The Nativity :)

One of all of our favourite parts of Christmas Day this year, was our new tradition, which the grandchildren are finally old enough for - the acting out of the nativity! :)

It's actually a re-vamp of an old family tradition, which you can read about here.  

Jessima had picked up some of the costumes just at Big W, our angel was wearing a  princess dress up, and  one of our shepherds decided to go with a cute red Christmas dress, but as you can see in the post I just linked, sheets and towels over heads can be just as effective!!

The children met together on Christmas Eve, and Tammy helped them practise, which they had a lot of fun doing, if nothing else ;)  On Christmas morning, Tammy helped the children remember their couple of little lines, and remember when to do things like walk to Jerusalem...

...and give your gifts to the baby Jesus :)

It was so much fun, we all loved watching it, the children LOVED doing it, and it brought the real spirit and meaning of Christmas into our home :)

I can't wait for next year!! :)

Five More Gifts of Service at Christmas

When I was about seven years old I lived with my mother and two young sisters in a rented housing trust house in Adelaide. My parents had divorced when I was five, and since that time my mother had struggled to support us on her own with no regular income.  The year our family joined the Mormon church I remember that we were left a box of groceries at Christmas. I remember the awe and excitement when I saw that we had been given a whole chicken, some potato chips, and other goodies.  I felt very rich and very grateful.

People frequently would like to help out around Christmas time but we are not always sure of the best way to do it. Yesterday's post offered a great way to give.  Or perhaps some of the following ideas will appeal to you...

Operation Christmas Child allows you to pack a shoe-box of gifts that is then sent overseas to wherever such gifts are needed. The website explains what to pack and where to take your box or boxes.  It's a wonderful feeling to know that what you have put together will bring enormous delight to the child in a third world country who receives your box.  If you cannot afford to fill a box, volunteers are always welcome and needed to help out in the warehouse from October to December.

The K-Mart Wishing Tree Appeal teams with the Salvation Army each year to use the K-Mart stores as collection points for gifts donated by the public.  Many families have a tradition of helping their children to purchase and place a gift under the tree each year.  The appeal aims to distribute over 500,000 gifts this year.

Nursing Homes Patients and the Elderly are often forgotten at Christmas.  Groups and individuals tend to favour caroling or visiting children's hospitals in preference, but the truth is that children in hospital are usually well catered for, (speaking as one who used to nurse in a children's hospital and who has had a child in hospital at Christmas).  It's the elderly who need our care most.  Are you worried that you might feel uncomfortable and not know what to say?  Everyone thinks that will be a problem until they actually go to visit.  The elderly are usually so happy for the visit that you will give great pleasure if all you do is ask a few questions about their life, or hold their hand for a while.  Perhaps take some nail polish and ask if anyone would like their nails done..  If you can take a child, or if the Nursing home allows you to take in a small pet, you will be a huge hit!  It's not a glamorous activity but it can be very heart-warming - and it does bring comfort and joy, if that is your goal.  If you don't have a full Christmas day, you might find this a worthy activity.

Christmas Packages and Gifts.  It's lovely to receive them, but lonely if you are the only one who does not receive a present when you are part of a group.  In Brisbane we have about 180 volunteer missionaries who serve our church for two years away from their families.  Most of those missionaries receive a parcel from home at Christmas time.  But each year about 20 - 40 do not, so a useful service idea is to provide Christmas packages for those who would otherwise go without.  The same would be true of those who are in prison.  If the warden if willing to indicate how many of prisoners are unlikely to receive any gifts, it would be a great kindness to those men and women for them to know that they are thought of.  Nursing Homes, Women's shelters, Homes for the Disabled, and Men's hostels are other possible organizations which might be able to be helped in this way. 

