Christmas wanderings

After catching up with everyone at the Web Services morning tea (including doing a tweet for their Christmas tree) Jon and I headed over to check out the Christmas Shop at Kirkcaldies. We weren't that inspired by the Christmas Shop itself but - as ever- the Kirk windows were wonderful. We particularly loved this one which featured the bears knitting and weaving!

Catching up with Advent

I've found it ironic this year that I haven't been nearly as onto Advent and getting ready for Christmas as before - despite (in theory) having more time. I think part of it is not being in the office environment and general chat about counting down the days.
Today I took a break and made a conscious choice to do the three things that have been "nagging" at me. I made the Advent Wreath, put together Jon's new Playmobil Calendar (the last year for this I think) and got out the stack of Christmas books.

A new tradition I started when Jon was a baby, was to get one or two Christmas themed picture books each year (often from Amazon at the start). They only come out at Advent and are put away at Epiphany. When he was little we read him a couple each night - now he reads them to himself, although it is not unknown for him to bring one out to be read to him. As the tradition progressed, for a time I looked for books that reflected our summer Christmas as I would buy two copies and include one with our December 98 birthday buddy gift exchange.

It's a pretty substantial collection after 10 years. The first book in the collection was given to me when I was about 8 and is Dick Bruna's The Christmas Book, with his distinctively simple illustrations. Then there is Tomi de Paola's Clown of God which David got for his first Christmas from extended family followed by Why a Donkey was Chosen another year. I bought a copy of Lucy and Tom's Christmas by Shirley Hughes as it reminded us of our only winter Christmas in the UK.

That was the start - and now the collection includes what I would call the "heritage" stories, new editions of The Littlest Angel and The Night Before Christmas,which I remember from my childhood. There are the NZ books like Hattie's Christmas Gift, The Christmas Caravan, Santa's Kiwi Holiday and The Boxing Day Test. There are the beautiful picture book re-telling of the Christmas story - the grumpy cat in Michael Foreman's Cat in the Manger, the gathering animals in Room for a Little One, Joyce Dunbar's Follow the Star - and there are many more - children anxious about aspects of Christmas pageants, stories about Saint Nicholas, a fabulously illustrated story call Wensulas about the carol, and many more.

This year I've just bought a copy of Grandma's Kiwi Holiday - were Grandma saves the day when Santa falls ill on Christmas Eve, and Charles Dickens Christmas Carol. And I've just remembered it must be about time to find our copy of Jostien Garder's A Christmas Miracle which has a chapter for every day of December to match the pictures of an advent calendar and which I read aloud each night to Toby when he was about Jonathan's age now.