Creating a comfortable life one moment at a time
Tomorrow we begin one of our favorite holiday traditions: the Advent Box. Our box came from Restoration Hardware ages ago, but nowadays you can find Advent boxes at Target, Walmart, and lots of other places. You could even make one of your own by stringing up baby socks like this:
Or ordering one like this on Etsy that you just print out and assemble:
Paperglitter is offering an entire party’s worth of free Thanksgiving printables. You can find placemats and other goodies for the kids’ table, plus everything from napkin rings to banners if you want to liven up your festivities. The coolest part is that you can change the wording on a bunch of the printables so you can personalize the set for your family.
I have a dozen or so extra kids coming over tonight to make Christmas crafts, which means I’ll be bustling around today trying to get everything ready. This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions: the kids make ornaments and other Christmas-y creations and then sell them to the captive audience at our annual cookie exchange (mostly made up of their mothers and other sympathetic creatures). The proceeds from the sale go to a local charity or family. I love that the kids start the holidays focused on giving. I’ll have details from the party later in the week. Wish me luck!
I was going to play hooky from life and see the new Twilight movie with some friends this afternoon, but life had other ideas. So instead I’m staying home with the latest family member to get pink eye. As sorry as we feel for our kids when they’re not feeling well, isn’t it nice to set them up in a cozy little nest and have some one-on-one time? The new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book arrived yesterday, so between that and Harry Potter 7 Part 2, my little invalid will forget all about his pink eyes. And of course we have to read our favorite sick day book, Alexander and the Magic Mouse. Do you know this book by Martha Sanders? We have my copy from when I was small. It’s quite battered, but we all love it and pull it out whenever someone is home sick in bed.
Do you have fun plans for the weekend? Tim and I get to dress up and go to a big fundraising benefit gala thanks to a generous friend. Assuming we don’t get pink eye, that is. And I’ve heard whispers of snow flurries this weekend. I’d better make sure we all have boots that fit.
Have a great weekend, and please come back next week for more Thanksgiving and Christmas ideas.
I love this cake. It’s great any time of year, but especially during the holidays. Doesn’t it say “merry” in big capital letters? A friend asked for the recipe, so here it is (after the jump).