The Little Golden Book Christmas Advent Book Calendar

In November, I saw a Facebook post from a friend who is an emerging children book author.  When I saw the picture of books wrapped for a Christmas advent calendar I fell in love.  I thought I would save the idea for next year, when my son was old enough to enjoy opening presents (he is only 2 months old now).  I shared the post to my Facebook wall and my grandmother, who we call Baba in Ukrainian tradition, saw it and fell in love too.  At a lunch we discussed it and she loved the idea, and would want to make 3 of them to give to all of her grand kids, but she felt it was too late to go and find all the books in time for 2013 Christmas.  Boy was she wrong ;)  I told her with Amazon, we could find all the books, even vintage used ones, and have them shipped in a week or 2, just in time for December 1st.

The Books
We found Little Golden Books at Barnes & Noble, one of the last local brick-and-mortar book stores in our area, on sale as well as Amazon and Amazon Marketplace.  Each book averaged around $4, the trick is to get multiple vintage books for 1 cent at one reseller at the Amazon Marketplace. We tried Friends of the Library stores and consignment sales but didn't find any Little Golden Books there, online is really your best bet.  You can find collections and lots of them on eBay or Etsy, just be careful of the shipping costs.

Here is a Amazon Collection of Christmas Little Golden Books. You can pick the best ones that fit your child's interests, like Barbie, Thomas or Veggie Tales.

The Box
We decided to display and store the wrapped books in a box.  You have to find a box that is about 1/2 inch wider and taller then the largest book to account for the wrapping.  For Little Golden Books that is about 7x8x8 box. We found the perfect sized box at Container Store but you could also find similar shaped boxes at Hobby Lobby or even on Amazon.  In the inside of the lid, Baba wrote a message to each grand child.

We decorate my son's nursery for Christmas, replacing all of the regular books on display with Christmas books. So instead of keeping the books in the box, we just use the box for storage and display the wrapped books on the picture ledges we use as front facing book cases.  It looks festive and will help him learn numbers trying to hunt for the right numbered label.

Want to make it a multi-generational tradition?
If you have multiple children in a family, once they grow up, divide the books up and buy new ones to build book advent calendars for their future families while still passing down books and the tradition.

Find other ideas for Book Advent Calendars on Pinterest.

The Thank You Gift

Since Baba was so generous in creating these three Christmas book advent calendars for her grand children's children, I wanted to gave her a thank you gift that she could wear and think of her far away great grand kids.  In my book searches on Etsy, I found a beautiful hand made bracelet with little pictures of the covers of Christmas Little Golden Books.  It was perfect! When I gave it to Baba she cried, so happy knowing she can wear the bracelet and think of her grand kids reading the books and enjoying the holiday season.

Thanksgiving 2012 Celebration

As always, Thanksgiving was a special family gathering for us this year. It was just our immediate family and grand parents.  We spent a lot of time talking, munching on olives, catching up on each other's lives -- new jobs, home projects, ideas about the world.  Jeanine, my mom and the 'traditional' partner of Creative Tradition, spent most of the morning in the kitchen prepping and cooking.

Thanksgiving is really her favorite holiday.  She shows her family love through cooking and on Thanksgiving she really gets to shower us with food and love.  She had the large bird in its bag, in its pan and in the oven before most of us arrived. The table was also dressed and ready with scraps of paper telling everyone what food went into what serving dish.

While waiting for the turkey to cook we had an opportunity to Skype with our far away family.  We got to watch my younger nephews playing, dancing, nearly walking, doing somersaults, having fun.  Its nice to be able to connect with family across the miles. It may not be the same as having them in the same room with you but seeing smiles and hearing voices is a wonderful thing.

As the time got closer to the meal everyone stepped up and helped in the kitchen stirring gravy, mashing potatoes, carving the turkey or really what ever mom asked of us. It made the kitchen a little tight to maneuver at times, especially with heavy, hot dishes but the feeling of family was palpable. My sister and I acted like the children we are in our hearts and stole little bits of food while mom chased after us with a wooden spoon. Despite the drama, hot plates, and MANY cooks in the kitchen the table got set, food was served and the family began the meal.

Table set with side dishes, waiting for the carved turkey.

