Anticipation by Brenda Nixon

This is Potpourri Week. As co-authors on A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts, we choose any Christmas related topic this week and blog on it.

Hmm, what do I love about the holidays? The anticipation! Yep. Waiting . . . in eager expectation for the BIG day.

As a child, I loved the heightened joy, plans, baking, chatter, and family-time leading up to the day. I'd revel in considering the longed-for two weeks vacation from school; spending time with my brother and sister, watching holiday-themed movies on TV, and visiting with fave relatives. The foretaste of opening packages, laughter, surprise, and greed (well, I was a kid), and the prediction of Mom and Dad's reaction to my gift to them entertained my thoughts.

Some people are irritated at having to wait. Not me.

Today, as a wife and mom, I enthusiastically give my family the good aromas and activities that I hope will bond them and create a positive state of mind. I want my family to learn that anticipation - hopefulness - is indeed a gift.

Now I'm humming Carly Simon's song, "Anticipation."

Brenda Nixon, www.BrendaNixon.com
Co-author, A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts

Every Time You Hear a Bell Ring. . .

One of the best moments in It's A Wonderful Life is when Jimmy Stewart hears the bell on the Christmas tree ring and knows that his angel friend has finally earned his wings. A simple ornament made from a large jingle bell and some ribbon is a great gift to keep on hand for those unexpected Christmas visitors.

At a craft store purchase some large jingle bells. They sometimes come in colors of red or white or green as well as silver and gold. Buy some thin satin ribbon and large ornament hooks as well. Simply cut an 8-10 inch length of ribbon, thread it through the top part of the bell, tie a bow and add an ornament hook. If you want to get any fancier, you can glue on some berries and greenery or mini-pine cones. Keep the bells in a large basket or hang on your tree and use them to gift your friends in appreciation for their visit.

As always, it is more frugal to buy these after Christmas but beware that often jingle bells are one of the first things to sell out at the holiday.

No-Sew Scarf

This is a great activity for young children and teens and costs little to make especially if you run into a good sale on fleece. I love these scarves because they are light weight, warm, and less bulky than many other scarves.

• Find some nice fleece and purchase a piece as long as you want your scarves to be--at least one yard up to two yards.
• Cut a length of fleece as wide as you would like your scarf to be--10-16". You may want to trim off the selvaged edge.
• Decide how long you would like the fringe to be (5-8") and begin to cut 1/2" wide strips in each end of the scarf. To make this easier for kids, you may want to purchase a pen with disappearing ink (available at fabric stores) and mark the lines for them to cut.
• For added fringing, I take bright colored yarn and tie strips to each piece of fleece fringe.
• You can also add beads to the fringe or know the fringe near the scarf to add to the design.

Fleece is usually 50-60 inches wide so there is enough to make 4-5 scarves. Make some for gifts and keep one for yourself!

Have you made any other fleece projects?

Christmas Surprise of My Life - Trish Berg

I am married to an amazing guy. The love of my life, Mike. And once in a while, he, once again, knocks me off my feet with a surprise Christmas gift, taking my breath away once again.

Our first Christmas as husband and wife, he built a manger for me out of old barn siding from his parents barn. And every Christmas since then, he buys me 1 Fontanini figurine to fill the manger. (After 18 years of marriage, it is getting full in there!)

The Christmas after our first baby, Hannah, was born, he bought me diamond earrings. They were small, but so sparkly. That shocked me, since Mike is not a shopper, especially for jewelry.

And as wonderful as those gifts were, and they were, still the BEST most surprising gift Mike ever gave me at Christmastime did not cost a penny - just his love.

It was Christmas 2002, and I was VERY pregnant with our fourth child, Riley. Christmas morning dawned, and I sat my 8 1/2 month pregnant, whale-sized body in the comfy chair to watch the kids open their presents.

That's when Mike handed me an envelope and picked up the video camera to capture my reaction on tape.

I didn't know what to expect. Had no idea what could be in the envelope.

Once I opened it, the tears began to flow down my face. I could not believe that my husband had done such a thing.

Inside the plain white envelope, was a calendar. A schedule, as it were, of women from our church whom Mike had asked to come over and spend a couple of hours each day of the week for 2 months to help me get our three older children up, dressed, fed and on the school bus.

You see, Riley was due January 8th, and I now had 3 older children to get off to school. Mike knew I was a bit nervous about being up all night with a newborn, nursing, and then getting up with the kiddos and getting them off to school. Since Mike was a school teacher himself, he also knew he would need to leave before the kids did, and that left me alone and exhausted in the mornings.

So he spent several weeks walking around church with a calendar asking some of the older women in our church if they wanted to help him surprise me with this gift.

Guess what- THEY DID!

So, for the first couple of months after Riley was born, around 6:30 in the morning, an angel would arrive in the form of a friend. They would help get our 3 older children dressed, make them breakfast, and get them on the school bus for me so I could either rest with Riley, or nurse her or do whatever I needed to do.

And many of them then came back into the house to wash a load of laundry for me, do the breakfast dishes, or run my sweeper.

