preparations: part I

These past few weeks leading up to our Christmas celebration have been filled with lots of peaceful moments amidst the everyday hustle and bustle that life has been bringing our way.

We started our official winter break from schooling two Fridays ago and the much-anticipated respite from formal academics has been welcomed with wide open arms by children and parents alike. Now that Mike and I are sharing in the homeschooling responsibilities, we were both really looking forward to these several weeks during the Christmas season where we could simply let our children spent all their waking time playing, playing, playing!

We pulled out our bin of winter favorites that we keep set aside for special reading this time of year. Some of our favorites include (but are not limited to!)...

Tracks in the Snow
The Big Snow
A Little House Christmas
The Tale of Three Trees
The Nutcracker story
Owl Moon

We've also been reading (and attempting to memorize) Luke 2:1-20 which tells of the birth of Jesus and have been practicing our singing of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Sophia is taking special pride in being able to recall all of the people and their actions along with their certain day of Christmas!

There was a theme with our decorating this year:

if you can't make it or do it with your hands, then don't do it at all!

We let the children decorate the tree once I strung the lights onto it. Allowing them to decorate how and with what they chose has produced a beautiful tree with lot of empty spots, several broken ornaments and a few that go missing each day as they are used as toys during play time.

I also rehung my favorite Martha holiday idea from last year that was made last year with a few simple items: a wooden embroidery hoop, red paint, festive ribbon and gingerbread reindeer.


And although the gingerbread recipe requires a lot of cookie-making enthusiasm (and time), the wonderful, spicy aroma that this Scandinavian-inspired mobile brings to your home is well worth the baking time.

It seems that each Christmas I make a new set of fabric Christmas trees for my mantle. Last year I made these Stacking Fabric Christmas Trees that I first read about on SouleMama. This year it was these gorgeous wool felt trees that I read about on Wise Craft. They look wonderful and wintry. Simple and adding a lot to the feeling of coziness over here!

{more to about our Christmas preparations to come tomorrow!}