A perfect Thanksgiving plate!

Christmas Eve Pajamas

One of our biggest holiday traditions was started by my mother, Jeanine, in 1982.  She made me my first Christmas Eve pajamas for my first Christmas.  Since then she's been making the family PJs every Christmas. 

At our family gathering Christmas Eve we open our Christmas PJs. We always know we'll get them but we never know what kind of flannel fabric mom picked out for all of us 4 kids and my dad.  Usually she tries to choose holiday themed fabric, like snowflakes, or something of interest to us, like trains, butterflies, or camouflage. Children and adults get flannel PJ pants with matching shirts while babies get footed PJs.

As our family grew up, kids moved out, went to college, got married. and started their own families.  In 2008, we were lucky enough to all be home for the holidays and took this Christmas Eve family portrait in our pajamas.  This year mom started to add more PJs to her annual to-do list.  This year she has made 10 for her husband, 4 children, 3 in-laws, and 2 grandchildren.

In 2009, I realized we all got Christmas Eve pajamas except my mother.  She had worked so hard all those years making our pajamas but she never made one for herself.  That didn't feel right to me so I started making her Christmas Eve pajamas.  She preferred an old Simplicity nightgown pattern over the PJ pants (you can see the style in the family portrait).  The first year I made her 2 Christmas themed nightgowns to make up for so many Christmas Eves that she went without.  I spent a few hours this morning making her 2011 nightgown. My favorite part is embellishing it with lace, ruffles, ribbon and rick-rack.  She doesn't usually go beyond the average for herself so I really like making her something super pretty for her Christmas Eve pajamas.

Christmas Present Wrapping

The Christmas season doesn't officially start for us until my little sister and I have our traditional Starbucks and Gift Wrap Wonderland adventure. Every year we visit Metro Point in South Coast Plaza, grab a coffee or cider and walk around Container Store picking out wrapping paper. 

I decorate all generic gifts, that would go under our tree, with more classical paper accented with red, green and gold.  I love Container Store's crinkled gold paper ribbon, it adds so much elegance to packages.  I also use craft accent tags in Victorian designs.

Other gifts we wrap in person-specific paper. My little sister always gets to pick out her own, usually something pink and glittery.  Then there is fun paper for my 5 nephews.  This year I was super lucky to find the perfect Christmas Train wrapping paper for my Foamer dad at Container Store.

Cut items from expensive paper and
use to decorate other packages.

Use tulle, available in wedding craft aisle, as ribbon.
Tie a bow, then cut the loops and tails to make a snow ball.
Cut items from paper and attach to marking tag to make matching tags.

It might be surprising but Ikea is another great place for wrapping paper.  I get their red and brown paper -- almost 9 yards for just $1!  The paper is really good for combo presents to complement the more expensive paper.  Also, the brown paper is perfect for making your own sewing patterns.

Thanksgiving 2011 at the Basses

Jeanine's favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. She's 'called' it and gets to host it each year.  This year we spent it together with our family including my in-laws and my grandparents. It was one of our smaller Thanksgivings with 8 people.  In the past, when family and kids were close, we would have up to 20!

Jeanine, the chef, with the table set, waiting for food to cook!

We have a lot of traditions revolving around Thanksgiving.  My mother did her first Thanksgiving when she was 16. I followed her tradition, doing my first Thanksgiving when I was 17.  Jeanine has been serving the same items at Thanksgiving every year since she was 16... except the 1 year when I did my Thanksgiving. Just like everything we do, she follows every recipe every year and I mix everything up to try something new.  It's what makes us work well together.

The Menu
Turkey with Stuffing and Giblet Gravy
Green Bean Casserole
Mashed Potatoes
Pearled Onions in Cream
Creamed Corn
Acorn Squash (instead of the customary Yams)
Orange Jello Salad with Pineapple and Mandarin Oranges
Cranberry Sauce
Black and Green Olives
Pumpkin Pie (made from actual whole pumpkins!)
Dutch Apple Pie (made by Grammy)
Pecan Pie (Jenn's favorite!)
Cherry Pie

Traditions
From the time I've been little,Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, all us kids would sit in front of the tv, watch classic Thanksgiving shows like "Mouse on the Mayflower" and "It's Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown!" and cut loaves of white bread into little squares for the stuffing. Mom makes the best stuffing from scratch!  This year was the first year Jeanine didn't have any kids at home to cut the bread so we introduced my in-laws to this great tradition.  The bread stays out over night to harden up like croutons before they get turned into yummy stuffing and in the turkey.

