Willis fighting Prof. Snape in Die Hard - the ultimate guy's holiday movie. Though no other movie, for me, depicts the Christmas spirit as flawlessly as this one - A depressed family man attempts suicide, has a change of heart and goes home where his family and friends are waiting to greet him. How does that not put you in the spirit!
2. Family + Baking = delicious cookies and a nice smelling house
Every year, the women in my family all get together on the weekend before Christmas to have a marathon - bake-a-thon. It's a lot of hens in the kitchen, but we make a production-line out of it. Everyone brings their recipes, bakes them and trades at the end of the day! Spritz, molasses, thumbprints, gingerbread, empire, nanaimo even little fruit marzipan - a holiday staple even though only three people actually like to eat them.
Having missed this years bake-a-thon while away working, my mother booked off today to finish up her shopping and have our own bake-a-thon. We busted out the old recipe box, cranked up the speakers on the laptop and made some pecan balls and chocolate mint patty Oreos.
3. Good morning eggs benedict and mimosas!
My mother makes pretty killer eggs benedict, but we only have it Christmas day, making it one more thing to look forward to on Christmas morning. And to drink, we have mimosas. Delicious!
4. Christmas Eve tree trimming
Since we're typically a busy household, especially around the holidays, Christmas Eve is the chance we have to sit down and enjoy the tree and revel in the holidays. This Christmas tradition spawned from a sort of disagreement but was gladly adapted into our holiday routine for several years now.
We've always had a small fake tree just like the one in the photo here, so it's easy and fast to put up and trim in little time.
We have an heirloom angel to top the tree, we call her the toilet paper angel because the part of the ornament that sits on the tree top looks like a loo roll. Kind of a crude name, especially for and angel, but when you consider - we call my grandparents tree topper, the drunk angel, due to a manufacturing oversight (too heavy for tree)...
Both toppers have seen better days, but we're afraid old TP might disintegrate, so we've started a new tradition of electing a surrogate to take her place. This years candidates were exceptional and difficult to narrow down. They included a mini sock monkey, a glass lobster ornaments and a storm trooper. Campaigning was fierce but eventually the mini sock monkey won out... It's kind of like the land of the misfit toys at my house.
Those are my holiday traditions. What are some of yours? Let me know what other traditions you have or if you share in any of the ones here.
Be safe and Happy holidays!
- Keiley
