Tis the Season

New Stockings

Our Gingerbread House

From Scratch

 

This year we did a few new things.  Our stockings were looking rather ratty.  I thought to myself, "I'm capable of making cute stockings, why have old ones?"  So I started new ones.  Dumb idea.  Who makes stockings in the middle of the Christmas season?  Thank goodness for Gabrielle and Greg.  If it weren't for her sewing half of them we wouldn't ever have finished.  Greg took all of the kids with him to watch a few basketball games.  Awesome dad!  So I could have a free evening.

I am tired of living a boxed life.  It seems in this fast paced life we want it all, and so we turn to boxed/prepackaged EVERYTHING!  We are over scheduled, over extended, over stretched.  We don't have time and energy, but we try to do it all.  In order to do it all we settle for imitation versions to stuff into our already over full schedule.  I started thinking, "How do I want my children to remember Christmas?"  I decided this year I don't want them to have memory of popping open a boxed gingerbread house.  Not that they are bad...we've done them for years.  Boxed things originated from the homemade versions.  This year we made our gingerbread house from scratch.  We had so much fun.  Mori could hardly contain her excitement/, She kept saying "THIS IS THE BEST EVER~  I can't believe we made this all by ourselves!!  It was so aromatic, it made our house smell awesome.  We'll definitely will be doing that again.

Pinterest is a favorite of my older girls.  Mori saw the peppermint tray, and  was dying to try it.  I think it turned out cute.