keeping traditions: Christmas decorations

As I said in my last post, David and I didn’t do ANYTHING last year along the lines of decorating for Christmas.  This year, I’m trying to be better about it — because it keeps me busy, it keeps me creative, and it’ll feel better on Christmas Day for it to look Christmasy around the house.

So with 7 days til Christmas, as the Advent calendar told me, here are Andreassen-Barker Christmas Decorations, Romanian edition.

Last year, there were no gifts.  This year, there will be stocking stuffers in our lovely Romanian stockings! (psssttt… the cuff is the Romanian flag…)

And while traditionally stocking stuffers aren’t wrapped, Christmas isn’t Christmas if there’s nothing to unwrap.  So, I repurposed some flipchart paper as wrapping paper and used a second-hand store t-shirt that I’d cut into strips for crocheting as “ribbon.”

I’d hoped to get into the forest to find some branches for a make-shift Christmas tree, but I came down with an awful cold and didn’t want to traipse in the snowy forest.  So, with some poster board we had laying around, I made a cone and then had the 3rd graders at David’s school and the kiddos in my Clubul Copiilor class give me handprints on green paper. Voila — Christmas tree! (Although, I need to make a topper of some sort)

At work, with our Christmas campaign, I’ve been making posters, talking on the radio to promote, supervising volunteers, and making tons of candles.  Here are a few I made and brought home to liven up our place.

I’ve also got a garland to hang up that I made using these cool snowflakes I learned to make.  Just waiting for David to come home to hang it as it’s a two-person job!

This weekend I made DOZENS of chocolate chips cookies, thanks to brown sugar from my mom and chocolate chips from the Monday family!  Those will be shared with neighbors.

Speaking of neighbors, since last Christmas, I’ve been crocheting little snowflakes so that I can hang one on each doorknob of the folks in my bloc.  I’ve got all of them crocheted and this week will work on stiffening them and adding tags and hooks.  Hopefully they will be done just in time for Christmas.

So that’s what I’ve been doing to get ready for the upcoming holiday.