The [15] Posts of Christmas: Deck the Halls!

Decorating!  My little Lu has been excited to decorate for Christmas ever since Halloween was over.  She woke up on November 1st and said "Mommy, it's decorating day!".  Sadly, I had to disappoint her by telling her it wasn't for another month. 

She loves putting things up to decorate. 

This year, being our first Christmas in our century home, I too was quite excited about decorating.  I will have two Christmas posts on decorating.  Mainly because our tree, well...you'll learn all about our tree soon!

This year we decided to go simple and elegant.  This is kind of a reoccuring theme for us.  Our wedding was the same.  We had flowers and little details, but simple, yet elegant.  (I wouldn't have changed a thing about that day!)

Back to the topic.  "DECKING THE HALLS". 

I think pictures speak a 1000 words, so here are a few.

 

 

It is cleaning day today, so I'll take some more pictures once the house is all cleaned up and everything (everytoy) is in place!  





The [15] Posts of Christmas: Sinterklaas Feast and Traditionally Dutch Cuisine

Last week, proved to be a lazier week for me.  I am sorry that this post is actually a week late! 

Once Sinterklaas comes (December 5th), the Dutch would celebrate his birthday and arrival with a feast.  This is the Sinterklaas Feast.  This year we had ours on the 6th.  We started this family tradition the year before our Lu was born. 

Christmas dinner is quite the feast in itself, so we opt to have our Sinterklaas feast as a potluck. 

While living in Alberta we would invite our friends, most of which are not Dutch.  (This year we invited our family...those who are Dutch).  We always suggest that our guests try to make something "Dutch" for the feast.

One of our good friends in Alberta, loved having these culturally themed dinners.  (She even had a potluck at her house one year where everyone brought something made with bacon.  It was yummy! And fun to learn about new foods and recipes.)

From Merriam-Webster online the defition of "tradition" is "a way of thinking, behaving, or doing something that has been used by the people in a particular group, family, society, etc., for a long time" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition).  Thus making "traditional" slightly subjective to what your family has been doing for many years. 

These are some of the traditional foods that we, as a family, made this year for our Sinterklaas feast, with links to recipes online, where available. 

- Bourrecole:  Yummy mashed potatoes with kale and bacon (grease included, can also use sausage), served with salt and vinegar
- speculaas cookies:http://dutchfood.about.com/od/breadspastriescookies/r/Spicedcookies.htm spice cookies, baked until crispy.
- koek:  Spice loaf, served with or without butter.
-olie bollen: traditionally a new year's doughnut, much like the dutchie, dipped in icing sugar.
- Anything with almond flavouring.  I made almond squares...yummy and light. 
- Dutch meatball soup.  Meatballs and veggies, oh my!

The links weren't working well.  You can find many examples of Dutch dish recipes at the following website:

http://dutchfood.about.com/od/aboutdutchcooking/u/TraditionalDutchFood.htm

Let me know what you have tried.

The [15] Posts of Christmas: Sinterklaas Day

Before we started to have children we decided that we still wanted to celebrate Santa, because let's face it, it's super fun!  We didn't want Santa to take away from what Christmas is really about though. 

I don't remember exactly how it all worked while I was a kid.  My mom said that I figured out the "truth" pretty early.  That being said, I still received gifts from Santa for many years.  My hubby's family worked very much the same. 

Growing up, we never opened our presents on Christmas Day.  It was usually the day before or the day after.  Christmas we'd always go to church and sometimes have our big dinner. 

Anyways, we tried to find a way to still celebrate Santa's gift giving spirit, while also following family traditions set in the past. 

Our solution was to celebrate Sinterklaas Day.

I am pure bred Dutch, first generation Canadian.  (I say that with pride as I am very proud of my Dutch heritage, wooden head and all!, although technically I am Friesian...it's very interesting when you tell a Dutch person from the Hollands that...apparently we were a force to be reckoned with.  No worries here though, I'm a pretty peaceful person, but I do have a temper = typical Friesian!)

Anyways in the Netherlands, as well as other european countries around the Netherlands (Germany and Ukraine to name two that I am aware of), children celebrate Santa on Sinterklaas Day. 

