Sunday, December 02, 2012

Advent Activity 1... Decorating the Tree

My sister Emily made our Advent box with twenty-four matchboxes, glued together and decorated.  It's nearly identical to the one we had when we were little.  Inside each tiny drawer are treats; in previous years they've contained small sweets or stickers.  This year, there  are stickers to share between the four kids every day, and in seven drawers, either an Advent Activity or an Advent Treat.

Today was our first Advent Activity... decorating the tree!

We made it to Ikea just in time last night to take advantage of their offer: buy a real tree and receive a £20 Ikea gift voucher to spend in January.  In the car on the way home, the tree was named Treebeard [naming is evolving as a family tradition], in honour of the considerable amount of Middle Earth mania gripping us this month, for rather obvious reasons.  The only downside about our Ikea tree is the fact that it was grown in Denmark.  So much for buying local.

I can post no photos of our tree decorating event [hope to be sorting this issue with Blogger soon], but you can look at last year's decorating post, if you want.  Suffice it to say, this afternoon contained plenty of popcorn eating [both plain salted, and maple cinnamon spice], as well as decorating. Coo helped me thread popcorn; she was so good at it!  We managed one short string of popcorn... we were eating most of it! Our housemate James and friend Curt created a Christmas music playlist to listen to.  Lefty and Righty were caught up in building Lego spaceships, but Mr J and Coo enjoyed helping me hang the ornaments carefully on the tree. Treebeard has very soft, fragrant needles, quite unlike last year's tree, and the ornaments have to be placed securely.  We have no baubles or tinsel, but I was thinking I might find cranberries and string those too, for a bit of added colour.  I remember my mother doing that when we lived in upstate New York.

The Second of December, 2012... already?  It seems as if we were doing all of this not so long ago!

2 comments:

  1. I know exactly what you mean about it being December already. It feels like only a few months ago that I was decorating our tree from last year. I honestly do not know where 2012 has gone.

    I love that you used popcorn - that takes patience, but I think the end is so worth it. Cranberries would be a great addition!

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  2. I think so, too... "cranberry" is one of my favourite colours!

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