It's the Little Things..  that can mean a lot.  We can all do them, and they cost little or nothing:  

• See if you can say, 'have a good day!' before your sales person has time to.  They are probably tired and rushed from the day too :)
• Smile at people as you go about before Christmas.  A lot of people look harried and even grumpy. Help them to remember that this is a good time of year. 
• Give out some Christmas cards.  They don't need to be fancy.  It's a nice way to let people know they are thought of.
• Check with your neighbours, friends and acquaintances that they are ok for Christmas Day - which can be the loneliest day of the year if you don't have anyone.  It's easy to make another seat at the table, and can make all the difference to someone who would be otherwise completely alone.

Happy Christmas Everyone!!

(The Blog is taking a break over Christmas week and will be back on Monday 31st.)

The Spirit of Christmas Shop

Tammy sent us all an email the other day, telling us about a little shop that 'suddenly' opened in Norman Park this week.  It is a 'Spirit of Christmas' shop, started by a man named Dennis Stevenson...

From the website:

Every Christmas, Dennis Stevenson, with community help and at no cost, borrows an empty shop and gives away thousands of free presents.

The first year (2009), he opened one at Burleigh.  2010 was Nundah, last year was Clayfield and this year it is in Norman Park.  Tammy said she's already seen people drop off things from teddy bears to kayaks and bikes!! The only requirement is that they have to look new!!  People are encouraged to bring donations every day up until Christmas Eve, from 8:30 - 6pm.  It is a wonderful community initiative to help those who are struggling, to provide gifts for those they love.

You can look here: http://www.spiritofchristmas1.com/ for more information, and here is a recent Courier Mail article about the 2012 shop :)

LOVE this idea, and I think most of us have things around our homes that are new and have never/will never be used!!  So if you have anything that fits the description, take it on down to Norman Park in the next few days and share the Spirit of Christmas!! :)  What a wonderful activity to do as a family or a group of friends! :)

And here's wishing you all, a very

Merry Christmas!!!

Family Tradition - Christmas Nativity Play

We have a picture stored away in a box somewhere of the first year we acted out the Nativity.  Tammy, our oldest daughter, was just turned two years old at the time and Michael was a year behind.  They acted out the Mary and Joseph parts, while I filled the roles of  narrator and the angel.  A wrapped doll took the part of the baby Jesus.  We did it as a little surprise for Neil on Christmas Eve.

The following year, Jonny acted as the baby he was, while the rest of us kept our same parts.  I remember one year Michael acted as the donkey, the inn-keeper, the shepherds and the wise men.  I think Abby was a sheep that year :)  As the years progressed, Tammy eventually took over as the narrator, reading from the book of James, and as the angel and the producer.  Abby took over as Mary, and I joined Neil in the audience, with the performance a surprise for me each year too.  

Somewhere we have (all packed away), a nativity play that Abby wrote out, with parts for all her brothers and sisters.  It may have even been this year..  

The performance would stop in the appropriate places in the story, for us to sing, 'Silent Night', and 'Away In The Manger', with Tammy on piano.

Eventually the children all grew up and we switched to Neil reading the Christmas story aloud from Luke each Christmas morning before we open our presents.  But perhaps now with beautiful grand-children it might be time to start the tradition over again...  :)

Christmas Desserts and Recipes

We are pretty serious about our Christmas desserts around here...

I may have mentioned that I am pretty terrible at ever remembering to take photos?   So unfortunately we have very few photos of all the food we have prepared for Christmas over the years, except for these few snaps that give you some idea of our traditional family Christmas dessert recipes.  

Although the list of desserts we prepare varies slightly with the number of people we are expecting to feed, a regular list, (actually, funny story..  You would laugh, kind of.., to see the way we usually make up the list of what to cook each year. Picture our whole family gathered together, me with a pen and paper, asking everyone what they can't live without this year? Of course, the list would get longer and longer and more and more ridiculous, and then we'd have to decide to have a party so that we would have enough people to help us eat it all - and, if you can believe it! - still make doubles of lots of the recipes to keep in the fridge for ourselves for Boxing Day Breakfast too.  Anyway, back to the list, which...), would usually consist of all or some of the following: 

Home-made Chocolate Almond Ice-cream with sugared almonds; Chocolate Mousse; Chocolate-Mint Cheesecake; Choux Pastry Puffs filled with chocolate cream; Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake...   (are you sensing a chocolate theme here?)  ... 

