Christmas Stories: Nine Days to Christmas

When Sir O's preschool teacher asked me to take a turn reading a Christmas story to his class, my immediate reaction was to choose Nine Days to Christmas. It's the perfect blend of culture and festivity and narrative, and we love it around here.  It's a cute introduction to the Mexican custom of Christmas Posadas, and centers around a very special star-pinata.



Because I was supposed to bring a stocking stuffer associated with my book, sir O and I set about making mini star-ornament-faux-pintatas.  Other than the 2 times I burned my fingers with the hot glue gun, it was a really easy and fun project.

I bought a tube of mini plastic gold ball ornaments, and a pack of gold birthday crowns at the party store.



I used the points on the crowns to make conical points for the stars. (Use hot glue, not craft glue, fyi).



Then I cut and folded slits to make a flat-ish surface to glue against the ornaments.



5 cones for each star. They were not perfect, but for a project with a preschooler for a sidekick, I thought they were absolutely adequate.  And the kids in his class loved them, which is the most important part, right?

Christmas Stories: The Remarkable Christmas of the Cobbler's Sons

I think what I love most about this beautiful book is that it captures the magic of the Alps, the visitation of which is near the top of my bucket list.



The Remarkable Christmas of the Cobbler's Sons is also illustrated by Barbara Cooney, and I've loved most all of her work in children's books.
It's a lovely bit of fancy and fairy tale and folk-lore that never forgets the importance of it's archetypes.  And it doesn't fail to mention the Baby Jesus either.  I'm pretty sure that's near the top of my Christmas story criteria.



If you have even a tiny soft spot for Tyrolean culture, (Heidi fans, anyone?) you will very likely fall madly in love with this book.

Spanish Fork Festival of Lights

Last weekend as we wrapped up the cookie-making madness we decided to escape from the house and postphone the massive cleanup effort.  (Truly, massive)..   So we decided to try out the lights in Spanish Fork.  After all, their billboards claimed they were the best lights in the state.

Good news: the billboards did not lie.



Bad news: the billboards did not supply the actual location of the lights.  And we did not look it up before leaving home.  The lights are way up in the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon, and we (not being aware that there was a park up there) were certain we were lost as we'd tried to follow the signs showing the way.  So we turned around and got ourselves truly lost.  Luckily we know people who are not too cheap to have data plans on their phones, so we called a few of them and soon got back on track.



The lights were incredible, and exactly what we needed at the end of that day.  Mr Renn has promised the boys that we can come back if they are good.  I can never figure out what he means by such qualifications, but here's hoping.

Mr Renn may have missed his calling in life

He turned into a gingerbread house perfecting machine the other night.



We bought our gingerbread house kit (included baked gingerbread pieces and meringue powder for royal icing) through Bountiful Baskets and it arrived looking like the corner bakery had just whipped the pieces up for us.  They were très fresh, and we felt very fancy.  Mr Renn immediately got into the spirit of the project.



I got the prosaic job of shingling the roof, then I tried to keep the kid's distracted with their graham-cracker houses while Daddy entered his element.



We are all pretty darn proud of his work.  I am beginning to entertain ideas of taking this gingerbread architecture thing seriously some year.  It could be fun without three kids hanging from our bodies.  The rock candy and the chocolate covered sunflower seeds were from Winco.  There were one or two fruity tootsie rolls rolled into insanely tiny pieces.  Mr Renn must have a knack for making small things with his hands.  Good thing he's a dentist.

Christmas Cookies

This year, in the course of 5 days, I lived in the kitchen and made lots of messes.  It's a tradition, and even though it's always a lot of stress and a lot of work, it wouldn't feel like Christmas to me without it.

So, this year we made:

Sugar Cookies
Holly Cookies
Biscotti
Spritz Cookies
Gingerbread Men
Cinnamon Meringue Stars (Zimtsterne)
Peppermint meringues
Hard Candy
and dark chocolate covered sea-salt caramels.

