Christmastime is Here...

[shastastwin]

" ... happiness and cheer. Fun for all, what children call their favorite time of year!"

It's December, Advent season, Christmastime! Welcome to the thread for all things Christmasy --- movies, music, food, celebrations, and more! Drop in and talk about your favorites, new traditions, whatever tickles your fancy.

Are there old specials you can't miss? New movies or albums you've been dying to check out? Tell us about them.

For us, this year is special and different because it's the first with our baby boy (the first grandchild on both sides, so we're expecting him to be a *little* spoiled come Christmas Day). It certainly brings a new measure of understanding to the Christmas story for us.

I'm still working my way into the Christmas spirit because it's been such a wild year, but soon I'll have Christmas jazz, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and more playing nonstop throughout the day. Lauren Daigle's new Christmas album, Behold, is also on our playlists for the season.

Our pastor is doing a series on Advent following the candles of the Advent wreath, and we have a choir cantata coming up on the 18th.

We have multiple celebrations with family coming up — two with my wife's family, one with mine, and then one at our house with both sets of parents.

What does your Advent/Christmas look like this year? What's new or the same?

[fantasia]

Well this is highly embarrassing but I have never understood the lyrics to 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' until you posted them just now stwin.

Well I have a four year old and a two year old and it makes every holiday more fun, though a good deal more hectic.

Our new thing this year is that my mom gave us a homemade piece of advent artwork (actually, I think it was partially a kit she expanded on)... it has all of the Nativity characters on it and each day you read a little story that starts with the Manger and ends with the baby Jesus. It includes little felt figures that you add to the painting every day.
Admittedly we're in a boring part of the story that lists off all of the animals that might have been present.

We also managed to catch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Charlie Brown Christmas on TV, but we missed Grinch and Frosty. That's ok though.

I've been listening to Christmas music since early November (yep, I'm one of THOSE people ). My favorites are Mannheim Steamroller, Transiberian Orchestra, and Pentatonix. My kiddos prefer Peter Hollens. (Speaking of which, my current favorite Pentatonix's 'O Come All Ye Faithful' is SOOO fun.)

This year we're trying something new on both sides of the family. The adults are doing gift exchanges. All family members just have too much money to spend on, well, STUFF, that nobody needs, so we thought this would be a much better way to go for all involved. I'm excited. The kids are exempt so I'm sure they'll get loaded up.

Normally baking cookies is my favorite Christmas tradition, but due to gestational diabetes, I cannot eat cookies right now (well, I can have about one a day) so it's lost it's luster a bit. I'm determined though to make a lot of cookies in the upcoming weeks to share with our friends and neighbors.

[coracle]

In the Southern Hemisphere Christmas happens in summer, so it has all the smells of freshly cut grass, flowers in full bloom, and gardens producing new vegetables (new potatoes are popular as part of Christmas dinner).

So far, I have bought a Christmas tree - a real pine tree about 6 feet tall, cut on the morning I bought it. It's standing in my lounge waiting for decorations. Since last year I have owned a tree stand with three huge screws to hold the trunk, and a big space to hold water to keep it fresh in the hot weather.
I have a lot of relations in UK, and some friends in North America, so I have already sent off a batch of Christmas cards. And I have been munching through a packet of Christmas fruit mince tarts.

[wild rose]

In Zambia Christmas in right in the rainy season Rain for Christmas may ruin it for those up north, but down there it is something every prays for, after two months of drought you are glad for rain on Christmas.

That being said, I am enjoying a white Christmas this year since I went back home for the Christmas season.

While at the school in Zambia we decorated it there for the Christmas play, that included making a little stable from two old doors, a few boards and some straw and hay it actually came out very nice, I'll see if I can get picture loaded up.

Here at home the manger scene has been put up, but that is about it. I'll have my hands full decorating since everyone else is really busy and I don't have much to do. I'm hoping we get a real tree this year, but that will be much later, since they don't start selling them here any earlier than the twentieth

When it comes to Christmas music, my favorite of favorite to listen to is Third Days Christmas Offerings. I love that album so much. I also enjoy listening to Josh Groban's Noel. I recently discovered Home Free and after watching a few clips on Youtube I plan to get their Christmas album Full of Cheer. Also, being a big country fan I enjoy any country Christmas music that isn't too depressing. (there are some REALLY sad Christmas songs out there, lol, kinda ruins the spirit of the season for me, haha )

[fantasia]

It's so fun to hear about Christmas in other parts of the world.

