New Year’s Decorating Ideas

If you thought you had nothing to decorate with, here’s just a few ideas for last-minute decorating of your home or your table for a New Year’s Eve party.

• Place every clock you own on your coffee or dining table;
• Use watches as napkin rings;
• Use noisemakers as a centerpiece on your table;
• Display a group of timers, stopwatches, clocks, pocketwatches and wristwatches on a buffet, table or mantel;
• If you own opera gloves, opera glasses, tuxedo bowtie, top hat, etc. (perhaps from your wedding or the prom), these will also make elegant props on a table or mantel for a New Year’s Eve party.
• Arrange party hats, blowouts and noisemakers on trays and scatter them throughout the room as part of your decorating.

USDA Approved Our Eggs

The United States Department of Agriculture agent approved the eggs I bought just moments before I picked them up. You see pictured here the USDA tag. It was a hot topic of conversation at my husband’s work, and in the decades we’ve been alive, neither of us has ever come across one of these before, nor have any of the people we spoke with. It was so unusual, in fact, that the customers at the store were all looking at the tag suspiciously and refusing to take these eggs. My husband and I grabbed them all the faster. I have no idea what it is the USDA inspects when the agents are looking at eggs, but obviously these passed the test and have the initialed tag and the #5 scribble on the carton itself to prove it. Besides, I thought it would be an interesting tidbit to share with all of my blog readers. Have you ever bought anything sampled by a USDA agent? The USDA knows eggs, because these eggs were very good indeed!

Almost Sunset In Half Moon Bay, California

We were at the beach just before sunset. It was very cold for California, but the view and the sunset sure were worth it. So was the beautiful drive to the beach, for that matter. After all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, it turned out to be a great family outing, and I just wanted to share a few peaceful and rejuvenating snapshots with all of you.

Thursday Thirteen #12 — Organized In The New Year

Welcome back to Thursday Thirteen! With the New Year resolutions looming in the near future, I am sharing with you 13 ways to remain organized in 2008 and for years to come. Click on the links for more details.

1. Desk Calendar: I hide a large desk calendar inside my guest closet;
2. Notebooks: Never again lose notes jotted on a scrap of paper. I have a tiny one in my purse for notes on the go; a small one near every phone and especially near the answering machine, just the right size for a name and phone number; regular school notebooks for projects, ideas, my blog, journals, etc.;
3. Binders: I keep regular school binders by category such as my household binder;
4. Flash Drives: I’m so excited flash drives were invented and have so drastically dropped down in price. I back up just about everything by category on flash drives. These days, you can even buy them in packs of 10! I have one for my photos, one for my blog, one for my recipes, one for my documents, etc.
5. Easy Zipper Bags: These are not relegated to just the refrigerator. I use them in just about every room. They are particularly good to help children store and easily find their toys;
6. Bread Bag Close Tabs: I use these in the freezer!
7. Kitchen Colander: Really, I’m not crazy, and a colander does keep me organized — in the bathtub!!
8. Plastic Grocery Bags: Paper or plastic? Plastic for me because they get reused in a whole slew of ways before finding themselves in the landfill;
9. Trading Card Storage: Our son has lots of game and trading cards, and like his friends and their parents, we were having a hard time finding a good way to organize them at any price until I thought of using this free box.
10. Keeping Our Bookcases From Breaking: My husband, our son and I are all avid readers so our bookcases are always bulging despite using the library. I recently found this solution and so far it seems to be working as it should. If any of you do this too, let all of us know how it’s working for you. 🙂
11. Letter Writing Containers: I like to write short notes and thank yous to make someone’s day. I found it’s a lot more likely to get done if I’m organized. I have a zippered binder in my car where I seem to spend too much time waiting. The binder is within arm’s reach of the driver’s seat and I keep it stocked with small blank notes, thank you cards, some stamps, pens and colored pencils, Post Its, paper clips, a small ruler, pencil sharpener, pretty stickers and address labels for both myself and the people I write to most often, an address book, and a calendar marked with birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions. I keep a pretty container stocked with the same items near my easy chair and by my bedside.
12. Lazy Susans: I have no idea why they call Susan lazy when she’s so smart, but she keeps the hard-to-reach back corners of my deep kitchen cabinets stocked with my mugs on one shelf and my glasses on another;
13. Diaper Bag/Grown Boy or Girl Bag: Our son has outgrown diaper bags, but I used to keep one large bag in each car with extra supplies so that I would never run out of anything. I carried a small, light one everywhere we went on foot, but the big, heavy one remained in the car with everything a baby could possibly need because if you don’t have it, that’s when you’ll need it. Today, I still keep a bag with non-spoiling munchies, water, spare socks, a blanket, drawing supplies, one or two toys, wipes, Kleenexes, picnic supplies and plastic grocery bags. Because we live far away from civilization, I’m ready for wasted time in waiting rooms or traffic jams, we can have an impromptu picnic at the park, and having had to run for our lives on several occasions because of California fires, I’d rather be ready like the Scouts.