And my kids only ate 1/3 of it before I managed to give the rest away.



They are finally getting excited about "helping" with things like that.  Please tell me that someday their help is actually helpful?!

Christmas Stories: The Miracle of St. Nicholas

The Miracle of St. Nicholas; another awesome Christmas book that has absolutely nothing to do with gifts or Santa or magic.  (Which things are fine in moderation, but easily overdone come Christmas).



I SO wish this book were based on a true story.   It actually has very little to do with St. Nicholas, unless you are into Orthodox iconography.  It has everything to do with miracles.  The kind that happen all the time, usually under the radar. (But if you are into Orthodox iconography, the illustrations will tickle you pink - they're all done with egg tempera)

While I'm mentioning St. Nicholas, I should admit to you that St. Nicholas' offerings this year (on St. Nicholas Day) were AGAIN suspiciously reminiscent of leftover Halloween candy.  ONE OF THESE YEARS I am going to be more organized. (And PS, if St Nicholas is going to be leaving chocolate, do not place your shoes on a heater vent to receive it.  You're welcome.)

Christmas Stories: The Story of Holly and Ivy

Being a book about a girl and a doll, this book, Holly & Ivy, had the distinct possibility of coming across as a "girl's" book.  But I have to let you  know that Sir O requested it for his bedtime story 3 night in a row.  It's a bit longish for a children's book, but not outside of children's book limits.  It is, perhaps, the most magical Christmas story ever.  And Santa doesn't even get a mention.  It's a story about the kind of hope and optimism that I would desperately want to cultivate in my kids.  Plus; the idea that wishing makes a difference?  I'm inclined to believe in it.

Christmas Stories: Uncle Vova's Tree

This book, Uncle Vova's Treehas an utterly ridiculous list of things going for it.  First and foremost, it is by the Mary Poppins of Children's Book authors, Patricia Polacco.  Everything she creates is stunning and perfect.  Secondly, it is an engaging introduction into Russian Orthodox Christmas Traditions, all of which I wanted to adopt after reading the book.  And Third of all, it filled me with so much Christmas spirit I wanted to hug strangers in the grocery store the first day I read it.
You should own it, just for the warm fuzzies.

Christmas Stories: Mr. Willowby's Chrismas Tree

I added this book, Mr. Willowby's Christmas Treeto my collection because I remembered unearthing it year after year at my Grandmother's house, and the repetitive paradigm with which this story is constructed was pure delight to my soul as a small child.  Happily that appears to be a universal experience, as my boys and every other person I've encountered who remembers this book gets the same dreamy sparkle in their eyes when they speak of it.  Perfect perfect perfect for kids three and up, and has been magical in our house for getting otherwise antsy kids to sit and participate in some Christmasy story time.

Christmas Stories: A Christmas Memory

There are writers out there who tend to abuse their storytelling superpowers (Gregory MacGuire comes to mind) and who draw us in with their incredible capacity for narrative and detail, only to stomp on us with their pessimism, bitterness, and belief that overall life and people are generally bad.  Unfortunately, most of my encounters with Truman Capote have tasted this way.  Fortunately, this one story of his has miraculously (perhaps unintentionally) stuck with me as pure and honest and raw and redeemed.  And if you want to find a version of it with gorgeous, thoughtful, dreamy, idealized illustrations (by Beth Peck), then A Christmas Memory is your match made in heaven.

Despite being a childhood memory, I can't quite peg this as a children's book.  There's too much nuance for that.  But other than the (humorous) bit with the whiskey for the fruitcake, there's not really anything objectionable for children. (And I definitely get the sense that Capote edited his brains out to make that so.)

A lot of things intended to make me cry fail because I resent being manipulated.  But occasionally something that's just intending to be honest makes me bawl my eyes out because nothing shakes my soul like an honest, redeeming reminder of the realness of real life.  Throw Christmas-ness in there to boot and I'm a puddle.

I recommend it, I do.