Advent 3: A lovely weekend full of joy!

 

This has been a weekend of Joy!

Friday night, was our School Christmas fair.  Apart from getting jaw ache from all the smiling, it was a great occasion. I was on the Raffle with a colleague from Year 2 and we had a lovely sitting down job outside the main hall so much cooler and less noisy plus a lot of the tickets had been sold in advance so we weren't mobbed.  I had a 5 minute break to go and have a go at the Snack tombola and managed to get 3 winning tickets out of my 4 so came out with multi-packs of crisps! 

At the end, I went to go and have a look at the grotto.  Last year, my Headteacher and his partner had turned the library into a complete Winter Wonderland with a snowy trail and I thought nothing could top it.  Well, this year, it was Santa's workshop and it was truly, breathtakingly astounding!

The amount of effort put into it (it has been planned throughout the year) was amazing and it is such an beautiful thing for our children.   It filled me and my Year 2(different one) friend with joy as we looked around.

As we left, she and I arranged to meet for dinner next week which is lovely! I am grateful for her!

CBC and I got home and went straight out to dinner at our favourite Thai restaurant. We really enjoyed it!

On Saturday, CBC and I headed to East London for a very exciting event.  It was a concert on music by my A'level music teacher.  Earlier in the year, I mentioned that we recorded his 3 Christmas cantatas written for pupils at the school in the 1980's. We all had such a wonderful time that we wanted to perform together so our teacher, John Garner, organised a concert entirely of his music. We arrived for a rehearsal and sang and rehearsed our songs. The church was freezing but luckily, I am experienced in Cold Church Concerts so I was well wrapped up in cashmere and fluff!

In the break, CBC and I went out to a Turkish restaurant with 3 of my 6th form friends and another girl. A lovely thing was CBC actually was at university with one of my friends (but we didn't meet through her!) and it was the first time he'd seen her since university! We had a fun time and then got changed.

The concert was wonderful! The choir of around 50-60 comprised of students of his from the 1980's up to the 2010's.  We sang the 3 cantatas we recorded back in May as well as the world premiere of a version of While Shepherds watched their flocks.  In addition, there were several small group and solo items- all carols composed by John.   The concert was so special.  My heart soared with utter euphoria at the beauty of the occasion, of the music and of nostalgia and feeling the love that so many people had and have for this inspirational teacher.

This morning, I got up for church at 8.40am and managed to arrive at church, showered and dressed by around 9.05am!!

It was a beautiful service.  We truly sang our hearts out and everyone felt blessed and touched by the service.

I was looking at the pretty floral displays and saw this tiny figure to the right.

I saw three things from this figure.

The finger is looking up expectantly.  I think expectation, hope and looking up towards Heaven and the light of God is the absolute joy of Advent.  In looking up and seeking hope, we look forward to the joy of Christmas, the fulfilment of our dreams.  But also, I see the figure holding out this bird as if to set it free.  Sometimes, we are holding onto things which we need to let go of. Worries, things we do wrong, bad habits, looking back, trying to fit in.  Sometimes we need to set ourselves, others, things or feelings free.  

I also saw that the bird is a dove. As well as letting go of things, we do need to strive for peace in the best way we can.  Sometimes, that means having to swallow pride and be the bigger person or make sacrifice.

Also, the simple beauty of this figure- I LOVE all the trappings of Christmas, but sometimes, a bit of simplicity is refreshing.

After the service, I downed 3 cups of tea as they were (SHOCK!) going to be chucked down the sink, and cycled home full of joy. The day was bright, the air was warm and I was glad.

When I came home from church, CBC was getting ready to go cycling.  I ate a pastry CBC had bought me the previous day, made myself more tea and then put some washing up and then I looked at our Christmas tree, Chrissie. 

Chrissie lives in a pot in the garden and had been brought in the previous weekend by CBC but had been sitting naked apart from 2 small mice decorations.

I decided that I was going to decorate the tree. Brace yourselves for the fact that this is the first time I have been in charge of decorating a tree. As children, my Mum would decorate it and we weren't allowed to look until it was done. Then mum got a fibre optic one which she didn't want decorations on. Then I didn't have one when I lived alone.  And then, when CBC and I have had a tree, he was always in charge of decorating it and I helped on 2 occasions. Other years, he had stronger opinions on decorations so as someone who hadn't really ever decorated a tree, I just let him! Yes, this was the first time I have ever put lights on a tree.

