A Christmas Nursery

Christmas is my favorite time of year, the entire house gets decorations, even bathrooms.  This is the first Christmas that I've had my son who will be 3 months old for Christmas.  I wasn't planning on completely redecorating his room, however this year we started a tradition of book advent calendar. Since the nursery is mainly decorated with books, it seemed so natural to decorate the rest of the room to match.

Wrapped picture frames and Christmas book advent calendar on picture ledges

Hanging snowflakes and card stock reindeer and sleigh

Decal trees decorated with reusable sticker ornaments

See how the nursery looks for the rest of the year.

Like what you see and want it for yourself?

Add holiday ribbon to your stuffed animals to give them a festive flare! Tie the ribbon into a bow or wrap it around the neck like a winter scarf.

Wrap any picture frames with wrapping paper and bows. Its an easy way to instantly bring some holiday cheer into a room.

Replace any fabric items such as pillow cases, blankets, crib skirts and changing pad covers with Christmas themed ones. You can replace or cover a large frame with an advent calendar. You can find my Angel calendar at Fabric.com along with a lot of other designs. I made the Santa Suit changing pad cover from an apron panel I found in store at Hobby Lobby but you can find it online at Etsy. You have to piece the pockets into the arm hole area and find some red fabric to make up the difference, but it looks pretty good still!

Place holiday wall decal or reusable stickers, the kind used on windows or sliding doors work well, on the wall.  I got mine from a super Joann's in the seasonal section but they aren't available online.  It had pine branches, which didn't match the nursery trees, so I just used the ornaments from 4 packages.

Hang craft foam or paper snowflakes from the ceiling using Command Hooks.  I took down all of the nursery's normal hot air balloons and replaced them with snowflakes. You don't have to go crazy, 3 in a corner gives the right affect without over crowding the rest of the decorations.  I found both the large foam and smaller 3D cardstock snowflakes at Hobby Lobby in the seasonal craft section.  I hung them from artisan wire, its easier to make loops to hang from the Command Hooks and looks better then string. I also found a card stock craft kit with reindeer and sleigh at Hobby Lobby or you could use Martha Stewart's holiday garland.

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.

2011 Christmas Celebrations

Our Christmas Celebrations are always jam packed with activities, family and food!  This year was no different.

Christmas Eve Afternoon
We spent the afternoon at my grandparent's for lunch and games.  Grammy has the most beautiful china and always gets to set a lovely table.  She also researches great games, puzzles, and trivia for us to play to bring back great childhood memories, learn more about the history of Christmas or just have fun. She served her famous Swedish Meatballs that take forever to cook and she hates them for months after serving them but they always are a huge hit with everyone!

Grammy's beautifully set table

Christmas Eve Night
We spent the evening after church at my parent's house.  We enjoyed playing BuzzWord and snacking on a wonderful Bass spread of Christmas jello, clam dip, chips and dip, cheese and crackers.  After the game we opened our yearly Christmas Pajamas and Ornaments.

Jeanine's famous Christmas Jello

Christmas Day
The morning each family spent at their individual homes unwrapping presents.  The afternoon and evening were spent at my house for games and dinner.

Every Christmas Dinner I like to try a different recipe but always with lamb.  This year was Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb with a Cabernet sauce served with Roasted Carrots, Mushrooms and Brussel Sprouts and Mashed Potatoes.  My sister and I artistically plated each serving and provided extras family style for people to have seconds.  After two years of rack of lamb its been decided we will try a different cut of lamb next year to spend less time getting to the meat ;)  I still think two chops look the best and so elegant on a plate.

Table set for Christmas Dinner

For our wedding we received a large trifle bowl as a present but it cracked in shipment. I returned it and decided to get 12 individual trifle bowls from Pier 1 instead.  I love them for entertaining.  I wanted to make a family favorite, Raspberry Trifle, but my husband doesn't like fruit deserts. He wanted chocolate.  So I ended up making half Raspberry and half Chocolate.  Not only do the deserts look delicious, they are much easier to make then they look and with Sugar Free or Fat Free options can be a nice lighter desert.

Raspberry Trifle and alternative Chocolate Trifle

The best part of hosting a party is seeing all the empty plates and licked clean bowls of desert.  We all enjoyed a round of Disney Apples to Apples, a Christmas present opened that morning, while moaning at how wonderful the meal and the entire day was.

Clean bowls and fun games!

2011 Christmas Ornaments

Another tradition our family celebrates each Christmas Eve is opening our grandmother, Baba's, yearly ornaments.  Each year she spends most of the holiday shopping seasons hunting for the perfect ornament to portray a special moment of the year or special significance.

This year's biggest hit was the Hallmark 2011 Peanuts Wireless musical boxes.  They each have 2 songs that play and can link together wirelessly to compliment each other's songs.  Check out the video to see how neat they are.



Baba confessed she held off wrapping them till the morning of Christmas eve because she was having too much fun playing with them herself!  The family liked the 3 she gave to us (1 for my dad, 1 for my sister, and 1 for her boyfriend) but they might never be all in the same place again so Baba is going out after Christmas to buy sets for each household.

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.

Seasonal Decorating: Christmas!

Christmas is my favorite holiday!  I love the warm fuzzy feeling you get when its cold out, you're all bundled up, holding hands with your loved ones while you hunt for the perfect Christmas tree. Decorating the house as we grew up was so much fun; turning the house into a winter wonderland!

While this is the last post of our Seasonal Decorating blog series, the decorations were actually the first I made to celebrate our Christmas two months after I got married.  I fell in love with Debbie Mum's 2010 Ornament fabric and used it as the basis for all our Christmas items.

As you've seen in our other Seasonal Decorations Love always plays a big role, so it had to be a big part of Christmas time too! Santa Claus has never been a big part of my family Christmas so choosing the Peace, Love, Joy theme was perfect for us.  For Peace I used a dove icon, for Love a heart, and for Joy a star.

Mantle decorated with fabric trees, candles and hanging stockings.

One of three handmade ornaments, the peace dove.

Christmas pillowcases with Peace, Love and Joy and Ornament fabric.

Our Love jars, pine cones, and cream and gold candles.

Seasonal Decorating: Acorns & Autumn Leaves

Autumn is an important time for our family.  Its especially important to my mother, Jeanine, who always hosts the family at her house for Thanksgiving.  She's decorated her house with turkeys, pilgrims and cornucopias. Since she's got the holiday reserved for her home I decided to keep our November decorations simply autumn.

I found beautiful unique autumn fabric that is a gorgeous golden mustard yellow with brown acorns and green oak leaves.  It goes great with cream birch and brown bark fabric to bring in natural elements.

 

Check back for our next holiday decorations: A Peace, Love & Joy Christmas
Our next seasonal decoration change will be for December.  Our Christmas decorations was the first project I completed after getting married last year. It was the perfect theme of Peace, Love and Joy for our new life as man and wife!

Jeanine's Birthday Christmas in July Giveaway!

It's my mom's (and partner in crafting) birthday this month! As a present to all the Creative Tradition fans out there we'll be giving away a special Christmas in July set of five of our Beaded Ornament Stars in Crystal and Silver!

To enter the giveaway you will need to leave a comment on this post by Sunday, July 31st and share one of your favorite Christmas or other winter holiday memories. The winner will be announced on Monday, August 1st.

If you want to increase your chances, become a fan of the Creative Tradition Facebook page and leave a message on our Wall.

Check out all of our Christmas in July items at our online store including vintage ornaments, holiday Barbie dresses and more beaded ornaments like these beautiful colorful bells.