Christmas Countdown Week 4

I had this post ready to go and was just waiting to get my photos uploaded before posting when LO AND BEHOLD my camera went and freaked out. Literally crazy. It thinks the battery door is open so it won't turn on, which means I'm having trouble uploading pictures from the camera to the computer. Bummer. So, for those of you who were waiting to see what we did to finish up our Christmas countdown, here's the text and a few bad cell phone photos. Sigh. I hope to get the camera issue fixed soon; thanks for your patience in the mean time.

Hard to believe Christmas is here already! I feel like December just FLEW by. We had a busy week, and had to be a little flexible with our activities due to bad weather.  Check out how we wrapped up our Christmas countdown below.

Day 22: Mistletoes craft.  I saw this idea on Pinterest and had to do a version of it.  It poured some green fingerpaint onto a plate, pushed Ry's feet into the paint (one at a time) and then stamped the feet on a 5.5 inch x 8.5 inch piece of cardstock.  Later, I added the word "Mistletoes" and bow at the top.  I plan to use these as thank you notes. They turned out so cute!

Day 23: Wrap presents.  Yeah, there's no way I would be able to wrap presents with a busy toddler running around. I imagine he would have WAY too much fun ripping the paper to shreds as I tried in vain to wrap items. I decided to avoid that catastrophe and just wrap the presents after he went to bed.  We left them out on our 3-season porch until after he was asleep on Christmas Eve, then moved the gifts in under the tree.  His little face was so cute when he saw the all the packages under the tree on Christmas morning!  He was like, "WOW!!"

Day 24: Christmas Eve service at church and t-shirt tradition.  It was a blessing to take part in our Christmas Eve service at church this year.  We sang several carols, the choir sang, and there was a vocal duet.  I accompanied on piano and that was challenging, but I enjoyed it.  I have to admit, though, I'm glad I don't have to practice the arrangement for the choir number anymore. I've been playing it multiple times almost every day for the last 2 months! Whew!!!  After the music, our pastor spoke for a few minutes on Christ.  Truly, Christ is the whole point of Christmas - not just his birth, but his life, death, and resurrection as well.

Also on Christmas Eve, I did our T-Shirt Tradition.  I know most of you have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'll elaborate.  A lot of families give their children special pajamas to wear Christmas Eve, etc.  I have kind of an obsession with t-shirts and have quite an extensive collection: t-shirts that have funny quotes or cute designs, or commemorate an event or vacation spot.  This is our 3rd year doing the Christmas Eve T-Shirt Tradition.  I typically pick a theme and buy coordinating t-shirts for M and myself (last year was Keep Calm shirts from LOL Shirts).  This year, we felt that Ry was old enough to join in, so we did a shirt for him as well.  I had originally planned to do a different theme, but I came across this Hobbit inspired t-shirt and knew I just had to do something similar for Ry.  Of course, once I picked his shirt design, I had to carry on the theme for both M and myself.  In the interest of frugality this year, I did iron on transfers and "made" the shirts myself.  I already had a couple of plain t-shirts hanging around that I never wear (because they're plain and boring), as did M.  I actually sewed a new shirt for Ry using this tutorial from Dana Made It and one of M's old shirts that had a stain on it.

Ry's shirt says, "I Eat Like a Hobbit" (inspired by this one) surrounded by a list of Hobbit meals (the book talks about the Hobbits eating 7 meals a day and sometimes I feel like Ry does too! It was perfect for him!).

M's shirt is a graphic of Gandalf, Bilbo and the 13 dwarves similar to this one.  I wanted something a little more understated, so I went with a simple  J.R.R. Tolkien quote: "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." 

Fun fact:  You can download some Lord of the Rings/Hobbit fonts for free here.  It totally makes everything look more authentic!

Anyway, I digress. The point of our t-shirt tradition is that we wear the t-shirts Christmas morning while we open presents and take pictures. It's wicked fun. What will next year's theme be, I wonder?

Hope your Christmas season was jam packed with blessings and memories. Mine was!