• If you don’t know what to do with all those Christmas cards you just received other than just throwing them in the recycling or trash bins, I have 13 great ways to reuse your Christmas cards.

Feel free to leave me comments, and if you are participating in Thursday Thirteen too, let me know you came by so that my readers and I can come visit your blog as well. 😉

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

Happy Thursday!!

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel! Buon Natale! Feliz Navidad!

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas 2007!

Dreaming Of a White Christmas? Let It Snow On Your Blog

Do you see what I see? It’s snowing on my blog!

Just in time for Christmas, Matt Mullenweg of WordPress has given us the option of adding extra snow to our blogs with just a couple of clicks. Have no fear if you are not a WordPress user, he directs you to an easy as pumpkin pie code from Schillmania too.

And if you are still looking for some Christmas ideas and resources, be sure to click below. These suggestions might be of particular interest this Christmas Eve: Magic Reindeer Food, Tracking Santa on Christmas Eve and Ideas to Reuse Christmas Cards.

• No Nativity For Archbishop
• Classic Christmas Books
• Ideas To Reuse Christmas Cards
• True Meaning of The 12 Days of Christmas Carol
• Where’s Santa?
• Magic Reindeer Food
• Advent Calendar Chain — Easy Children’s Craft
• Every Cookie Recipe Imaginable
• Favorite Christmas Movies
• Using an Advent Wreath as a Devotional Tool
  
• Write a Santa Letter to Your Children
• Holiday Shopping List
• Holiday Decorating Tips and Ideas
• Getting To Know Your Friends — Christmas Edition Part 1
• Getting To Know Your Friends — Christmas Edition Part 2
• Getting To Know Your Friends — Christmas Edition Part 3

No Nativity For Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury says there was no virgin birth, no magi (only a legend), and no star, among other blabberings.  This is coming from a religious leader of the Christian faith, but since atheism keeps creeping into our churches, even an Archbishop no longer believes in the biblical nativity.  I found all the details on Tad Cronn’s blog, so head over there to read his editorial on the Archbishop’s heresy titled The Archbishop of Can’t Be: Atheism in the Church.

Thursday Thirteen #11 — Classic Christmas Books

Welcome back to Thursday Thirteen! You might also be interested in yesterday’s post for Works For Me Wednesday which is also a list of thirteen Christmas ideas. Happy Thursday Thirteen!! And wishing you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

1. ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore
2. Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
3. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
4. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
6. The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffman
7. Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck
8. Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien
9. Jan Brett’s Christmas Treasury
10. Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco
11. Christmas in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
12. Rudolph: The Red-Nosed Reindeer by Robert Lewis May
13. Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus by Francis Pharcellus Church

If you are interested in Christmas Ideas or Household Tips, just click below.

Reusing Christmas Cards

Where’s Santa?

Magic Reindeer Food

Advent Calendar Chain — Easy Children’s Craft

Every Cookie Recipe Imaginable

Favorite Christmas Movies

Using an Advent Wreath as a Devotional Tool

Write a Santa Letter to Your Children

Holiday Shopping List

Holiday Decorating Tips and Ideas

HOUSEHOLD TIPS

Ten Minute Recipe

Egg Tip

Bookcases at the Breaking Point?

