Our first Poinsettia in December

Countdown: 20 days until Christmas.

Surprise 2!

Countdown: 21 days until Christmas.

This is the second part of the blog from yesterday: Surprise!

Here it is, what came out of the joint effort of the family to assist K with her "surprise"!

P helped paste an old wine box yesterday, as well as assist middle daughter with the pasting of the coloured paper for the walls of the horse stall.  Today after school, K worked on further with details.  Littlest kept her company while she cut the trimmings.  I suggested that she add a cut out horse on top of the stall and Littlest, who got a booklet full of horses pattern, generously gave the book to K, that she could choose what she could cut out, colour and place on the roof of the horse stall.  J, oldest daughter wrote the poem that K composed on a pink paper, and gave a pink ribbon from her own collection.

I'll be delivering it to school in the afternoon half an hour before I pick the girls up tomorrow.

The family, that does arts and crafts together, have awesome time together!

What do you as a family do together while counting down the days until Christmas?

Surprise!

Advent Calendar 2008/ I created this for the older girls in 2002, and it remained in Hamburg

Countdown: 22 days until Christmas.

Tonight, mijn liefste P helped the older girls prepare their a 'suprise' ; creating a "surprise"(pronounced soup-ree-se), is a Dutch tradition, that the girls were introduced to in the year they transferred from the introductory school (where they learned a year of Dutch) to their regular Catholic school.

creating the *surprises* for 2012

The first *surprise*, I created  for middle daughter K, when she was in Groep 4/2010 (for a long time she taught it came from Sinterklaas until her older sister revealed the secret!)

It was a lovely way to end the relaxing and rejuvenating Sunday.  After dinner, and before the girls and P started on the "surprises", we had tea, and cookies, from Germany, which Oma H, the girls German grandmother sent.

Did you get motivated to try out this Dutch tradition? What would you create to hide your "surprise"?

Hello, December 2012!

A collage of images from our Advent 2008

Countdown: 23 days until Christmas.

I love counting down special celebrations with my family; I love December - the cold outside, the cozy inside and the smell of magic in the air; I love traditions with it's beautiful, nurturing predictability!

Combined together makes the best and special way to end the year.

Welcome to our family's virtual Advent Calendar 2012! I used images from our Advent 2008, the last advent we observed in our home in Hamburg, Germany before moving here in the Netherlands. 

The theme I chose for this year is: nostalgic & celebratory; I felt it fitting because this is the mood we are all in, in this Advent season.  This is the first time I am consciously setting a theme, which I hope will be a part of our tradition.

In the next 24 days, I'll be sharing images and anecdotes from Advent's past, and present and plans of Advent future.

Hope you will enjoy counting down the days towards Christmas together.

Do you count down the days to Christmas in a special way?