Dear Santa Party

Last week we wrote our letters to Santa. I decided to make a party out of it. So the boys had a little Dear Santa Party. They wrote letters. They sipped cold milk. They ate yummy treats.

Last year I made up these Dear Santa letter printables.

The letter to fill out is super fun and is easily used for older kids and younger ones. I made changes to the envelope image I made last year. Last year I found an address online that I had been told worked. Well, false. SO this year I did a little more research and found several options that work great.

The address I used:

Santa Claus

PO Box 1

Santa Claus, IN 47579

This address goes to a museum in Santa Claus, Indiana, where they have volunteers who receive the letters and will write a response back to any letter written before December 20th as long as the return address is readable. 

SO I made a new envelope image with that address.

You can still use the first envelope design if it doesn't really get mailed. However, the new address can be mailed.

With letter and envelope in hand we were ready to start our party.

I found these adorable paper products at Target in the Christmas section.

I matched up the straws, Santa plates, and napkins with a few things I already had around the house.

We served Oreos and cinnamon Santas.

I think everyone had fun.

From the littlest Santa believer.

To the oldest believer in the Spirit of Santa, goer along to keep the magic alive for his younger brothers.

This little party was waiting for them when they got home from school. I had so much fun just putting together this simple festive Dear Santa Party. I think we have a new tradition.

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Christmas Thank You for the Garbage Man

This Christmas we are trying to think of more opportunities to show kindness to those around us. We are trying to think of who we can thank or serve. It is our Christmas of Kindness.

This week we decided to serve our Garbage Men. They work super hard. They work in the cold, the heat, and here, in the WIND. They heft our garbage filled cans. They heft our grass filled cans.

Basically, they are amazing.

To thank them we put together these gift bags.

First I went to my ever faithful PicMonkey and made this graphic for our Christmas Thank you to our Garbage Men. How stinking adorable is that abominable snowman? I just adore PicMonkey's Christmas overlays.

I printed off the graphic onto brown paper lunch sacks. You can find my tutorial on how to print on a lunch sack HERE. You can also just print this off on a piece of paper and make a tag.

Since I have an obsession with matching colors, Crunch bars were a must.

I also had some blue striped washi tape sitting around.

Another fun feature to this Christmas thank you, was the batting I used inside to mimic snow. The purpose was double fold. The batting also helped the bag stay upright.

Hopefully we make the day of some Garbage Men.

We have a couple more Christmas Service ideas in our Christmas of Kindness 2014 and I am excited to share them with you.

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Christmas Print: Come and Adore Him

I am sharing this really simple Christ-centered Christmas Printable with you guys today. One of my favorite Christmas hymns is O Come, All Ye Faithful.  I took just one phrase from the hymn and made a printable.

I used Picmonkey to make this printable. I made a traditional red one for our home because the primary holiday color we use. However I made three other color options. I also made the Christmas print in black, gold, and turquoise.

Just right click on the image and save it to your computer. Then you can print it off in the size you want. Hope that this can find a place in your holiday decor.

I really love fun and Santa themed decorating, but I also know that the real reason we celebrate this wonderful holiday is to commemorate the birth of the Savior. I am trying to get better about also including some decorations that represent Him.

Merry Christmas!

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25 Magical Christmas Books

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Singy sing sing. We just got out all of our Christmas decorations. Our house is now all set up and simply oozing Christmas spirit and charm.

One of our boys' favorite thing to unpack from the Christmas stuff is our Christmas books. Every year they love looking through them and remembering which ones we have. They love rereading their favorite books over and over again. Every year we add one or two books to our Christmas book collection.

The boys wake up Christmas Eve morning to a yarn maze that leads them through the house and eventually they find a new Christmas book. We have been doing this since Oldest's first Christmas. We have accumulated quite a magical collection of Christmas books.

Today I am sharing a list of 25 Magical Christmas Books. Some of these books we own and some are on my to-own list. These are are great books and your kids will love them.

It's Christmas, David!