...  home-made Strawberry Ice-Cream ring; Mango, Berry and Kiwi Fruit Salad; Pavlova; Brandy Snaps served with cream and strawberries; Gourmet Baked Cheesecake; Apricot, Chocolate and Coconut Cake; Pecan Pie; Pumpkin Pie ...

Chocolate Cherry-ripe Biscuits; Date and Rice Bubble Finger biscuits; Apple Turnovers; Chocolate and Caramel with Ginger-base Biscuits...

 ...  Coconut Charmers (those little, round biscuits); the Chocolate Hazelnut Tree; Chocolate Cheesecake Biscuits; 

Creme Caramel; Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake; Chocolate Crunch Coconut Biscuits ... 

..  Chocolate Yule Log (only slightly eaten here :)   (To make this, I bake two chocolate sponges in lamington tins, fill each of them with chocolate cream and roll them.  I use them to make a log with branches, then cover it all in Sour Cream Chocolate Icing, decorate with a skewer, add shaved chocolate 'bark', and chocolate leaves, and finish with a dusting of icing sugar.  It looks beautiful, if we had a better photo :)  Our son Jonny sometimes decorates this for us now  :)

One year our family cooked a four-course, sit-down Christmas dinner for 120 missionaries from our church.  As usual: almost no photos, but you can see the Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch sauce here.  Very yum!  I know that Sticky Date Pudding might not sound so very fabulous, but this is really, really good!

I thought I would leave you with one of our recipes.   If there are any other recipes from these pictures that you would like, please just leave me a note and I will email them to you.  I am always happy to share recipes :)

Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Tree

(I've included this one because it is very easy, is no-bake, and is totally yummy - if you like chocolate and hazelnuts together?)

500g dark chocolate (I always use Cadbury's dark chocolate.  They have a good dark cooking chocolate.)

250g roasted hazelnuts  (If still raw, put the hazelnuts in a moderate oven for 10 minutes, then rub the skins off.)

1 brazil nut

60g dark chocolate, extra

Few spoons of icing sugar

Break up the chocolate and  place it in a covered dish in the microwave for a minute, or until it is melted when you stir it OR place chocolate in top half of double saucepan, over gently simmering water, making sure that water does not touch the base of the saucepan. (I use the microwave, but take note that the chocolate will not look melted until you stir it!  Don't overcook, or the chocolate will burn. You'll know it's burnt by the smell, and the fact that even dedicated chocoholics will want to dispose of it in the bin.)  When the chocolate is melted and smooth, stir in the roughly chopped hazelnuts and mix well. (Don't use your food processor for this - it will chop them too finely.  I put the nuts into a plastic bag, then hold the bag shut while I beat it up a bit with a rolling pin or meat tenderizer.  Do leave the nuts not whole, but still in big chunks.  If you look at the picture you will see what I mean.)   

While the chocolate is melting, prepare the trays for marking out the branches of the tree. Cover scone or biscuit-baking trays with  aluminium foil. (Any flat tray, upturned cake tin, base of baking dish, or pieces of heavy cardboard can be used.  What you want is a surface that is level and rigid enough so the branches do not bend while they are setting. Bread boards or pieces of wood covered with foil can be used but the chocolate will take longer to set.)