When we decided to celebrate Sinterklaas Day, we did the research.  What is it really?  Who was Sinterklaas? 

Well Sinterklaas is just Santa Claus translated.  But the story behind the Saint Nicholas truly is inspiring.  In summary, from our internet research, he was considered a saint.  Saint Nicholas was a Spanish priest that ran a church in the Netherlands for some time.  While there he was saddened by the story of some women who couldn't afford their dowry to marry.  (imagine that eh? A time where women had to pay the hubby to marry them...not sure I'd like that...St. Nick would probably be visiting me too!).

In response to how he felt, he dropped money in little baggies down the chimneys of those women after the night fires had burned out. 

(Can you see anything similar to our rosy cheeked, white bearded, red suit and black boot wearing, round belly jiggling jolly elf?)

This dowry money was a gift.  An annonymous gift from a very kind hearted, non-magical, man. 

Unlike, the North American version, Sinterklaas rides into town on his horse, and instead of elves, he has a helper named swate pieter.  Also, similarily, but in contrast to, Sinterklaas throws fruit and treats: candy, cookies, into homes and sometimes leaves small gifts in the wooden shoes of good girls and boys. 

Santa comes to deliver Lu's gift on December 5th.  She then gets to open that on December 6th.  This allows us to dedicate the rest of the month to family fun and gatherings and to prepare ourselves to celebrate Jesus' birthday.  We still do gifts on Christmas day from each other to each other, but Santa graciously has taken a step back to remember the real reason we have this holiday. 

Mondays actual post will be about the Sinterklaas feast and some "traditional" Dutch Dishes. (this post will have to be written tomorrow though, as my Lu is up and wants to play with Mommy!)

The [15] Posts of Christmas: Buddy the elf

This year we bought an elf on the shelf.  We took it out November 30, for our week of pre-Santa spying. 

We followed the instructions and sat down with Lu to read the book.  Then she named it.  "Elf" the movie, is on Netflix right now and Lu likes watching it.  So naturally, as Buddy is the only elf our little 3 year old knows our elf on the shelf is also named Buddy.

Lu loved looking for this little guy every day.  I will admit, his hiding places weren't the most elaborate like you might see on Pinterest.  Our girl still loved looking for him daily and got so excited when she saw him. 

Buddy also served as a messenger and delivered her Christmas letter to Santa all the way to the North Pole, and a reply all the way back.  No wonder he rested on my piano lamp the next day.  He was back to his shenanigans the next day though:  hanging from the dining room chandelier. 

Here are a couple of photos. 

Lu wanted to find him again yesterday, but as Santa comes on December 5th in our home, Buddy had to return to the North Pole to prepare for Christmas Eve with Santa. ;)

The [15] Posts of Christmas: Winter Driving

I'm sorry I'm behind in my 15 posts of Christmas.  I am going to try to catch up today.  So they'll probably be shorter. 

In Alberta, you're pretty much guaranteed that once the snow starts to fall, it's there to stay.  Not so much here in Ontario. 

We got our first snowfall around November 23.  Actually we had our first snowfall back in October but it didn't even last the day.  By the end of November I was welcoming the snow, as it was getting closer to December.  Welcoming the snow, not so much the driving. 

The problem with roads in Winter here, is that the temperature doesn't always stay below freezing.  Yes this does mean that the snow often times melts (as it almost did completely this week when the temperatures rose to 10 degrees), but it also means that there is a potential for freezing rain. 

Those two words should be added to a list of swear words.  Freezing rain is the worst!  I can handle snow, but when everything is covered in ice, that is a different story.

And what do you know, the same day they call for freezing rain, I have to drive to the "city" for an ultrasound.  Fun eh? 

Anyways, long story short, the freezing rain didn't come until over night, so luckily I didn't have to drive in it.  The following day the temperature rose and most of the snow melted. 

Now today we're supposed to get 5 cm of snow, and it appears that traffic is moving slower than usual in front of my house. 

