Don’t know what to bake for Christmas? Want to try a new recipe?

Check out Danielle Bean’s Advent Baking Carnival. The only problem will be picking which ones to try!

Send a St. Nicholas Feast Day e-card or another Advent greeting from here.

Last night, we hosted friends for a St. Nicholas Vigil party. The kids watched Nicholas: The Boy Who Became Santa, which I’m sure my kids will want to watch again today. We ate yummy BBQ beef sandwiches which have nothing to do with St. Nicholas, but tasted great (thanks, Rachel)!

For dessert, we ate Speculaas, and there are leftovers to enjoy today. Every year, I make these cookies which are traditionally molded in a wooden cookie mold shaped like St. Nicholas. I don’t have a wooden cookie mold shaped like anything, so I just roll the dough into logs, slice and bake. Every year, I seriously consider buying a wooden cookie mold, but never do. I’m scouring eBay once again, and I found this. It shows St. Nicholas leading his donkey loaded with gifts. Ends in two days. I’ll have to think about it. It’s $30 including the shipping… and I’m only going to use it once a year…and I don’t need it until next year…and this is why I find myself every December 5th wishing I had a mold but not having one. On the other hand, I’m selling my special Christmas stockings faster than I can make them, so I could justify a splurge purchase…

I also spied at eBay some chocolate candy molds shaped like St. Nicholas. Thank goodness those listings ended! The two molds went for over $100 combined. But they were really cute. I’ll stick with our plastic el cheap-o candy molds until after we win the lottery. Or maybe for when we find ourselves making candy for grandchildren.

Last week at work, a woman in my husband’s office was asking everyone if they knew what day was the traditional day for giving gifts. My husband asked her which part of Europe she was talking about. She waved him off and disqualified Catholics from answering the question! None of the non-Catholics had the slightest clue that December 6th (and January 6th) were the days more closely associated with giving gifts throughout all of Europe. There was a time that learning about ethnic traditions of different countries was taught in schools, but I guess they dropped that part of the curriculum to spend more time doing things like dress-in-your-pajamas-day-and-watch movies, which I have known schools to do.

Fritz has just gotten up and can’t wait to see what is in his stocking (St. Nicholas fills the stockings here, not the shoes). The other kids will be up soon, and he’ll have to wait until then. Not much there: gold wrapped chocolate coins, special nativity chocolate lollipops, some Christmas coloring books, and a letter from St. Nicholas (courtesy of my husband):

My Dearest Fritz, Billy, Katie, Jenny, & Pete

St. Nicholas

I know exactly what I want to get Bill for Christmas. The problem is, it doesn’t seem to exist. There are three qualities I’m looking for in this item, and the best I can do is two out of three.

grrr…

On a funnier note, here’s a video clip Bill sent me a few weeks ago called The Sweater. It’s the memories of a French Canadian who grew up loving hockey, but especially loving Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens. His Maurice Richard hockey sweater is too small and is confiscated by his mother. She orders him another one by writing a letter to a mail order company asking for a Canadian hockey sweater for her son. It arrives some time later – but the company picks a sweater for the Toronto Maple Leafs instead and his mother refuses to return it! The video is long, but worth it, especially at this time of year with perfect gift giving on our minds.

Well, maybe it’s not so good, since the boy becomes the laughing stock of the town for wearing the wrong jersey. Just add a little stress to your life: if the gift isn’t right, your dear loved one will be scarred for life!

Bill added a Maurice Richard jersey to the Christmas wish list. He’s so picky: it’s got to be the right size, the right fabric, the right team. Honey, the best I can do is two out of three…

…liturgically speaking.

If you haven’t already visited the Catholic Homeschool Carnival at O Night Divine it is definitely worth the time – homeschooler or not. The Advent ideas are fantastic. I’m taking a clue from Love2Learn Mom and have added Advent tasks to our paper chain countdown. My kids’ tasks are things like making Christmas cards for different people on different days (our pastor, soldiers at Walter Reed), saying prayers for people who are sick or lonely, and taking canned goods to a food bank.

On Friday night, I made the usual mistake of getting all the Advent decorations out at once. So now I feel like I live in a holiday debris field. Tomorrow we will get to work and find seasonal homes for the Jesse Tree, the Christmas books, the perpetual Advent calendars, the nativity sets. We’ll hide Jesus, set up the kings in a faraway land and put Mary, Joseph and donkey en route to the stable.

I’ve just about completed the gift shopping for Christmas. I think if I take a few hours without kids to go shopping, I can take care of a few minor details and be done. We were out today running errands, and I’m glad I did most of the shopping online – oh, the lines, the attitudes! I’ve made my to-do list, and now I just need to schedule the baking and cleaning and wrapping and decorating. If the kids ever go to bed tonight, I hope to make some chocolates. A few years ago, I decided that Christmas and Easter warranted special treats – Hershey Kisses just weren’t good enough: too ordinary. At that time, there was a specialty chocolate shop near me, and I bought at least one treat for everyone. But they went out of business and left me hanging, so I started making my own. It’s actually really easy, really fun, and an act of love.

This will be a busy week. Tomorrow, Katie’s Little Flowers group has a craft co-op which means a big playdate for the kids with another family who’s daughter is in the group (we play while the girls are at the meeting). And then Tuesday afternoon, this same family will come over for a St. Nicholas Vigil Feast Day party.

I’m telling myself I really need to let go of the school cirriculum this month. I’ve always derived much comfort from “checking the blocks” – from doing everything listed on the to-do list of school work. But that’s not why I homeschool. I chose homeschooling so I could celebrate the Church seasons in all their glory first and foremost and not as an afterthought. Tis the season to prepare our hearts and minds and homes for the beautiful celebration of Christ’s birth. Math should be the afterthought, not the Jesse Tree. We can learn about Henry Hudson in January – really, we can. This month should be St. Nicholas and St. Lucy and Our Lady of Guadalupe and delivering cookies to a neighbor with no kids at home and buying some presents for those who have little money. It is as hard for me to do this (let go of the cirriculum) as it is for me to sit still for my 15 minute daily rest. But my heart tells me it is right and that spelling can wait…as long as the kids are learning and doing all these things with me.

And so it begins. May this new Church year be a holy one for us all.

And as a post script…for some reason Blogger is no longer showing the WYSIWYG editor for posting or editing. All those links above were done in HTML instead of with the little icons that make life so much easier. What gives? Anyone have any clue what is going on?