I'm attempting to plan a big pre-Christmas weekend of fun for my own little family. I think we're going to camp out under the Christmas tree Thursday or Friday night with some homemade peppermint hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. And then I'm hoping we can make some Christmas goody plates for our friends and neighbors. We've wanted to do this for years but have never managed it.

[johobbit]

It's so fun to hear about Christmas in other parts of the world.

It is indeed!

It's nice you could experience a bit of Christmas in Zambia this year, wrose ... but so glad you can be home with your family for Christmas.

Your tree sounds absolutely lovely, coracle!

st, there's nothing quite like your first Christmas with your infant child! ♥ Enjoy!

fantasia, have such fun this weekend. And your kids are at such good ages for something like this.

This December is wonderful, because we have had mounds of snow and now it's bitterly cold. More like January weather, to be sure. Looks like we'll be having a white Christmas, hurrah!

Our kids will be home for Christmas, so we'll be all together for about five days. During that time, my dad will be over for our Christmas Day feast and probably Boxing Day morning too. Games will be played, much laughter, carols sung, food consumed, but also some reflective time, as this is the first year both my hubby and I have been without our moms here at Christmas. But they are celebrating with the Jesus, Himself, so we are overjoyed for them!

We want to keep an eye open, too, for those who may be lonely or grieving this Christmas season, and have them over sometime over the holidays.

We were planning to cut down our Christmas tree last weekend, but my husband is away on business offshore from the Rep of Congo, so we may not be cutting it down until early next week. And hopefully he will be home then! All signs are pointing that way, anyway, hurrah! While we're experiencing arctic air and snow and winds here, he is enjoying mid-20s (Celsius) temperatures in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Quite the contrast when he returns here!

As for Christmas music, so many favourites, I can't even begin to write them all ('though I have done so here other years). Music is the best! ♥ It evokes such strong emotions. One of my mom's favourite carols was "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day", so it will be heart-tugging to sing that this year.

A friend and I are planning an old-fashioned carol sing at our church this Sunday evening, with well-known songs, as well as some not-so-well-known, plus the backgrounds of some of them too, which are always interesting. I'm playing the piano; Marg will be on the keyboard; another friend is playing the flute. We have a few planned songs, then will open it up to favourites. Which means a lot more practicing for us, but, it'll be so worth it.

[fantasia]

We want to keep an eye open, too, for those who may be lonely or grieving this Christmas season, and have them over sometime over the holidays.

This is our first Christmas at our church and I guess there is a couple there who will be at the church on Christmas Day hosting a big pot luck for all of the people who have lost loved ones and are on their own, or can't return home for Christmas, or whatever the need may be. I thought that was really cool.

[ValiantArcher]

We don't have much in the way of holiday traditions, but I did one of them tonight: making pizzelles.


(Photo isn't mine, but the pattern is pretty close to what our iron has)

Pizzelles are wafer cookies and are made on an iron like waffles (very thin waffles). If you're eating them like cookies, you sprinkle powdered sugar on them, but you can also roll them up right after you take them off to make ice cream cones and cannoli shells.

This was my second batch of pizzelles this season, and there will probably be two more: this batch is going to work tomorrow, and the other batches have/will go to folks at church. My grandfather used to make pizzelles every Christmas, and I kind of inherited the iron after he died. So, for the past...five or six? years I've been making them each Christmas.

fk, that's great about the couple in your church hosting folks who are alone on Christmas.

[fantasia]

I have heard of pizzelles, but I've never had one. Yummy Valia!

Last night we decided to be brave and try something I've wanted to do for the past two years. We had a Christmas Tree slumber party where we pulled out the air mattresses and camped out under the tree with hot chocolate and peppermint ice cream. I think it would have been a lot more fun had we not decided to make two batches of soft ginger cookies right before-hand so the kids were up until 11pm. Oops.