Drive safely on those roads people!  It is now Winter (even if the calendar doesn't agree).  Slow down and get rid of those distractions so that you can get to all of your Christmas destinations safely this year!

The [15] Posts of Christmas: Christmas Mice

Lu wasn't interested in making our ornament yesterday.  She was more interested in playing with some stickers that I found. 

Thus, I was having a hard time deciding on what to write about.  Then the sneaky little, scratch that, FAT mouse waddled across my kitchen floor and inspired my post. 

No I am not going to write about rodents.  I'm not going to write about old houses and cracks.  I'm going to write about Christmas mice. 

What are Christmas mice you ask?  Well for me, it's a family tradition.

Sometime while I was a child, my parents bought me three Christmas mice.  They were in a set.  One holds a present, one a candy cane and the third plays a violin.  Since that first Christmas hanging these cute little critters on my tree has become a tradition.  As are most of our Christmas ornaments. 

Strangely, I don't seem to have a photo of my Christmas mice.  I was certain I would, but I can't find it.  I will have to update this post with the photos later, once our tree is up.  (Yes we're unlike most around here and don't put up the tree until about mid month). 

When my hubby and I celebrated our first Christmas together, not yet married, we decided that we would get a new ornament every year to add to the tree.  This is another tradition for us. 

Do you have any family traditions around your tree?  Is there a special ornament that you must hang on your tree every year?

Tell me about it.

The [15] Posts of Christmas: Counting down to Advent

For the next 3 weeks I am going to try to blog daily with a Christmas blog.  Most will be about Christmas decorations that I make with my 3 year old girl.  We are attempting to make one Christmas decoration for our tree every day until Christmas!

Daddy wants a huge tree.  A short tree would look silly in our house as we have 10 foot ceilings.  He's said that he would like the angel to touch the ceiling.  Hmm...this means we need more decorations for the tree.  Our girl loves crafts!  So, what better idea than making a craft that can hang on the tree. 

Today we are going to paint a plaster ornament.

Today's post won't be about ornaments so much as it is about trees and Advent. 

We like to reserve Christmas day for the celebration of Jesus's birthday.  This is getting more challenging as our girl gets older.  When she was really young we were able to avoid Santa almost completely.  Now she is so fascinated by the big guy in red that this year she actually asked for something.  Something pretty specific too! 

Our Santa day is celebrated on December 5-7 with the celebration of Sinterklaas day.  (More to come on that this Friday). 

The rest of the month is spent gearing up for Christmas.

In our 8 years of marriage and almost 4 years of parenthood, we've developed our own Christmas traditions.  Again, I will write more on those traditions later this month. 

When it came time to celebrate Lu's first Christmas we discussed what we would do for Advent.  I personnally like the idea of counting down to Jesus' birthday.  What I didn't particularly like was feeding a child sugar filled, nutrition-lacking candy or chocolate everyday in order to countdown.  So that meant those chocolate advent calendars were out.

So what could we do that didn't involve more sugar?  (Trust me Lu gets a fair share of sugar, too much...although we limit the amount, it still happens.  After all she is 50% Dutch!)

We looked online for ideas.  There are many different suggestions on Pinterest.  Some are very cute.  We happened to be in a dollar store (which really wasn't a dollar store...) and found an advent pocket chart.  The chart had a star that could be moved from pocket to pocket in order to countdown. 

 Lovely isn't it? I particularly love the image. What better picture for Jesus' birthday countdown than an image of his actual birthday!

We decided that we would add a bit to the pocket chart.  While in a Liquidation World, we found a small pack of 21 ornaments.  Small enough to fit inside the pockets.  We picked up 3 more.  Then we found a small artificial tree on clearance.  The tree that we originally bought was extremely marked down due to the lights not working on it.  Easy fix.  New lights and it was good to go. 

Everyday leading up to Christmas, Lily gets to put a new ornament on her tree.  On the 24th the star goes on, lighting the way to the baby in the manger.  She then moves the star to the new empty pocket.  She loves doing this and we love that it doesn't involve more sugar. 

 

How do you countdown to Christmas with your family?

I'd love to hear about it in the comments section! 

Merry Christmas!