Mark out nine crosses on the foil, leave about 2.5cm between each cross. The measurements for the crosses are: 7cm; 9cm; 11cm; 13cm; 14cm; 15cm; 16cm 17cm; 18cm.  (I use a ruler and pen, and mark the measurements on the foil beside each cross as I go, so I don't get confused later :)

Prepare a base for the tree; you will need a piece of heavy cardboard or pressed hardboard 20cm in diameter, it must be rigid and strong enough to support all the branches of the tree. Cover with decorative silver paper or foil. (I have a round, flat mother-of-pearl plate that I always use.)  Make a cross 18cm on this base board. 

Using a teaspoon, drop teaspoonfuls of the chocolate mixture along the marked crosses. Do the cross on the base board first, refrigerate, then do the remaining crosses in order of size, starting from the largest size and working to the smallest. Refrigerate crosses as soon as they are complete for several hours or, if desired, overnight. Do not freeze.

NOTE: if the kitchen is very cool, chocolate can be left to set at room temperature; this will mean the tree will take longer to make, but chocolate will have more sheen than if it is refrigerated.

Melt extra chocolate over simmering water. To assemble your tree, join the largest cross to the cross on the base board by dropping about a teaspoon of the melted chocolate into the centre of the cross on the base board; position the cross on top. It may be necessary to move the top cross around until the best position is found; if branches look a little uneven, support underneath with a match box.

Drop about half a teaspoon of the melted chocolate on top of the second cross; this forms a good base when adding the next pair of crosses.

Assemble the remaining eight crosses in pairs, starting from the largest remaining cross to the smallest cross, refrigerate until chocolate is set; about 15 minutes.

When each pair of crosses is set, place the largest pair on top of the crosses on the base board, joining with melted chocolate as before. It is important each section be completely set before topping with another pair of crosses.

When the tree is assembled, cut an end off the brazil nut, so it will sit neatly on top of the tree, place in position with melted chocolate, cover nut with chocolate and then refrigerate until set. Dust the tree lightly with sifted icing sugar when it's ready to serve.  (People break off the branches to eat them.)

(I've been known to occasionally melt down some dark chocolate and mix it with chopped, roasted hazelnuts to make nut drops, just because they taste so good!  Something else you could do is to add sultanas and chopped apricots to the mix, for a chocolate fruit and nut tree.  I don't think I would get away with it though..  messing with a family classic!)

Enjoy!!

Monday Movie - Mr. Krueger's Christmas

Jimmy Stewart, sometimes called, 'America's most beloved actor,' made two great Christmas movies.  His most famous is called, 'It's a Wonderful Life,' and can be seen in its entirety on Youtube, (if you follow the link).

His other Christmas movie was made for television in 1980 and is called, 'Mr Krueger's Christmas'.  Perhaps you've seen it?  

I know everyone gets pretty busy at Christmas, but if you've got about 26 minutes, I think you'll like this?  It's a little dated now, but still has a wonderful Christmas spirit about it.  The last link below is to a pivotal scene in the film, and is under 4 minutes, if you only have a couple of minutes.  Even better though to start at Part 1, to get the whole gist of things.  This short movie was made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but its message is universal and non-denominational.   Happy Christmas season!

(Part 1 of Mr. Krueger's Christmas)

(Part 2 of Mr. Krueger's Christmas)

(Part 3 of Mr. Kruger's Christmas)

(Excerpt from manger scene)

The Elf On The Shelf

What is The Elf on the Shelf? 

It's a really fun Christmas tradition you can buy in a box!  You've probably already seen or heard something about it?  It's become enormously popular in the States and has now made it to Australian shores.  Inside the box is an elf doll and a book...

In the hardcover book the Elf explains that Santa has sent him (or her) to watch over the children and family and report back to Santa every night during the Christmas season.  The Elf is a very good listener and is always looking for all the kind and the good things that children do.  (Of course, if there is some naughtiness going on then Santa gets to hear about that too. -  I personally don't love the idea of a 'Santa spy', but I do love the idea of being more aware of the good that people do, so I suppose it's up to us to put our own slant on it :)

Why has 'the Elf on the Shelf' become so popular?