[SnowAngel]

We decorated the house the day after Thanksgiving. We have the fake tree from last year. This year we have colored lights on the tree, white is so boring!

wild rose, Christmas Offerings is my very favorite Christmas album too!

My sisters and I have watched most of the Hallmark's 2016 Christmas movies. My favorites have been Love You Like Christmas, I'll Be Home For Christmas, and A December Bride. And of course my favorite TV show, When Calls The Heart, returns on Christmas Day with a two-hour special! But my sisters and I have already promised the guys we will wait until the 26th to watch it.

I have made sugar cookies once this year, and I think I should make more this week because to only make Christmas sugar cookies once would just be a terrible thing.

Two weekends ago I made Candy Cane cookies, too cute and so yummy. The dough was a little hard to shape, so I think I would like to make them again and use regular spritz cookie dough.

Hard to believe Christmas is next Sunday!

SnowAngel

[mm1991]

Our town has a Christkindlmarket set up for the first time and I really enjoyed going - I went twice! I had never tried roasted pecans before but now I'm glad to know they are one of my favorite things!

[stargazer]

Merry Christmas to all! (We even have a hint of a white Christmas here north of Seattle, with the remnants of the snow that fell a few days ago).

[waggawerewolf27]

Merry Christmas everyone. It still will be Christmas everywhere else, even though it is now Boxing Day here.

"There is a tavern in our town", just up the road from where we live, where we had Christmas lunch with some of the other residents around here. That turned out to be a cooler and more relaxing way to spend Christmas. The temperatures were reasonable for the day, thank goodness.

[fantasia]

For those of you who sent me a Christmas card this year, thank you! I did not get cards out this year, but I am hoping to next year.

[SnowAngel]

Belated Merry Christmas, everyone!

I had a fantastic Christmas. First it was a beautiful snowy white Christmas Eve and Day. Second my brother gave me one of my favorite presents ever; so what if I did pick it out, order, and wrap it I still had to wait until Christmas Day to open it and wear it. It is a bullet necklace and matching leverback earrings with emerald crystals and I love it. I received lovely gifts from my parents and other siblings, but nothing that I had been wanting for as long as the jewelry.

On Thursday I went shopping with my mom and younger brother and spent Christmas money from grandparents. I brought a blue cadet style cap and black and purple camo jacket. Scarlet was not happy that I had bought another piece of camouflage clothing! I may or may not have purchased 6 plus camouflage apparel items in the last 5 months.

We just barely had a Christmas card this year. It's my job to take the family picture and order cards from Shutterfly and I had missed their free cards in early November. Thankfully they had free cards again at the end of the month. It actually worked out because then I had more time to take the pictures for the card.

SnowAngel

[johobbit]

This is our first Christmas at our church and I guess there is a couple there who will be at the church on Christmas Day hosting a big pot luck for all of the people who have lost loved ones and are on their own, or can't return home for Christmas, or whatever the need may be. I thought that was really cool.

So wonderful, I love that! It takes going out of one's comfort zone, but is so fulfilling when you see that you have blessed someone else's life in such a way.

Pizzelles, mmm! I tried my first one over Christmas. They weren't homemade, but our youngest son asked for them in his stocking, so our daughter found them in town and now we all love 'em, lol. That is so cool you make your own, Valia!

Last night we decided to be brave and try something I've wanted to do for the past two years. We had a Christmas Tree slumber party where we pulled out the air mattresses and camped out under the tree with hot chocolate and peppermint ice cream.

That sounds like so much fun. We would do similar things with our kids when they were young. Memories! ♥

It's great reading about people's Christmases here—the various aspects of everyone's special days. mm and SnowAngel, you're making me mighty hungry with all that chatting about food. Sounds wonderful!

We did have a white Christmas this year, which was lovely. It rained shortly after, but then snow came again. And that's the way this winter's been: lots of snow, then a bit of rain, repeat, repeat. But at least December was white for a good chunk of it!

We're actually having one of our extended family Christmases tomorrow, along with celebrating my dad's 90th birthday! Should be a good day, with a ton of delicious food and fun games with the family.