And here it is!  The lights are a bit messy. I had no idea how you do it! At the moment, it is just sitting on our back door mat...not sure if it will end up on a table in a slightly less wonky position.

Special shot out to Ang Almond for the beautiful handmade Christmas jumper on a hanger she sent to me as a present along with which I'll post about soon.  It's so cute! You can buy them reduced in her amazing website https://www.thirtyonethirteen.net/

Christmas Jumper decorations

As I tidied up our very messy house and decorated the tree and sorted washing, I watched The Holiday.  I also carried on making origami stars.  

CBC got back from cycling and then we drove to our friend Nath's house. He had invite us round for a Christmas get together.  He had prepared a beautiful banquet buffet of food. I felt SO bad for him as he had invited friends round last night AND other friends along with us today and....except for us, everyone else had forgotten about it and didn't turn up!!! So he had prepared all this food and cleaned and tidied.  There was enough for 19 people! He was very gracious about it but it seemed so rude that EVERYONE had forgotten!  We had a lovely time, ate loads, watched a Christmas film and then came home!

This is the final week of school. As I write, I am not totally 100% certain that the church is ready for our carol service on Tuesday due to over-running building works. I hope and pray it is! Please can you too!

Much love to you!

xx

Decorations

Here's a couple of photos from our living room showing our main room decorations for Christmas this year. We don't have lots of hooks or mantelpieces or window sills for displaying Christmas ornaments etc which  is a little sad but we like what we have.

The ScrabbleLights spell Christmas on the piano and there's a wind=up Christmas tree.

Can you spot the tinsel round the clock? This is my favourite piece of tinsel from childhood which Mum bought me to wear round my neck when we used to play carols on the town hall steps with the windband in the freezing cold!

Our Christmas tree was £12 from Wilko and it seemed nice and small but jolly! 

The star at the top of the tree is from Jelly Cats and there's a blackbird which plays real birdcalls!

The tree is sitting on our mosaic plant stand with my red pashmina underneath it.

 In the kitchen as you come in, you will see one of my last Christmas decorations I made.  I decided to make a banner out of a cardboard box, some stripy string, some gold card and a black pen.  Words that are important at Christmas time.

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Then there is the decoration for our front door:

I made some silver card stars out of a takeaway shiny lid in 2020. I just cut stars and embossed lines in in them.

Just add some sellotape to stick them to our front door!

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There's my Advent Calendars of course and a few charity shopped wreaths around the place.

Speaking of wreaths, my Mum was on Morning Live 2 weeks ago showing how she made Christmas wreaths with her cats' help!

Hope you are well!

xx

Recycled Materials Christmas Crafts- Christmas tree window display- (used envelopes)

I've really enjoyed doing some crafts on my weekends over the past couple of weeks.

After I made my paper snowflakes, I decided to try and make some envelope Christmas trees.

Using the pre-used envelopes, I cut rectangles of different sizes and folded them in half. I then cut them diagonally so I was left with a Isosceles triangle.    I then decided to cut simple triangles, half-heart shapes, semicircles from the fold side and the diagonal edges.

With some of them, I used deckle-edge scissors or used star or snowflake punches.

To display them, I used a octagonal plastic base from a chocolate box  on our window sill.

I sent some photos to one of our Year 5 teachers who decided she needed to make them with their class.

 I'm really pleased with it and slowly enjoying the decorations I am putting up in my house!

xx

Recycled Materials Advent Calendar Craft activity

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I saw the most wonderful craft activity for making your own Advent calendar of sorts on Instagram from a maker called Amber Lu who posts at @tulips_and_a_toolbox . It involved constructing your own cardboard forest of Christmas trees with a wooden base. I was itching to give it a go and decided to adapt it so you don't have to use wood IF, like me, you are not handy with a saw and wood or don't have the money to spend on a piece of wood. I really recommend the maker as there are loads of eco-crafts on there!