As long as I live, I will never forget the gift of angels Mike gave me that year. It was a gift wrapped up in love and friendship not just from my husband, but from a dozen women in our church. I grew closer to those women throughout the experience, and have deeper friendships with them even today, over 5 years later.

So, don't get caught up in the buying of gifts this Christmas. Sometimes the BEST gifts don't cost any money at all. The best gifts come wrapped in love and friendship, and time, and faith.

Think creatively this Christmas. How can you give a gift like that to someone you love. I guarantee it will be a gift they won't fever forget, one that will never gather dust in your attic or be re-gifted to Good will in a few years.

And as much as those diamond earrings sparkled, the gift of love shines for eternity.

Enjoy the journey, Trish
www.TrishBerg.com
Psalm 118:24

And be sure to visit these blog hosts today! Leave a comment to be entered for the Christmas Basket drawing!

http://simplifyingmotherhood.blogspot.com/
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http://tarasviewoftheworld.blogspot.com/
http://www.247moms.blogspot.com/

Make Now--Give Later

Apples are in this time of year. It's time to plan ahead for Christmas. If you are like me, you never have enough of those little gifts to give to people like Sunday school teachers, the postman, the hairdresser, etc. I don't know too many people who don't like apple butter and with a little dressing-up on the jar, it becomes a wonderful Christmas gift. Here's how to make a big batch:

3 quarts sweet cider
8 lbs apples washed, cored, and quartered (sweet-tart apples work best) 2 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. allspice

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

Place all into a roasting pan and set the oven for 325°. Let bake uncovered until apples cook and mixture thickens. Stir occasionally to break up apples and get proper consistency. About 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours later, carefully ladle the hot mixture into clean sterile canning jars. Be sure to wipe any apple off of the rim of the jar. Close with hot sterilized lids and rings. Turn jars upside down. Lids will seal as contents cool. (You know they are sealed when you can press the top of the lid and there's no give.)

Jar lids may be decorated with fabric and/or ribbons. I like to cut swatches of thin Christmas fabric that I buy on sale after Christmas or find on the remnant table. I carefully unscrew the metal ring on the jar and place the fabric over the metal lid. Then screw the jar ring back down. You can tie a piece of thin satin ribbon or curling ribbon around the lid and add a small ornament or cut a design from an old Christmas card and punch a hole through it to make a little gift card to tie on.

What do you like with apple butter? Muffins? Toast? Biscuits?

Christmas Package Decorations

I didn't realize how plain my gift wrapping had gotten until one year my daughter-in-law joked about there not being any ribbons or decoration on the Christmas gifts. When I thought back to some of the gifts I'd received as a child, I remembered some friends of our family who always had cute little dolls, or holiday greenery, or little toy trains tied onto the packages we unwrapped. Yes, I admit, I was shamed into getting more creative with my Christmas wrappings.

To save money on what can become an expensive endeavor, I hit the dollar stores and places where I know I can get small items to tape or tie to the tops of packages. The best happens when I plan ahead and shop the post-holiday sales. I can find all sorts of things to use for decoration that only cost 10 to 25 cents.

Or try using some floral pics that are out of season. Use some glitter spray to make them look more like the holidays. Who says you have to use red and green colors or only poinsettias for Christmas?

Another inexpensive gift topper is colored netting you can purchase in a fabric store. I cut 6-8" circles, gather them in the middle and tie a bit of curling ribbon around them to fasten. It beats trying to make big bows out of expensive ribbons.

How fancy do you get with your gift wrapping?

The Gift of Prayer

Want to help someone grow in their faith this Christmas? Covenant to pray for them. And to make the gift even better, encourage them to grow in their prayer life by giving the gift of a prayer journal, a Bible, and a prayer afghan or throw.

Find a blank notebook and cover the outside with a handmade/stitched book cover or find a pretty journal in a card or gift shop. Crochet, knit, quilt, or find a ready-made lap blanket that coordinates in color with the journal. Put these into a basket and add a color-coordinated Bible (or cover one) and a nice pen for journaling. If the recipient is a new Christian, you may want to add a book on prayer to inspire them.

Encourage your recipient to curl up in a comfortable chair with their Bible, journal, and lap throw as if they were a little child coming to the lap of their Father to receive his love, encouragement, and strength. Remind them that you will be praying for them as well.

Do you have a favorite verse on prayer? Mine is Philippians 4:6,7

Gifts to Grow Faith

A nativity set, or creche, is a gift that reminds people to focus on the birth of Christ, during the holiday, and that is also decorative.

One year my family made some simple stables of scraps of wood, cutting and nailing and glueing, till a stable on a wood platform was created. We left the wood plain with just a spritz of gold spray paint, purchased inexpensive nativity figures, and gave these as gifts to relatives and friends.

The three essential figures are Mary, Joseph and the Christ child, and other figures as you desire, like sheep, shepherds, camels, wise men and angels. Children like to add the figures to the scene day by day; first the animals in the stable, next the Holy Family and the baby Jesus. Later they can add the shepherds and their flocks, and then the Wise Men and their camels as they follow the star to Bethlehem.