Advent Calendar

I finished up my advent calendar that I planned and bought the materials for just after last Christmas, now I'm ready for December 1 to roll around.  It is a series of 24 little pockets joined together with some double fold bias tape.  I bought a Christmas-y charm pack so I didn't even have to cut the squares.  It was still quite a bit of sewing though.  And the numbers are just stickers.  I couldn't think of any more durable way to do the numbers that wouldn't take all year to do.  So we'll see how durable they end up being.

I will definitely be putting a chocolate for Henry into the pockets (must remember to fill only one pocket at a time so there is no temptation for a little boy to eat all 24 at once).  And I want to put a little slip of paper with a Christmas activity on it.  Even though Henry can't read the paper I think it will be nice to tell him in the morning what we'll be doing.  Christmas is going to be so fun this year!

The Christmas Season so far

We are well into the swing of the Christmas season at this point.

We put up our tree and decorations a few weeks ago. I usually wait for December 1 but I bought a new tree this year and wanted to try it out. Every year I end up reading some sort of article about having a "green" Christmas and I always read about how bad the artificial ones are - full of phthalates and lead that will come off on little Henry's hands when he touches it. And I just couldn't get it out of my head, I knew I wouldn't be able to relax every time I saw Henry near the tree. And I have never had any desire for a real tree, seems like a real nuissance and just isn't part of my own Christmas tradition.

So I bought a vintage aluminum tree off ebay and I am quite in love with it. It is also just a bit smaller than our previous tree which I like now that we want Henry to have lots of room to run around. I was a bit upset that you can't put lights on aluminum trees but it catches the light so beautifully I love it even without lights.

And of course we also have our streamers and nativity scene up.

Above is Henry helping to decorate and below is Henry very gently touching the tree. The official rule is no touching but he is always gentle so we often let it slide.

This weekend we added some handmade decorations. This blog post on Michele Made Me inspired Kevin and I to make paper snowflakes for the first time in forever.

And we got Henry in on the decorating action again by getting him to paint this Christmas tree that Kevin made for him.

And then came the most exciting part! We had Henry open his first Christmas present of the year. We wanted to give him the wooden farm animals that Kevin and I made years ago along with a plastic barn I found. And we thought they were a pretty special gift that we didn't want to get lost in the pile of presents he'll likely be receiving on Christmas Day. So we gave them to him on Sunday. It was also perfect timing because he's been into animals for awhile and is just recently into making his toys "eat". So a couple weeks ago I quickly made some accessories for the farm: some hay, a pile of carrots, a bucket, and a trough. So now the animals can eat.

On Sunday morning he opened the present. And it was perfect! He really liked it. He took each thing out of the barn one by one, saying what it was and making the corresponding sound to go with it as he went. And he plays with it. He's been playing with the set a lot. Making the animals eat (sometimes eating each other!), making them kiss each other, and playing out who knows what other scenarios he has in his head. Sometimes some very exciting sounds accompany the play. I just love to see him doing this sort of play and even more so when it is with toys I made myself.

So far Christmas 2011 is pretty great, I am going to make sure to savour every minute of the rest of it.

A Visit with Santa

We took Henry to visit Santa this weekend. It was really fun. We looked at pictures of Santa and read books about Santa last week so he knew exactly who he was and was excited to see him. He didn't want to sit on his lap but he did seem to like Santa. These are the best pictures, there are pictures from last year here.

Homemade Christmas Gifts Part One

I want to do a post to record all the homemade Christmas gifts that I made this year.

I made the big bag from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing for my sister in law. I managed to squeeze enough fabric out of a denim skirt and used a cool fly table cloth for the lining.

And a little zip up pouch to match.

I made a tote bag with a butterfly applique for my older sister.

And a couple of pillowcases for her too since she loves butterflies.

A little make up bag for my younger sister that I put a few homemade soaps into. I used this tutorial from Noodlehead.

We used our printer and some shrinky dink paper to make some magnets of the many faces of Henry for Grandparents and Aunties. We got the idea from here.

A Banana Republic Hat with mittens that I sewed up from this pattern. I sewed a pair from a knit material and a pair from fleece and put them together to make lovely lined mittens, didn't even need elastic to make them stay on.

An antimacassar to protect the back of my mum's favourite chair.

From left to right I made the Amelia Earhart Aviator Cap, Iceland Earflap Cap, Fancy Ribby Hat for Henry, Banana Republic Hat, and another Iceland Earflap Cap.

Henry's First Christmas

Henry has had a lovely first Christmas. We have been celebrating Christmas the past 4 days with various friends and family. Henry got loads of presents. He loves seeing new things right now so he loved every single toy.

Here he is opening his natural wood blocks. I am happy to report that he likes them. I was lucky to find a candy tin that fits them perfectly and he's very into putting them in and taking them out.


Here he is playing with the paper!

Henry Meets Santa

There was no line for the Santa at the mall this afternoon so Henry had a quick visit.

Henry was very interested in Santa but soon got fed up.

Christmas Cake and Pudding

I made a Christmas Pudding and 2 Christmas Cakes this past week giving them plenty of time to mature before Christmas time.

This is the pudding ready to be steamed
This is the cake batter and the 2 cakes out of the oven