Celebrating the Winter Season: 25 Days of Christmas

Every year we have the tradition of celebrating Hanukkah with our good  friends, Barbara & Bernie.  This year I hosted a fun Hanukkah dinner at our house. I made Potato Latkes and Matzo Ball Soup. Months before the month of December I had an idea of celebrating the entire month, just not Christmas but other winter holidays and the origins of the the modern day Christmas. This is our first official Christmas without Santa Claus.

Here is Barbara's beautiful menorah. She gave us a smaller menorah that we will forever treasure. Hanukkah fell early in December so we started our 25 day winter celebration with a fun evening with Barbara and Bernie celebrating Hanukkah together.

Later in the month on December 21st, the girls and I celebrated the Winter Solstice with a pizza dinner by candle light and wearing glow sticks.

Now that the girls no longer believe in Santa I wanted to take the focus off the materialistic nature of Christmas. As I grow older I have a fascination of the origins of modern day holidays and how other cultures celebrate the season. My plan was to celebrate the 25 days of December leading up to Christmas with different activities that celebrate the Winter Season, just not Christmas. I wanted to weave in Advent and St. Nicholas, traditions that I grew up with as my family is Catholic. I also wanted more of celebrating Christmas than the cheap advent chocolates from Walgreens and opening up gifts on Christmas Day. I want to expose the girls to different cultures, religions as well as incorporate fun things like watching family favorite movies, baking Christmas cookies and gathering with family and friends. I really want to get away from the "stuff" of Christmas.

I took the calendar and mapped out our December. First looking to see when Christmas was and when Hanukkah fell. Each day I planned an activity. We enjoyed a special poetry tea time where we read poems that we themed in winter and Christmas. I found a bunch of great poetry books at the library. We watched the movie White Christmas, Elf and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  My girls had never seen White Christmas before. They loved it! I grew up celebrating St. Nicholas which falls on December 6th of each year. I never celebrated with the girls before this year. This year I incorporated the tradition in our 25 days of Christmas. A knock at the door and there was a bag of peanuts, candy and oranges.  I did a little research of St. Nicholas and shared that with the girls.  We made gingerbread houses together, visited the aquarium in Newport to see the light display. This was the first year. Next year I want to expand it more and do more community service. I have a file that put in ideas. Olivia suggested that we make a yule log. I love that idea. Shortly after the holidays I came across a magazine that had a recipe for a yule log. It has been added to the file. We took most of December off from our daily "school." I am already looking forward to next year.

Christmas

I love this picture of our little tree in our living room. This year we celebrated Christmas in Central Oregon with my in-laws and Mr. W's uncle. It was really important to me that we have a "mini" Christmas together and open gifts together. As the girls get older I realize that in not too many years they will be gone. I treasure holidays together in our home, just the four of us.

This year we gave the girls each their own Kindle Fire. They have been wanting tablets for awhile. They were so excited.

Like most things in our life, I plan for something and it ends up that Mr. W has to work, I took matters into my own hands and got the tree myself with the help of the girls. I was proud of myself. Yes, I know we are not going to be home but I was determined to have a tree and our own little Christmas morning together before we left. My Prius looked so festive with the tree strapped to the top.

Vivian and taking a few laps around the ice rink. It was festive way to celebrate the Christmas Season than ice skating outside in Central Oregon. We had a blast!

This is one of my favorite pictures of our Christmas visit to Central Oregon to visit Mr. W's parents. I was the only brave adult to get on the ice. It was so much fun!

Girls Art Class

Our little co-op had the amazing experience of having a weekly art class for 8 weeks taught by a lovely neighbor of Megan's who is a retired art teacher. They learned different elements in their weekly class in a art studio.  They explored drawing with graphite, colored and water colored pencils. They learned techniques of line quality, contour drawing and sketching.

They also learn color theory and made their own color wheel demonstrating hue, shading utilizing charcoal. They used acrylic paints. They also played with clay and learned simple techniques of slab, coil and pinch. My girls enjoyed every lesson and learned so much. These classes reminded me of the art classes that I took in college.

I love this picture that Olivia made, titled "Under Water Kelp." She said it reminded her of learning about the ocean and seeing it at our science day at Hatfield Marine Science Center. Vivian also made a similar painting. My plan is to have both pictures framed. They are beautiful. We ended our eight week art class with a small Christmas party and a open house showing off their work they created over the past eight weeks. All the girls are so talented and creative.

Gingerbread Party

Our friends who attended with the girls last year invited us to a gingerbread making party at their house. It was a fun morning of visiting, making gingerbread houses and a yummy lunch together.

The girls had so much fun. Our friend, had so many awesome candy and treats to decorate our houses. It was neat to see all the different houses that were created. Olivia and Vivian are so creative!

Our Very First Dissection

I had flashbacks to middle school science class at Whiteaker Middle School. Thankfully they stopped as soon as Megan laid down the law explaining to the girls that the dissection kits she had just laid before them had very sharp instruments. She explained that our dissection kits were more likely nicer than the local high school's. The dissection that we were about to do was going to be more like a high school biology lesson than a elementary school lesson but she knew that they were up to it. She went on to explain that if any one of the girls had a difficult time listening that that they would be put away and she would be done. At that point all eyes were on Megan and out came the worms.

Once the girls got past the smell they all did fabulous. Worms are difficult to see exactly what is inside them. What better way to get in the festive mood of the holiday season than donning your Santa hat and cut open a worm! Merry Christmas!

Science is becoming my girls most favorite subject. Can you see why? It's becoming mine as well. Wednesdays are our lab days where Megan introduces us to our new information and we do dissections (this is a first of a few more) and experiments. We take turns among the three of us of hosting. Mondays the girls and I review, do our weekly reading and do a simple outline together of what we have read and covered in the lab. We have fabulous supplemental books that make science even more interesting and fun.