When the Elf arrives the children get to name him/her.  This is important because, (as the book explains), elves get their magic from being named.  There is an Elf on the Shelf website where you can register the adoption of your Elf :)  Together your family read the book, which explains all this, plus the following:  

Rules:
* The children cannot touch the elf or he will lose his magic
* The elf can listen to what the children tell him, but cannot talk back, that's Santa's law.
* The elf flies back to the North Pole each night and tells Santa what he has seen - when he comes back he goes to a new spot in the house.

flickr.com

The fun is in the last rule!  By hiding in a new spot each morning around the house, the Elf and the family play an ongoing game of hide and seek :)   Some elves are quiet and reserved, while some just love having fun and pulling pranks. Elves are apparently very adaptable and tend to meld into the culture and the personalities of the family who adopt it!  :)

When does the Elf visit each year? 

In the States it seems common for the Elf to appear at  Thanksgiving, (the fourth Thursday in November).   I would think in Australia that either the 1st of December or the 25th of November would work, (or whatever you like, because it's your family and your Elf - so he'll probably fit in with you!), and then would not be seen after Christmas Eve?   

I love the idea I found here of welcoming your Elf when he appears each year with a Christmas breakfast!

You will also find some ideas here about how to welcome your Christmas Elf to your family, with some thoughts here about naming your Elf.

Once you go looking you will also find a lot of ideas to have fun with your Elf on Pinterest and Google images.  The best site I have found is over at mypidgeonpair.com where the Blog author is currently presenting a full month of 'the Elf on the Shelf' ideas, along with downloadable activities and cards to suit a family or even a classroom.  The author is creative and very generous with her ideas.   (She's an Australian too :)

Some other sites or pages you may enjoy are:  (click on the blue links to go to the page or site)

Where to buy the Elf on the Shelf?  This is especially helpful for Australia.  I bought mine from Bundles of Fun.  They were a few dollars more expensive than the Book Depository, but it should be here in a few days instead of a few weeks.  The Elf on the Shelf is quite overpriced wherever you buy it..  However, it would be easy to buy or make an elf yourself if you preferred, and introduce the story in your own words.   Like all family traditions, we can make it our own :)

Interview with the author    This gives an interesting and informative look into how TEOTS came about.

How to improve your Elf!   This is a tutorial about making your Elf bendable and 'grippy'.  This site also has more fun ideas here and here.  

Remember mypidgeonpair.com for lots of great ideas!

And don't forget the official web site.  Girl elves, and elves with a 'dark' complexion are also available.

While we didn't have a TEOTS while our family was growing up, we did have our own fun-loving visitors each Christmas season.  I bought a handful of bendable Santas one year, thinking that the children would enjoy them.  Over the years those Santas got up to a lot of mischief !  Of course we didn't usually think to take photos (doh!) but we fondly remember finding them using our goldfish bowl as a jacuzzi, mountain-climbing up our picture wall,  playing golf on the sideboard, and napping off in front of a movie.  They make their appearance each year when we unpack our Christmas gear and start to decorate the house.  I'll leave you with the few photos we did think to take..  

Will you be welcoming an Elf this year? :)

PS... 

As suggested, it would not be hard to make or find your own elf, as these additional photos show.  The first is of some shelf elf's that Jessima's Mum made as a Christmas ornament, although you could easily use one as your EOTS too.  All the materials needed can be sourced from a haberdashery shop like Spotlight.  He's cute, isn't he?  A good DIY project :)

Amy purchased her Christmas elf from a Christmas supply shop.  He has bendy arms and legs that make him easy to pose. Here he is, having turned all the milk in their house blue one morning!

Here he is reading  'The Little Christmas Elf' to Ken and the Barbies the following morning..

There are many ways to apply the tradition to our own family.  Just be flexible and just have fun with it! :)


PPS...

I just came across these EOTS photos here, of an Elf being introduced to Australia and its wild-life.  Funny!