I wrote my own instructions for my neighbour to follow with their kids as I adapted the idea slightly to give measurements etc, but remember, this is not my idea and I was able to follow her post with very limited instructions from the very clear pictures she shared!  My instructions are probably very over complicated but I thought it might be a good reading and doing activity for the kids at school!

 Materials:

• Cardboard box 
• 24 cocktail sticks (possibly only 21 as you are cutting some in half)
• Black thin felt tip pen
• Glue (I used PVA)
• Brown Paper tape (or decorative tape)

Making your trees

1.  Cut a rectangle- one side from a cardboard box. Be sure to remove all labels and avoid printed parts.

You can adjust the dimensions to make it smaller and larger as you see fit or to match your box size but I found a rectangle with a width of 14/13 cm was good.

2.  Measure 6cm along the length (long edge) and mark it with a pencil line. 

3. Now draw a line to the other side of the box. You have a rectangle that is 14cm x 6cm.

4.  Half way along your 6cm width, mark a pencil mark at 3cm.

5. Draw  diagonal lines connecting both corners of the other end of the rectangle with that pencil mark. You should now have an isosceles triangle.

5.  The same end where you drew your 3cm pencil mark, mark 3cm along that edge of the rectangle you have drawn.

6. Connect that mark with a diagonal to the  bottom corner of your rectangle at the other end. You now have 2 identical isosceles triangles that share a diagonal edge. 

7. Continue to make more rectangles in the same way until you have 6/7 of them.

8.  Repeat these previous steps but this time using a rectangle strip that has a 10cm width. Your triangles can also be 5cm instead of 6cm long in total (mark2.5cm along for the half way) . Make 6/7 of them.

9. Repeat these steps but this time with a  rectangle with a width of 8cm.

10. Repeat these steps but this time with a  rectangle with a width of 6/5cm.

11. Cut out your triangles. Discard the very end pieces that are not isosceles triangles.

12. You should now end up with 24/28 triangles of 4 sizes. (I made extra just in case)

13.  Take a triangle and using a black felt tip or fineliner and draw a straight border around the edge of each triangle around 4-5mm from the edge. Do the same with all your triangles.

14.  Now decorate the inside simply with dotted lines, lines, circles, line, dots, in various repeated patterns. Try to achieve as much variety as possible but keep as neat as possible.

15. You might notice I did make a couple of Christmas tree shapes rather than simple triangles. Do if you feel you can make symmetrically and cut easily. (harder with small kids)

Making your base stand

16.  Cut 2 rectangles 30cm long by 15cm wide. (Feel free to make your measurements longer than mine. I probably could have been a little more generous with mine although I do like the crowded nature of my forest. E.g. make it 40cm long and 15cm wide.)

16.  Glue them on top of each other to make a double thickness base and then use either brown paper tape or decorative tape to make a border around the edge that covers up the rough edge of the cut cardboard and goes just over the top and bottom layer.

17. Start with your tallest trees. Lay your trees out in a row along the length to check that they will fit along the length of the board when standing side by side without overlapping.  Check you are happy with the arrangement.  Keep them in this row whilst doing the same with all the other sizes.

18.  Now, on the back of each tree, number them from 1-24 in pencil for the moment.

19.  Draw 4 light pencil lines that are equidistant along the length.

20.  Lay out your flat trees in order along  your first row and mark a darker pencil dot where the middle of each triangle base is. Make sure they don't overlap. Do the same for the trees in the other rows.

21. Use a large safety pin to make a hole where all your marked dots are.  Wiggle the pin around to make sure it makes the hole a bit bigger (Big enough for a cocktail stick to go through happily but not fall over).Make sure you go through both layers of cardboard.  I used a double piece of funky foam to ensure I didn't make a hole in my table! 

22.  Mark on the numbers by each hole. I use a black fine-liner and made my numbers like calligraphy. I marked mine from front to back but in retrospect,when I started putting the trees, I think it would be nicer to start with the back row as the first numbers so you get to see all the trees face on completely before the next row goes in front.

24. Number your trees in black pen right at the top of each tree tip in nice letting (not too big!) 

Adding cocktail sticks to trees*( you could do this after you make the trees but I waited to check my measurements)

25.  Now use paper tape to tape cocktail sticks to the back of each tree.  Start with the back row trees Check you are happy with the height of them.  They need to be the tallest so they have the most stick showing at the bottom. Make the next row of trees a bit 'shorter' by how you position the stick.