Organizing Household Binder

Trading Card Storage

Freezer Solution

Large desk calendar inside guest closet

Child’s haircut without tears

Homemade bread stuffing

Plastic colander bath toy drainer/holder

Reuse plastic grocery bags in the car

How to increase Web site traffic?

16 Blog/Web site tips

Toy storage

Every Cookie Recipe Imaginable

Black Friday Holiday Shopping

WFMW — Put Used Christmas Cards To Good Use

Be sure to see my other Advent and Christmas ideas below too. I save some of my Christmas greeting cards because I’m the sentimental type, but here are some great uses for those who usually just discard them in the trash. These are some of the uses I find for the ones which do not hold special value to me. I love comments 😉 Also, if you have more ideas be sure to let all of us know what they are.

1. Give them to a teacher (always ask first when giving). Many preschool, kindergarten and early grade teachers need these cards (Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc. too!) for their students to do paper crafts in class. Sometimes they use them to make collages to send cards to soldiers, senior citizens or the homeless. Some teachers will have their students use them to create a priceless gift to their parents. Some teachers will use them for their own bulletin boards to make the classroom more festive.
2. Give them to a student artist or a professional artist. One of the professional artists at our church asks the office to save all the cards we receive for use as inspiration, models, etc. Some artists will separate the various colors and turn them into pulp for use as papier mache and handmade paper. Others use them as found objects for their art or even for installations.
3. Give them to a church or senior group. When I was involved with our monthly Senior Luncheon group, the organizer would always be on the lookout for seasonal greeting cards to use as nametags, placecards, To/From tags and decorations. At Christmas and Valentine’s Day each senior would receive a card made from these used greeting cards. The card would be cut in half so that the side written on would be discarded. The picture side would either be folded in half or glued to a piece of paper and a personal message would be added for the senior. You have no idea how much joy it brought to some of these seniors. For some of them, this would be the only card anyone would give them. The church and the volunteers did not have a special card budget, so these recycled ones would be it or there would be nothing.
4. Use them for scrapbooking. As we become more and more conscious of our environment, printers and card companies are using acid free paper and inks so they can be used to make some fancy frames, backgrounds, clip art, etc. for our photo albums and scrapbooks. Many cards today are even made by hand and have that three-dimensional effect that so many scrapbookers are looking for.
5. Give them to your child for cutting. Younger children love to cut paper, and cardstock gives them a different texture to manipulate. Manipulatives are very important for a young child’s development and for fine motor skills. The ones with layers, ribbons, pop-ups, etc. can all be taken apart and possibly reconstructed by the child. Children can use the pictures to illustrate their own stories. Old magazines also work well for this.
6. Save them until next year, and children can decorate their own small packages.
7. Help your children make next year’s Advent calendar. You’ll need one card for the main scene in the front, from which you will cut out the 25 windows (cut three sides only, door-style). With a pencil, outline the windows on a piece of paper. You’ll need one or more cards for the back where you’ll glue the 25 mini-pictures to the outlines on the piece of paper. Then glue that paper to the back of the main scene with the 25 mini-pictures showing through the windows. Next year, you’ll bend back one window each day of Advent. If you do the craft this year, it will help your children transition from too much excitement during the pre-Christmas rush and too little excitement in the post-Christmas letdown and boredom before returning to school. This craft is not about making the prettiest, most professional-looking calendar (you can buy that at the store), it’s about letting your children practice gluing, cutting, aligning and using their creativity, while letting them do something more than just watch TV and boosting their self-esteem. If you put away the calendar(s) with the Christmas decorations, you will not lose them during the long year ahead. You can also elect to tuck in all your used cards with the decorations and they will be waiting for your children’s creative talents next Advent season.
8. Another good child craft is to use cookie cutters (or a glass for a simple circle) to outline 25 scenes, cut them out with scissors, punch a small hole on either left/right or top/bottom and string them garland style. Your children can add bows in between each scene, or add beads, etc. Their creativity is the limit. You also have the option to add the numbers 1-25 on them. It will make a nice swag for across the mantle, a vertical garland to hang in their room or for the homeschool classroom for next year’s Advent.
9. Frame them. Many cards are art reproductions of the Masters, and some may be from unknown artists at Hallmark or American Greetings but just as pretty, and will make cute holiday pictures to decorate your home. Get a few small frames from the dollar store (sometimes even two or three for $1) or insert them in frame ornaments for your tree, which have become so popular in recent years. There’s no law that says you must put in a family snapshot. You could put in a reproduction of the Holy Family or a cutesy teddy bear with a holly wreath if that’s more along your decorating theme (shop those after-Christmas sales for bargains).
10. Our son, the future scientist, tells me the computer chip components from musical Christmas cards can be reused for scientific and robotic purposes.
11. If you receive cards from Europe, they have a paper insert which is not glued to the card as they are here in the U.S., so you can just save/toss the insert and reuse the card as a brand new greeting card next year. All you’ll have to do is buy some envelopes.
12. One senior citizen I used to know would cut away the written portion and send the picture portion as a Christmas postcard. On her tiny, fixed income, she would also save on postage, yet she was able to continue her social tradition of sending cards to everyone she knew. She said the ones which were not embossed worked best as it was more difficult to see that they were reused greeting cards.
13. Save the written part of the card. Yes, you read that correctly. Professionals write these cards and say it better than most of us can, so save your favorite samples and incorporate them in your own greetings. Soon, even blank cards will be of no concern to you even if you are normally completely tongue tied. This works for birthday and especially sympathy cards.