Jeanine cooks the turkey in a Reynolds Oven Bag.  Its the best way! No basting needed, all the juices get collected for the gravy and clean up is a super snap.

Turkey out of the oven ready to be put on the platter.

I learned a trick, used so much that I think its a tradition, to best host a meal.  My mom does it every year. You set the table or buffet area and write the names of dishes on scrap paper on the serving dish.  This helps you make sure you have a place for everything, the right serving utensils, trivets, etc.  The first time my husband saw me do it on my own he laughed.  But to be honest, this is definitely one thing where I don't mind 'turning into my mother' ;)

Jeanine's favorite side dish, Creamed Corn.

As always, we finish Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's famous pies.  Its too hard to choose a favorite so we usually all have a piece of each!

TNT Ministries 2011 Quilts

Jeanine organizes the TNT Ministries, a missions service group, at Harbor Trinity Church in Costa Mesa.  It first started in the 1950s as Womens Missionary Society, then Womens Missionary Fellowship, followed by White Cross, and now is TNT.  TNT is named after two people in the Bible, Tabitha who sewed garments for the poor and Titus who was an advocator of good works. 

It’s original work was making flannel baby blanket, flannel baby jackets, flannel diapers, flannel and muslin sheets, muslin hospital gowns, and rolling bandages for the NAB (North American Baptist) mission hospitals in the Cameroon in Africa.  In the 1990s, the group started making twin size patchwork quilts to be given out to various groups in Orange County that have need for them.  The group meets monthly to work on NAB items but meets weekly in the summer to peice, sew, and tie quilts.  

This summer, we completed 73 quilts!

They were donated to Sheepfold, OC Rescue Mission, and Mercy House.  4 of the quilts were created as prayer quilts, tied by friends and family while saying a prayer, and given to convalescing members of the church.

Interested in Joining TNT Ministries?

Anyone from age 5 and up are able to volunteer and help with this service group in Costa Mesa.  Visit Harbor Trinity Church Calendar for more information.

Seasonal Decorating: Patriotic Celebrations

Patriot Decorations

4th of July is a big holiday for my family. It's Jeanine's second favorite holiday beat only by Thanksgiving. Even though she always hosts the 4th of July BBQ I still wanted to celebrate our Independence with our decorations.

Joann's has some beautiful patriotic fabric, so much in fact that we purchased enough to make some placemats to sell online. I first selected a the same Patchwork Americana fabric we used on this Historic Barbie Dress but I fell in love with the Inspirational Patriotic fabric with words in old font styles which lead to the fun vintage Pinwheel fabric. Because the Inspirational fabric has so many patriotic sentiments besides Independence day I think these decorations will be out from Memorial Day to 4th of July.

Seasonal Decorating: Springtime

Decorating for holidays has always been a big tradition in our family. On the first day of every month my mother would have us all help take down the past month's decorations and put up the next month's.  Now I'm 'nesting' with my husband and creating our own holiday decorations.  We got married in October so I started decorating for my favorite holiday, Christmas. You can see a few pictures of the decorations in our Facebook photo album. I also kinda decorated for Valentines but didn't take any pictures because we had decided to upgrade our TV which lead to us getting a new couch, a new TV stand, a new coffee table and a new clock. It was a lot of work but we've finally finished rearranging our living room! Then it was my turn to decorate!

Springtime Decorations

The decorations all started with a remnant from Joann's. I love remnants!  They are small pieces of fabric, usually a yard or less at the end of a bolt and are 50% off!  We get a lot of remnants because most of our projects like our historic Barbie dresses don't need a lot of fabric.  The remnant was beautiful, but it was only 18" and I needed 18.5" inches to make an 18" pillow cover. So my mom, Jeanine, and I spent 15 minutes hunting for the bolt or roll of this beautiful modern cream, mustard, teal, green and brown leaf fabric that was perfect for my room.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find it anywhere.