26.  For your front row, cut your cocktail sticks in half and keep only a little of the cocktail stick showing at the bottom.

27. Check that all your trees will go happily into their holes.

28.Now gather up your trees into a small basket, bag or tray and lay them nicely beside your base.

29. Each day of Advent, add a tree to your forest. Feel free to sing Christmas tree themed songs or carols! You could even write one in tiny letters on the back of each tree to sing. By the 24th December, you will have a forest.

30.As an optional extra,you could cut out a golden shiny star on taller skewer and make a hole for it above your Christmas tree height as an extra for Christmas day!

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I was so pleased with my Advent calendar and cannot wait to use it in December.

The thing I liked most about this was that there is no plastic and the majority of the craft is reused cardboard box. 9 of my cocktail sticks were from eating olives in a restaurant (I made CBC and I only use ONE and kept the rest for this craft!).

It would be nice to make a little drawstring fabric bag to keep this all in for next Christmas.  Haven't quite thought that one through yet!

I've got staaaaaars, they're multiplying....

Here's another DIY recycling project I've been involved in this week.

During Lockdown, we ordered a few takeaways from our local restaurant which is Madieran.  The food came in big aluminium tins with silver card lids.  I used a previous set of them to make all the tiny stars for my children's constellation project in June but recently, CBC ordered a meal from there and I saved the lids.

This time, I decided to make big stars out of them and then made subsequent smaller ones from the trimmings.

I used an old, not working, biro to draw lines from the centre out to the sides and it gave them a really lovely finish.  Now I just need to find my hole punch to string them up somewhere...

You can make something beautiful from rubbish if you take the time to think about what you can do with it.

Advent calendar Scavenger Hunt 14- Snowman

I shared some of the stockings from the church Christmas tree last week. This week, during our Pop up nativity, I was sitting the opposite side and I could see these snowmen very clearly.

They're very blingy! Definitely, these snowmen have been Puttin' on the Ritz!

I don't know why this one on the right makes me smile so much- something about its slightly inane smile!




Julie's list:

• Letterbox
• Something handcrafted for Christmas
• Favourite Christmas recipe
• Christmas book(s)
• Stained glass window
• Robin
• Bell(s)
• Sleigh
• Christmas Bauble
• Holly and Ivy
• Snowman
• Angel
• First Christmas card received in the post
• Christmas crackers
• Tree before dressed
• Tree after dressed
• Christmas wrapping paper
• Mistletoe
• Stocking or Christmas Sack/Bag
• Wrapped present(s)
• Winter
• Father Christmas
• Nativity
• The Night Before Christmas

Advent Calendar Day 2: Chains of kindness

Firstly, I apologise that this is a day late. I was going to schedule it on Thursday night for Friday morning but I had the most dreadful headache when I came home on Thursday night so I went straight to bed and I've only just got home on Friday night- well Saturday morning now. I apologise that I haven't been able to visit anyone for the same reason. I hope to catch up on Sunday.

Today's picture is of my music room door at school.

When I was teaching Year 3 on Wednesday, after singing assembly, we only had 10 minutes to learn Jingle Bells with one class before heading off to be an audience for the Years 1 and 2 Christmas production.  When the children and I came back, it was time for the other class.

In that time, the LSAs had created these beautiful paper chain trees for all 3 Year 3 classes.  I wistfully admired them and told them how brilliant they are.

They must have sensed my longing as the subsequent day, when I returned to my room during my PPA after 2 hours of hearing my 3 focus readers and then rehearsing all 14 readers for the Christmas production KS2, I found that my door too had been adorned with a chain tree!

I was so delighted and touched when I found a note on my keyboard saying, "We realised how much you loved our ones so we made you one too!" with a note from our lovely LSAs.

I think it is lovely when people do little kind deeds for others at any time, but particularly at Christmas time. It makes you feel warm and cosy on the inside.  What sweeties! It might not have cost them anything but it did take them time and a lot of heart.

All the children who have been in my room since then have expressed delight at it so it is not just me who was pleased!

Have you ever come back to surprise decorations?

xx

This forms my Advent Calendar of day 2 with Julie at KC's court

T