For the rest of the Works For Me Wednesday participants, head to Rocks in My Dryer.

If you missed any of my Advent and Christmas ideas, just click below.

• Where’s Santa?
• Magic Reindeer Food
• Advent Calendar Chain — Easy Children’s Craft
• Every Cookie Recipe Imaginable
• Favorite Christmas Movies
• Using an Advent Wreath as a Devotional Tool
  
• Write a Santa Letter to Your Children
• Holiday Shopping List
• Holiday Decorating Tips and Ideas

If you missed any of my household tips, just click below. I also have these as a separate page you can access any time at the header on top.

• Ten Minute Recipe
• Egg Tip
• Bookcases at the Breaking Point?
• Organizing Household Binder
• Trading Card Storage
• Freezer Solution
• Large desk calendar inside guest closet
• Child’s haircut without tears
• Homemade bread stuffing
• Plastic colander bath toy drainer/holder
• Reuse plastic grocery bags in the car
• How to increase Web site traffic?
• 16 Blog/Web site tips
• Toy storage
• Every Cookie Recipe Imaginable
• Black Friday Holiday Shopping

Getting To Know Your Friends — Christmas Edition Part 3

This is just for fun, although I’ve added some household tips and Christmas ideas, so you might find it worth your while to read on. I’ve been tagged by a friend and I’m sharing the fun along with my readers. You too can participate either in your blog or through e-mail if you don’t have a blog. If you missed Part 1, it’s right here and Part 2 is here.

Welcome to the Christmas edition of Getting To Know Your Friends.

Here’s what you’re supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!!

Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then either publish it in your blog or send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person who sent it to you … ‘Tis the Season to be NICE!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of hot chocolate, croissants and panettone. I also love the French tradition of the 13 desserts, although I’ve never done it for my immediate family since there are only three of us. This year though, I’ve come up with a great idea. I’ll have the requisite Yule log or buche de Noel, and I’ll buy 12 individual-sized pastries from the bakery. We’ll have one bite from each! I think it will do the trick of keeping a tradition while not having enough dessert to feed two armies. Year-round I do not have a particularly sweet tooth, but I associate Christmas with lots of wonderful food and lots of sweets of all kinds. I have a huge extended family. We’re talking hundreds of people when all the generations get together. On my mom’s side of the family, we would do a potluck-style Christmas dinner. Each adult would bring one item for the dinner. It was that nuclear family’s contribution to the dinner and Christmas gift to the entire extended family. One person would bring caviar, another would bring smoked salmon, another oysters, another champagne, another boudins blanc (white sausages), etc., etc., etc. When you have so many people gathering, you also use the entire home, including the family room, formal entry and the bedrooms. My paternal grandfather would have buffet tables in every room. We would go from room to room and visit with family while munching on hors d’oeuvres scattered around the entire house. I remember one gathering where some of my cousins and I discovered the room with the red and black caviar canapes. We were very hungry and we discovered very good caviar. Not too salty and no fishy taste. When we left the room, there were almost none left for the adults. You snooze, you loose!

