Every year we begin December long before December ever arrives. The planning of our advent calendar seems to grow with each passing year. It is a lot of fun, but packs an awful lot of fun into a short period of time. We combined this year’s advent with an unexpected business trip for me where Jeff had to hold the fort and some welcome visitors. Jeff loves the chaos of Christmas. I am less in love with the chaos, but am the ring leader so I have no one to blame but myself!
This year’s advent began with putting up the tree on December 1. We are living in a rental house in Jaffray right now which although spacious is most definitely NOT on the same level as our Fernie house was. We are missing the high ceilings that made it perfect for oversized trees and lots of twinkle lights, but are content with a slightly different experience. Jeff’s old tree (now close to 20 years old) is hanging in there like a champ and is the star of the show this year. We cleared a space and dug out a box or 10 of decorations to get all festive’d up. As is tradition, we laid out a spread of appetizers, put on some Christmas tunes and set about decorating.
We had a lot of fun digging out favourite decorations, getting goofy with garlands, and since we moved and didn’t unpack a lot of things, there was some puzzling about where some things have gone. I’m sure we will find them again once we move into the new house.
Day 2 of advent had us foraging in the woods for materials to build a wreath for our front door. The house we are living in is up on a small rise, but overlooks a large ranch. There are cows and horses and a couple of bulls to keep us entertained, but also a trails that make for great dog walks. We had the good fortune of having a fresh few inches of snow so we bundled up and grabbed the sleds and dogs and headed down the trail with a bag or two to bring home treasure.
I have an old brass 70’s-ish door ornament that gets repurposed at Christmas to make our wreath and this year was no different (sooo happy I found it amongst all the things crammed into our storage room!). I think we did pretty well putting it together with Margaret and Lizzie leading the effort and Mary (who doesn’t get as much joy from crafting) was lending her support in the form of hugs and cheer leading.
We wrapped up weekend #1 of December with a baking day (which I can’t seem to find pictures for). Baking Day was filled with baking an item of choice by each of us. Lizzie chose Candycane Meringues, Mary made Church Window Cookies, and Margaret made Rocky Road Squares. With all the extra egg yolks it became necessary to make a lot of shortbread, so that became my baking adventure for the day. It was a good thing I was heading out of town and missed the days that followed. I’m sure more than one meal was missed as a result of eating too much baking!
The next day I headed off to sunny San Diego to attend a conference. Travelling from Jaffray to San Diego takes a good long while but the trip was worth it. I worked, gorged on seafood for a few days, learned a few things, met a few new people and scratched an itch to engage with other professionals other than through my web browser. I won’t lie, it was also kind of nice not to be “Mom” for a few days (even though that never really happens, i didn’t have to get anybody out of bed for school for a whole 4 days!)
Returning from my trip we dove right back in with Lizzie participating in her first basketball tournament with Fernie Secondary’s Junior Girls B Team. She was gutted not to make the A Team this year, but volleyball is really where her heart is so she is content to be playing with a great group of girls and a less demanding schedule. And speaking of volleyball, we had a roller coaster ride with tryouts in Fernie this year with Mary and Lizzie both not making their respective teams. Lizzie had an opportunity to try out for the Cranbrook team though and has secured herself a spot there. She’d rather be playing in Fernie, but the competition there for just a few spots was hard to beat.
We jumped into our 2nd advent week with a colouring date and gingerbread houses. The coloring date is one of our favorites and forces us to settle into something slow and deliberate. We make tea and and some room to enjoy each others company. It is low stress time for all of us and whether we only manage to carve out a short time, or get the bonus of having a longer time together it is nice just the same. This year we convinced Grandma to join us.
I think Gingerbread house day is the height of our Christmas advent. It is usually long and there is some stress involved (expectations are high). This year, something went wrong with the gingerbread and it wasn’t as sturdy as usual which meant I was fussing with the dough for a while before it came together. I’m going to blame the brown sugar (which really isn’t brown sugar right now because we can’t find any in the stores). Long story short, we pulled it off in the end, crafting three little houses, adorned with jellybean twinkle lights and cookie crumb walkways and waaay too much icing. They already eating them here and there. Good thing I remembered to take pictures this time BEFORE the night was done. As you can see, it also creates next level disaster in the kitchen, but its worth it!
And so that brings us to this week. Back to work and school for the duration and counting the days until Christmas Break. We have planned/unplanned visitors with Roy and Mary arriving for a short visit after returning from Mexico. We’re thoroughly enjoying their company so far with Jeff taking on the role of 1st host while I continue to try to catch up on work missed while I was in San Diego. I’ve also joined the Board of Directors for the Fernie Volleyball Club, so there has been some work on that front – all good and for the benefit of the athletes so I am happy to help.
We have a big day planned today with an attempt to wrap up our Christmas shopping in Cranbrook so we can be ready for a very short trip to the coast in the days leading up to Christmas. It’s going to be a wild ride and just a quick in and out so we can attend a family party…fingers crossed the weather and roads stay clear.