The Christmas Train

Bear Stays Up For Christmas

 

I Spy Christmas

A Wish To Be A Christmas Tree

Russel's Christmas Magic

Dream Snow

Olive the Other Reindeer

How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas

The Dinosaurs Night Before Christmas

Pete the Cat Saves Christmas

Sing to Baby Jesus

Room For a Little One

Humphrey's First Christmas

The Polar Express

Merry Christmas Curious George

How Santa Got His Job

A Christmas Carol

The Santa Claus Book

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Claus

Snowmen At Christmas

The Nutcracker 

The Night Before Christmas

We love Christmas books. This list is a collection of fun, vintage, and classic Christmas stories. All are sure to amuse and bring the Christmas spirit.

Christmas books equal magic and wonder.

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Our Christmas Fancies and Merry Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas full of family, childlike excitement, love, giggles, and quiet moments of reflection on the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

I had planned to wish you a Merry Christmas a little sooner than December 30th, but we were happily wrapped up in Christmas festivities (Not to mention not-so-happily experiencing momentary illness...which by the way, did it seem like almost everyone you knew had some form of illness around Christmas?).

So here it is several days after and I am hoping you all had a very Merry Christmas.

One of my favorite days leading up to Christmas is Christmas Sunday, i.e. the Sunday just before Christmas. The absolute best is when Christmas falls on a Sunday. I love celebrating the birth of Christ through sacred hymns and inspirational messages of His birth and life. I love that we dress up just a tad bit fancier than normal. I love that the congregation is busting with visiting family and friends, even if they aren't ours.

I just love it all.

This year, I didn't really get the boys anything new to wear to church, specific for Christmas anyway. I pulled together a few things we already had that looked fancy and "Christmasy".

My wardrobe rummaging explains how this precious little Christmas lumberjack look came to be.

My blue-eyed handsome boy is still just a tad too small for a suit. However, he happily wore this black and red flannel with a black paisley tie I made for the boys two Christmases ago.

The other boys all wore their normal Sunday suits, spruced up with a bit of red in their ties.

It is killing me with how old Oldest is starting to look!

Middle, my stoic handsome one as always.

Then there is Little, always photogenic and always too cute for his own good.

We didn't have mistletoe, but that didn't keep us from smooching it up in front of the Christmas tree. Oldest got it all on camera.

This particular Christmas Sunday, we were miraculously ready quite a bit early for church. So that means I got to snap a lot of pictures...okay, as many as my rowdy boys would allow.

A Christmas hug for dad.

A cute little Christmas "cheese".

A little extra pose, which he came up with all by himself.

I really feel blessed to have this family of boys. I am lucky to be the lone lady amongst all these gentlemen.

I hope you had a warm and wonderful holiday season, and that you continue to feel that warmth into the New Year.

DIY Photo Wrapping Paper

Here is a quick and fun DIY Photo Wrapping Paper. Some homemade wrapping paper perfect for all those Project Handmade Christmas Presents.

The perfect wrapping paper for gifts for those doting, cheek-pinching grandparents. The only problem arises in them not wanting to tear the paper to open the presents.

This paper is so much fun AND it is unbelievably easy to make.

I used PicMonkey to create my main image.

Once you are in PicMonkey, you hover over the Design menu at the top. All of these canvas options will open up.

I used the 8x10 canvas.

Then I used my very "favoritist" (totally a word) feature in PicMonkey. The "Your Own" overlay options. Here you can overlay your own photos and images. I used this feature all the time. Last year I used it to make a grandparent gift. I made the grandmas Personalized Notepads.

I opened photo after photo. I changed sizes on some. I changed angles. I basically just slapped them all on there in collage type fashion.

Then I saved it to the computer. After I saved it, I opened it once again in PicMonkey. Then I changed the photo from color to black and white.

Once the image was saved, I saved it to a thumb drive and took myself over to Staples. I got an engineer print in 24"x36" for under $4.00.

Your wrapping paper will look a little something like this...with your own babies sweet faces all over it.

All that is left is to wrap up those grandparent presents up.

Then wait for the squeals of "oohs and ahhs". They will come. I promise.