The Day after Christmas 2013

What is your usual activity for the day after Christmas? I am realizing that I do have a few traditions for this day.

I write thank you notes. This year they are all e-mails rather than cards send through snail mail.

I shop after Christmas sales. This year I am steering clear of wrapping paper and Christmas cards - but will pick up dark chocolate and nuts if the clearance price is good. If the holiday patterned ziplocks are priced less than the regular ones, I’ll do that too. I’m looking for sheets too - sometimes those sales are so good that there are none left by the time I get to store. I’m not an early bird shopper after Christmas.

I begin eating the leftovers. It happens every year: more food is prepared than can actually be eaten on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

I pick up around the house. This mostly consists of packing away gift bags and recycling wrapping paper. In past years I’ve packed up tissue paper along with the gift bags but this year it too is going into the recycling bin. Sometimes there are still presents unwrapped the previous day that need to be stowed….increasing the ‘stuff’ we’ve accumulated.

By the end of the day after Christmas the house still looks festive and the lights still glow on the tree - and we are enjoying the lull between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - December 2013

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for December 2013.

Quite a few this month involved food - but I celebrated them for different reasons:

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing was celebrated because the first one I bought did not have cream cheese icing (I did not suspect beforehand that Red Velvet Cake could have any other kind of icing!) and because is brought back memories of teen aged birthdays when my mother made the cake for my birthday. Oh - and I like the way it looks too!

Roasted Garlic Hummus as Stir Fry Sauce was celebrated because it was a serendipity experiment that worked! I needed something to give punch to a veggie stir fry and the hummus worked very well - stirred in just before serving.

Cranberry Orange Bread bought from the grocery store bakery was a treat to have with hot chocolate to celebrate being warm inside on a cold winter’s day - bought with a coupon and tasting so good I ate the whole round loaf in just two days.

Beans in Cherry Crumble Bars were celebrated because they were a pleasant surprise. The recipe was one I saw on the web and almost didn’t try!

Popcorn with Pumpkin Seed Oil was a celebration because it was healthier that store bought microwave popcorn (I popped kernels in a paper lunch sack in the microwave) and because the oil turned the corn a pleasant green color.

Another group of celebrations involved fund raising activities for non-profits:

Conservancy Holiday Sale was a celebration that combined food, happy people, and a good cause.

The lights at Brookside Gardens are a traditional part of our December celebrations. We always pay to park and enjoy the lights at least once during the season.

Weather prompts 2 more celebrations:

Declaring a Snow Day is always a celebration. It probably started when I was in school, went almost dormant until I had my daughter. She reinforced it; my husband and/or I always took a vacation day when the schools closed for snow. Now - I find myself celebrating a snow day at home even when I am the only one at home!

A warming trend is worth celebrating in December. When we walked around Brookside in the early evening it was in the mid-60s rather than the mid-20s as it would have been a week earlier. Yes - it did feel strange to be wearing a sweater rather than bundled up in coat, scarf, hat, and gloves ---- but it is a comfortable strangeness that I celebrated.

And finally - I celebrated all the build-up to the last week of the 2013.

Christmas Stuff - Part 4 - 2013

Previous posts about Christmas stuff have included food, ornaments, and wrapping paper. Today, for the day before Christmas, the topic is cards.

I enjoy sending and receiving cards during the holidays. They are an opportunity to stay in touch once a year with acquaintances made throughout life. I display cards received in past years standing up on the mantle, under clear plastic on our breakfast area table, attached to all the metal doors (including the refrigerator) in the house with magnets, and clipped to door sized scrunchies with small clothes pins. Over the years, there has been quite an accumulation and I now have more cards than places to display them.

In the past I’ve always sent cards - occasionally with a letter inside or a short note on the white space inside the card. Next year I am considering a switch to a color-printer produced family picture with short message on paper with a border - sent out in business sized envelopes.

Cards also are ‘stuff’ in the sense that there are a lot of holiday cards that have come into the house as gifts from charities soliciting donations. I hadn’t quite noticed how many of them there were until the past week or so. I’m bundling them up to put in the pile of stuff to donate! 

Christmas Stuff - Part 3 - 2013

Wrapping paper has accumulated in the Christmas stuff over the years. It's as much a part of Christmas as food and ornaments.

There was a stash of wrapping paper a previous owner had left in a house we moved into 30 years ago. I bought paper from fund raisers when my daughter was in elementary school about 15 years ago. Sometimes I couldn’t resist paper on sale after Christmas. My willpower has improved in the past 5 years so I have NOT bought more paper - but the number of rolls has not gone down either. I have tended to use gift bags - recycled year after year - rather than wrapping boxes. This year I am determined to use up paper….and maybe box up some or all that is left to donate to charity.

Aside from wrapping larger boxes rather than using a gift bag - I have a few other ideas for the paper.

• I have started using the smaller pieces of paper to wrap very small boxes (that are empty) and stash them in a small sleigh that sits by the tree. There is some nostalgia about wrapping paper and bows that this satisfies and it can be packed away for years to come as part of our normal decorations for the holiday rather than actual gifts.
• The island in the kitchen would look good with a runner of paper down the center.
• The mantle could be decorated with a cut paper garland - maybe a snowflake pattern.

Or maybe I can just wait until we move from the house and leave the stash of paper for the next owner.

Snow Day - December 2013

Yesterday was a snow day! I didn’t go sledding or make snow ice cream like we did years ago when my daughter was in elementary school. But I savored the serendipity of an unanticipated day at home.

The snow started falling in the early morning and made a beautiful wintery scene by the time it was light enough to see the neighborhood. The snow and the cold was just the incentive I needed to stay indoors and make progress on the ‘to do’ list for the house.

Writing notes for the Christmas cards

Re-caulking the base of the shower

Reorganizing the freezer

Emptying, cleaning and reorganizing the cabinet of plastic containers

I rationalized that shoveling the driveway made no sense while it was still snowing but it stopped shortly afternoon and I ventured out. It didn’t take long to do the shoveling but I realized when I went indoors that I was exhausted. I spent the rest of the day relaxing and cheering my accomplishments.

Christmas Stuff - Part 1

My strategy for decorating the Christmas tree had always been the same: 

• Arrange the ornaments evenly around the tree so that no part of the tree looks ‘undecorated’ and
• Try not to put similar ornaments next to each other. 

This year I decided to ignore the second part of the strategy and to intentionally group like ornaments. Some are grouped by shape or color. Others are full of family history:

Inherited from my mother-in-law more than 20 years ago.

Ornaments my mother gave to me when she decided she had way too many ornaments. I remembered when she bought them when I was in elementary school.

Dough ornaments my sister made. She wrote the year on the back - 1988.

Grouping the ornaments has made the important ones stand out more - and the trees is still decorated all over.