Adventy Things

I asked Nathan recently if this Advent is shorter than usual.  'Cause it sure feels like it.  How can there be less than two weeks left until Christmas already?  I seem to recall that Advent usually is long and slow and takes a long time.  Right?  Isn't that how it used to be?  What happened?  Some kind of Advent conspiracy?

Today our Advent calendar marks 12 days left.  How can that be?

Jonah and I spent an afternoon making this calendar.  I've seen pocket-style Advent calendars before, but they always involve candy in each pocket.  I'm really not into candy-any-more-than-absolutely-necessary and "every day in Advent" is NOT absolutely necessary.  So I've never gone for it.  But then Jonah and I saw one in the store recently that had a snowman theme and used a little wooden candy-cane shape as a marker in each pocket.

***Attention:  We interrupt this crafty Advent narrative to deal with a mess of broken glass, mashed potatoes and water.  Please excuse any delay.

***Crisis averted.  Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

Okay... so... um... Advent calendar, candy, pockets.... oh yes.

So.  We saw this cool Advent calendar which Jonah wanted to purchase that instant, but I don't go for snowmen (brr) and promised we'd make something similar. So we did!  I used canvas, felt, and paint that I had on hand and this is what we came up with.  Nathan cut a little wooden cross to use as a marker and Jonah painted it.

Et voila! Counting the days until Christmas in style.



I have plans to make and send out a few Christmas cards this year, but it's so far not materialized.  I guess it's just more fun to sew and make cookies.

Speaking of making cookies.  I was doing so a few days ago in preparation for some visitors that were coming for the afternoon.  I used the hand mixer to cream the butter and sugar, and then gave the beaters to my two little elves for licking.  I had cleaned most of the mixture off the beater that went to Andrew, and he's no dummy,  lemme tell ya.  I ran to grab the camera to get a picture of my sweet helpers licking their beaters together and when I got back I found them embroiled in a tug-of-war over Evan's (more well-endowed) beater.  Andrew doesn't let go of anything, e v e r, and Evan tried valiantly to defend his portion.

So I put down the camera --no picture of adorable beater-licking--, broke up the battle, and tried to ignore Andrew's head-banging tantrum while I finished the dough.

Somehow, however, what with all Evan's passive tolerance, Andrew eventually obtained both beaters AND the wooden spoon, on the floor in sumptuous victory while his brother just looked on.  I think Evan knew that he's taller and could simply help himself to the bowl of dough.

Pretty sure Andrew's sugar-high and sugar-encrusted hairdo lasted all day.