16. Favorite Christmas song? I have far too many to pick one. It was already very difficult to pick a top 13 for a previous post, but you can click here to see which ones are some of my favorites, and you can click here to see why I appreciate the 12 Days of Christmas even more now than I used to.

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Both. I have the misfortune of living far away from home, so most years I am the one who has the chore of traveling hundreds of miles during the busy holiday season. From time to time, the mountain thankfully comes to Mohammed, though.

18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeers? If you give me enough time I will, but off the tip of my tongue, Rudolph is the only one who ever comes to mind. Did you know Rudolph was invented by a Montgomery Wards employee? If you are too young to remember Montgomery Wards, it was a department store similar to Sears. It was the first department store to trust me with a student store-credit card back when I was still a teenager. I thoroughly miss that store and Woolworth, too. How could they possibly close American institutions like that? What a pity.

19. Angel on the tree top or a star? I have several of both, and Mary with baby Jesus, and a needle, and a chandelier-like tree top. Remember I have trees in every single room.

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? As a child we always opened gifts on Christmas Day. Notice, I did not say Christmas Morning. My mom would torture us by not allowing any gifts, not even one, to be opened until afternoon. In the name of Christmas not being about gifts, but about God, my mom decided that the gift opening would almost be an afterthought. There would also be only one from Santa and one from my parents. Thank goodness for relatives, though with so many relatives, most did not give gifts to all of us children, but I usually received two or three more gifts that way, so at least I was not deprived. When I got married, my husband’s family was used to opening all presents on Christmas Eve so it worked out very well for us. Christmas Eve was at his parents’ house, Christmas Day was at mine, and nobody argued or got feelings hurt. Our son opens gifts on Christmas Morning as soon as we are done with our special Christmas breakfast.

21. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Atheists trying to jam their own beliefs down our throats because they can’t at least live and let live. Too many of them don’t just not believe in God, but are actually anti-God and make their own beliefs into a religion.

22. Favorite ornament theme or color? I prefer the old-fashioned kind of Christmas ornaments on a real, green Christmas tree. I also like my very artificial silver foil tabletop tree with tiny gold ball ornaments and “S” shaped swirl hooks. The white lights and even daylight reflect on the foil and the ornaments, so it does look quite stuning. Being silver, it looks very much at home even past New Year, and can be decorated with a timepiece theme or numbers/years. That tree reminds me of the tree my parents had bought in the late ’60s. I see no use for ornaments representing licensed products like Spider-Man, Star Wars and the like, not that I have anything against these types of things, but because they have nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas.

23. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Prime rib. My mother-in-law used to make an entire side of cow and it was the very best prime rib ever. No other home cook and no restaurant chef, even ones supposedly specializing in prime rib, can ever compare to hers.

24. What do you want for Christmas this year? The best gift ever would be one that only Santa or God (or just maybe my Realtor) could give me. I would like my house to finally sell in this horrible market where my Realtor tells us there is a 12 months inventory in our area and mortgage companies are not even granting loans to anyone but those with extremely fantastic, wonderful, spectacular, stupendous credit.

And here’s a bonus question from me, because this last one is kind of a downer and Christmas should be happy!

25. What are some of your favorite Christmas memories? Besides the ones I’ve already mentioned, growing up in Paris, France, my parents would take me to see the large department store windows (it’s similar to the New York City tradition). I would especially like the automatons and anything moving like the toy trains. We would drive on the Champs Elysees with the Arch of Triumph in front of us, getting ever closer, and around Christmas time, the City of Lights would explode with even more lights than the rest of the year. Each year I just could not believe my eyes at the sight of so many lights and so many beautiful things to look at. Between Christmas and Epiphany, my parents would take me to many of the churches in Paris so we could visit Baby Jesus. Each church would have its own gorgeous Nativity set. Some would even have several, and all were antiques, because Paris was not made yesterday.