The end of countdown and such a magical Christmas eve

The countdown is over, Christmas is finally here! Yesterday was just as beautiful and full of joy as Christmas eve can ever be. The last two suprises on our Christmas calendar where easy peasy, no more tasks... On 23rd she got the Frozen dvd and watched it twice while us parents were making the last minute Christmas cooking, cleaning, baking and running errands. Yesterday there was a note that said to look under the tree. And there was a breakfast dish set for both of them (bowl, plate and mug), Frozen theme for her and Cars theme for our car maniac little man.

And we did manage to decorate the tree, after I got a new set of lights from the supermarket Christmas hell.

We spent the Christmas eve at Grandma's. Family, dinner, santa and joy, what more could one wish for Christmas?

My input for the family dinner was this cake, husband made The ham. Of course we made some preparations for our own Christmas time, but there was still plenty of time left to just chill. No running-like-crazy for this family this Christmas. What is not cleaned needs not to be cleaned. No sweat, we are not spending the holidays neither in the toilet nor the fridge.

When we got home at night, there were even more presents waiting under the tree! We had made this car track t-shirt for daddy. He was very happy with the back massage and the kids loved the two little cars that I bought to go with the t-shirt. This was the first Christmas for our toddler to actually understand what's going on, and he was just overjoyed. He got plenty of cars from Santa and woke up 10 times during last night screaming CAR CAR CAR. Our 5-year-old was just so happy and on her best behavior for the whole day, I was so amazed. What a great Christmas! Today we'll just rest and let it all sink in.

**

All and all I'm very happy how our Christmas calendar turned out, we were all filled with Christmas spirit and the house was ready for celebration with no sweat. Win win.

Allmost there...

It's allmost Christmas! 

I had planned all kinds of decoration tasks for the Christmas calendars last few days... but then there was a change of plans, our calendar opener left to a sleep-over at Granny's.  So I had to whip up something new.... and it wasn't very succesful. Oh well...

Yesterday morning we had very little time before Grandma came and picked her up. The calendar task was to create a "Christmas spirit reservoir" for the year to come, a big picture with all happy things drawn/written/glued. The plan was to take it with her and ad more to it with the grandparents, but we forgot to pack it. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

Today's task was to decorate the Christmas tree that my husband brought home yesterday. "Is that all??" she asked. Sigh. Yes, that was all. And to make it even worse, we realized that last year the Tree lights had broken and we never replaced them, so we could not decorate the tree after all! Oh well, maybe tomorrow...

But. The house is now pretty and comfy and christmassy with all the deco and sheep skins and wool blankets. And all the presents are wrapped! And we've got cookies! Christmas may come. 

(Allthough it might be a good idea to wipe clean the livingroom table...again. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...)

Yet another Christmas window (and even more gingerbread)

Our secret Christmas elf had noticed, that it's only four nights till Christmas but there wasn't any decorations in the kid's room. So, our task today was to make a Christmas window (again).

We cleaned the room, washed the window and then created this scene of santa landing next to a house (with a patio) at night.

The elf (pretending to be santa) and the reindeers we had from previous years, everything else we made today. And we still had time left to finally decorate the gingerbreads!

I prepared this setup with all the decorations and different colours of frosting, and invited the others to come and create. 

And we had so much fun!

The result is... creative, colorful, fun, joyful! What else could you ever hope for Christmas?

Gingerbread, gingerbread, gingerbread rock...

We've had a very gingerbread-smelling two days here, and it is really starting to feel like christmas. 

Yesterday our secret elf had left a cookie cutter in the calendar, along with a note that said that it's time to make a huge pile of gingerbread... ...and a gingerbread house. We had a bit of misfortune with the dough, so we only managed to make the cookies yesterday. But that was plenty!

How many hands do you see in the next picture, how many bakers? The answer: two bakers and one super-fast everywhere-climber-dough-stealer...

Today in the calendar was some colourful sprinkles, in the note a request to decorate the cookies we made yesterday and to bake and decorate a gingerbread house. Alot to do, especially since we had guests today. So... we still haven't decorated the cookies, but we have two very special gingerbread houses. Well... ...one house and one castle!

Inspiration for the  prezel rod walls came from this cool cabin. We made windows with gelatine sheets and put tiny flickering led candles inside.

While us girls were tinkering with the cabin, my husband built a very impressive fort.

Note the round towers and roofs! He made the towers with paper towell rolls while the pieces were still hot.

Only a week, and then...

Well hello there! It's been three busy days and tired nights... ...so here comes three days of Christmas calendar at one post.

On tuesday our little calendar-opener was at a sleepover at grandma's, and we didn't get her home until late in the evening. We had cleaned the house while she was away, and in the calendar was a note that said: "Did you notice that the Christmas boxes are down from the attic? Go on and decorate like crazy! After that you'll get real Christmas porrige with cinnamon and sugar and almonds and all." And she couldn't be more excited!

She found the almond in her bowl, what a suprise... 

Here's some of our decorations. Everything up high or between the window glasses. Toddler proofing...

 Yesterday was a busy day and no time for a calendar task. So in the calendar she found this small craft supply set. 

Today we turned our coat cupboard into a snowman! This was such a great idea that I found in Pinterest. So much fun! And how cool is our Frosty, huge nose and everything.. ...love it!

But where's our breakfast?

Today in our Christmas calendar was an elf with a note. The elf said that she has five siblings and they're gone hiding. Who can find them?

With every elf there was a piece of breakfast. (Oatmeal baggies, smoothies, raisins and wholegrain snack crackers) Not a very healthy breakfast by any standard, but that would have just been boring! 

We put the elves between the glasses in our dining room window. (There are not that many toddler safe places for decoration in our house...) Now they are peeking in, waiting for someone to clean the house so that we could take out the rest of the Christmas decoration.

Christmas calendar days 11-13

 

This weekend we went to a Sca event. In a nutshell it means medieval reenactment for three days. It took me some thinking how to organize the Christmas calendar for those three days. On friday we were busy packing and travelling, saturday away from home, and today travelling again and now, well, at home but soooo tired. But these three days turned out to be a huge succes!

On friday morning in the calendar was a little bag of peppermints and a note that said:

Here are some candy cane seeds so you can grow your own candy canes! So we planted the candy cane seeds (in rice since there wasn't enough sugar in the cupboard), and on sunday when we came home they had miraculously grown. And, as we had candy canes conviniently at hand, sunday's calendar task was to make snowman soup. 

For the soup you need:

Hot chocolate broth

Dried snowballs (mini marshmallows)

Snowman's chocolate buttons

Candy cane walking sticks

 Such a great idea, that I found in Pinterest. And our five-year-old loved it! She was so eager to come home to see if the canes had grown at all, and oh the joy when she noticed that they had.

 
Then there was left to decide how to execute saturdays calendar suprise medieval style. We allready have a basket full of wooden horses and felt balls etc but lets face it, one basket for three days and two kids is not that much. There was an immediate need for new medieval toys! So the Christmas calendar was a great opportunity to make and give them a new pair of medievally appropriate ragdolls.

I made the dolls following this super easy tutorial by miss Gioia. Their clothes are mimicing viking style because we reenact vikings ourselves. Viking toys for viking kids.

And they love their dolls! Mission completed.