Getting into the season
Yesterday we were supposed to be out to a day of workshops about “A Tudor Christmas” but M woke up feeling very under the weather so we cancelled and stayed home and took it easy for the day.
I put up an “Advent calendar” of Christmas activities on the living room wall on Thursday night. There is a star for every day and on the back I’ve printed something Christmas related to do that day. L noticed the stars as soon as he came downstairs and M wanted to know what they were alll about.
He looked under number 1 and yesterday’s activity was making Christmas pillow cases. It’s probably as well we weren’t out all day because they took a lot longer than I anticipated. We used fabric paint in gold and pearlescent white to make foot and handprint angels on the pillowcases. M helped me alot with painting L’s hands and feet and positioning them on the pillowcase. We painted over the shapes to get a thicker colour and fill in the prints and then dried them on the radiator. Then I ironed them to fix the paint, but still alot came off in the wash afterwards.
In the evening A went out to his work’s Christmas do and then stayed in bed all this morning recovering! So we did stuff around the house and were very lazy til A surfaced at lunchtime. Then we had a drive out to look at the Christmas decorations and the pets at the garden centre, where we also got some lunch. On the way there we listened to a CD of advent music I downloaded mostly from here. We usually listen to something like the Best Christmas Album in the World Ever during December but by Christmas we are usually sick of the songs and in any case I think the CD is in the loft somewhere. Advent songs instead of Christmas ones seems to set the tone better somehow. When we find the other CDs we’ll probably swap them around through the month.
Today’s Advent idea was making the Advent wreath for tomorrow, so when we got back A and I sorted out the candles and stuck them into the oasis and then dismantled a small wreath I bought to use to decorate ours. After tea and Strictly Come Dancing we decorated around the candles and finally fastened some ribbon around to neaten it all up.
Tomorrow we’re going to a Christingle service our Church is having for the first Sunday in Advent and then in the afternoon Gressenhall has a Christmas event on we’re planning on going to.
