Archive | Handmade Holidays and Celebrations RSS feed for this section

There was finally a moment yesterday where I was not in a flurry of activity and so it seemed fitting to get this years decking of our halls in the books so to speak.  For anyone who has not been around here before, our families tradition is to hold to the old ways of celebrating Christmas (at the Catholic way) which is to keep advent as a time of preparation and penance and hold off on all the merriment until Christmas Eve.  Throughout the years we have made a few changes like not waiting until the bitter cold of winter sets in to put up the lights outside (things we never had to worry about in Florida) and getting a tree while they are still being sold (I have had to run out and buy a fake tree once or twice) but for the most part, we prepare by making the ornaments that we will need, sewing a few new Christmas wrapping bags (see explanation here) and having everything ready to go so we can just spend Christmas Eve or a few days prior getting the house ready for our favorite time of year.

This year we have a tree in pretty much every room of the house.  The little boys spent a day scouting our woods for Christmas trees to bring inside, big ones, little ones and tiny ones like the one I have next to the sink.   Truly I think I will just keep it there until it looks bad.

This year I got the shingles just as I was in the middle of creating our mama made gifts and I recovered (thanks to pulling all the holistic tricks out of my bag and putting my essential oils to work) just in time to go to all the Christmas week parties, buy all the foods and everything else that consumes every moment of the week before Christmas.  Luckily I had purchased most of the gifts for the kids and so no one was left wanting but I do intend on getting those handmades done and ready for Epiphany.

This year since Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday we departed from our usual salmon and instead had all the meats, smoked chicken, smoked turkey, bacon, spiral ham and all the trimmings followed by our annual Prime Rib dinner on Christmas day.

So we are enjoying our Christmas vacation by staying warm and cozy, watching all the Christmas movies, making gingerbread houses and cookies and keeping Christmas tunes playing throughout the house.  It’s our favorite time of year and I thank God for giving us all this time together as our children get older and older and we won’t be all together like this much longer.  It is both bittersweet and a blessing and this mama is going to squeeze every minute of merriment and enjoyment out of this beautiful season.

So how was your Christmas?  I can’t wait to hear!

So I am just going to pretend that I haven’t been absent from here since March, k?  I’m also not going to hem and haw about how my memory card that held our entire maple syrup season as well as all of spring adventures was wiped out by a well meaning child of mine.  Nope, not going to do that because it can’t be undone so its time for me to just come back here and get on with it.  I love this space and I especially love all of the readers and friends that have come from my being here over the years.

So yesterday, we had a few friends over to celebrate the 4th of July.  A few friends who filled every corner of our home with love, laughter and great conversation.  Did I mention that they all brought yummy food with them and I forgot to get a picture of the table full to brim.  Just imagine every little bit of space on our table, completely full of wonderful dishes.

I got bit by the decorating bug the day before and the girls and I made a new wreath for the door to replace our 3 year old one, decorations for the table and some outfits (which I also forgot to get a picture of).  I love it when our home is full.  Friends are such a blessing to us.  We ate and laughed.  There may have been adult jello push pops involved as well as cupcake pushpops for children.  The winning entry of our dessert contest was an amazing cheesecake with beautiful wild picked raspberries and blueberries.

Poppa got to use his new toy received for Fathers Day and his upcoming birthday to pull everyone around for a hayride over and over again and the weather cooperated for us to spend the entire day and evening outside.   I do think that the fireworks and sparklers managed to keep the bugs away and the evening was finished with a bonfire that was bigger than this mama would have liked but it all ended well and then men folk were happy with all the fire and fun.   The refrigerator at this moment, cannot hold one more piece of food thanks to the leftovers which  we are still eating as I type this though the little break from the kitchen is quite a good thing today.  Rest is good after so much fun.

We even got our little baby raccoon rescue adopted out to a good home (I should probably tell you about this tomorrow as it has been quite an adventure raising a little wild raccoon).

So much goodness happening here everyday and I can’t wait to share it with all of you.  I hope your 4th was fun and full of love and thank you to those of you who are here with me.