Ever have one of those days where you REALLY don’t want to be at work/school? That’s me today. It’s a Friday, my supervisor is already gone for the weekend AND we’re ordering pizza for lunch! I’m having such a hard time concentrating on my work, so I thought I would take this time to blog.
As much as I love Christmas, I tend to love the pre-Christmas time even more. The anticipation of things to come, decorated malls and stores, Christmas music abound. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
Earlier this week I began my favourite pre-Christmas tradition. Painting houses. My mom and I started this tradition many many years ago after seeing the village a friend of hers had created. There are white ceramic Christmas Village houses that you can buy at Wal-Mart and craft stores like Michaels for from $5-$10 usually. Over the past 12 years we’ve developed quite a village. I take great joy in unpacking them each holiday season. I can tell which ones were done at the beginning as my painting skills were sub-par at best, but I find it also nice to see the progress over the years. Below is the completed village over the years. Instead of candles I put a set of white mini-lights in and around to create the glow.
As much as I love Christmas, I tend to love the pre-Christmas time even more. The anticipation of things to come, decorated malls and stores, Christmas music abound. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
Earlier this week I began my favourite pre-Christmas tradition. Painting houses. My mom and I started this tradition many many years ago after seeing the village a friend of hers had created. There are white ceramic Christmas Village houses that you can buy at Wal-Mart and craft stores like Michaels for from $5-$10 usually. Over the past 12 years we’ve developed quite a village. I take great joy in unpacking them each holiday season. I can tell which ones were done at the beginning as my painting skills were sub-par at best, but I find it also nice to see the progress over the years. Below is the completed village over the years. Instead of candles I put a set of white mini-lights in and around to create the glow.
I realize it looks a little like the houses are all on fire, but in reality it actually looks quite nice
The Farmer's Market - a work in progress
The Bookstore - my next project!
What are your favourite Pre-Christmas/Holiday traditions?
This is such a cute tradition! I love all the housese
ReplyDeletethe houses are cute! we have our own village too. at first, me and my mom painted them but then we just got lazy and bought pre-painted ones. sad i know, lol.
ReplyDeletei find everyone is hyping christmas too early this year..like the santa clause parade is a week too early for me! we generally put up our stuff after the parade, but this year it'll be like, a week or 2 later
Cute Houses!!
ReplyDeleteFavourite Christmas traditions...I could probably go on forever....
I love going to hunt for and cut down our tree. The entire family goes (which is slowly getting bigger and bigger) and its always miserably cold, but always fun.
I love decorating. Its become something that my mom and I do. We have a village as well, but its all store bought, we're not that creative.
"C" and I have started a new tradition the last couple of years. He bought a little fake Christmas tree that we put on his desk, and every year I drag him into a store to buy a new ornament to put on our tree. We pick it together and this way we'll have decorations when we finally get a house of our own :)
Hrmmmm... I guess with Leanne's family, I kind have been adopted into their traditions... So I guess the tree hunting is always a tops on that list.
ReplyDeleteAs for my own family, can't think of many "pre-Christmas traditions". When my grandparents had their own house, I used to always go over every year and help put up the tree. Kind of a nice night spent alone with my grandparents, and then just my grandmother after my grandfather had passed. Even in the last few years, when her mind wasn't all that well; Leanne and I used to go over and decorate the house for her. You could tell it made her so happy to see all the decorations hung up etc.
Those are so cute :-) I've been buying a new house/shop for my growing collection each year whenever I visit a Weihnachtsmarkt, but doing them like your mom & you do is also a very sweet idea!
ReplyDeleteI haven't had much time to check on all of my favorite blogs lately, so I am glad I had a little extra time today to pop in :-) I wish you a great weekend!
btw, just noticed your new lay out... pretty cool!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was little, Christmas Eve used to drag on, so my Aunt mentioned watching a bunch of movies to pass the time. Now every Christmas Eve, since I was 8, my sister and I line up all our favourite movies and watch them one by one. Its getting harder each year because I have to work during Christmas Eve, but I still watch a couple :)
ReplyDeletethat is such a sweet tradition!! x
ReplyDeleteOh how lovely... my favourite thing about chrissie is catching up with friends and family x
ReplyDeleteAaah new layout! How exciting! I like it :)
ReplyDeleteAnd umm yaaay Christmas exchange. The thing is... I don't think there are enough people who want to do it. I mean I'm sort of hoping I'll get a wave of enthusiastic Christmassy bloggers at the last minute, but HMM I just don't know.
Feel free to tell other blogfriends!!! I'm going to start just leaving people little messages. I really think it could be tons of fun.
xoxoxox
P.s. I love your little village. I laughed so hard at that part about 'looks like they're on fire'.
Oh, how nice! This is a wonderful tradition you have! : ) I have never heard of it, really! Me, I love dressing up the Christmas tree. I have realized that when I moved to the south of Italy, where people rarely cultivate this custom- it's simply too hot, and there're no big forests to get the trees from. They usually buy the hideous plastic "bushes" in the supermarkets... Blehhh!
ReplyDelete