Gimley

{This is a post I wrote back in December but we didn’t get around to uploading the photos until more recently… better late than never!}

I’d always been suspicious of the somewhat creepy elf who spies on children and lurks on a shelf, thinking he harkened back to some grim fairytale rather than anything truly child-appropriate. But this year I saw some pictures of other parents’ clever elf shenanigans and I couldn’t deny that these silly scenes matched Luke’s sense of humor perfectly. Also I’d admired the search-all-over-the-house advent scavenger hunts that a friend used to do with her kids, and searching for the elf seemed a good intro to scavenger hunts for younger kids who couldn’t yet figure out a string of clues.

But I still couldn’t get on board with the idea that Santa sent the elf to report back on children’s behavior. It seems unfitting to make such a trouble-maker a moral judge, but most of all I don’t like having a good/bad determination linked to receiving Christmas presents. Our kids would never get presents if being truly good was a requirement; an hour rarely goes by when we don’t all deserve numerous demerits in this house. Instead of being earned, Christmas gifts are an act of love, just like the gift of a perfect Savior that Christmas rejoices to celebrate.

So we decided that our elf would arrive with a babysitting storyline. We had Santa (Uncle Jack) call our house to ask Luke if we could keep an eye on Gimley, one of his elves who’d been getting into so much mischief that they were two weeks behind on toy production. Santa knew that Luke and Eleanor would be up for the task, so he’d already dropped off Gimley in our mailbox. When he got off the phone, Luke was beside himself with excitement and surprise – a rare almost speechless moment. He eventually relayed the story to us amidst jumps and squeals (mentioning that Santa sounded a little like Papi) but Erik and I assured him that a real elf couldn’t possibly be in our mailbox. Luke was elated to be correct when we went out to look! And he and Eleanor have been abuzz ever since with speculation about whether or not the elf is real and what types of trouble he might get into next. We’ve told them several times that Santa and the elves aren’t real and that it’s just a fun game, but their imaginations are so vivid that it seems they quickly find themselves believing it at least a little bit.

I’m not sure if Gimley will be back next year or if he’ll clean up his act and get reassigned to the toy production team. But he’s been fun to hunt for and laugh about during his time here!

A literary Christmas for kids

It’s tough to put away our collection of Christmas books each year but in the end it’s always worth it. It’s such a delight to pull them out, shiny and fresh, each Christmas season. As you can see it takes a good-sized bin to store them all, and our collection covers the gamut from basic to poignant. Most were gifts, some I bought used, and a couple I couldn’t resist buying new.

I thought I’d share a few of our very favorites here, in case you’re looking for a new book to tuck away with your Christmas items and so perhaps I can look back years from now and know which ones to pass on to my grandchildren! (:

1. Why Christmas Trees Aren’t Perfect – This one made me cry when I first read it – it’s a powerful story that captures the beauty of selfless service to others. 

2. Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree – I remember loving this story as a child – seeing how creatures, large to small, each use a piece of Mr Willowby’s discarded treetop to decorate their homes. A classic with definite appeal for avid holiday decorators like me!

3. Jan Brett’s Snowy Treasury – Brett’s books are always winners and she has lots of great Christmas ones. All the winter stories in this volume are lovely and it’s a great price for all four books.

4. The Sweet Smell of Christmas – This was Erik’s favorite as a child and it’s been Luke and Eleanor’s favorite too. They never tire of the simple story with a Christmas scratch & sniff on each page – the scents hold up remarkably well too!

5. Humphrey’s First Christmas – The unconventional  nativity story from a camel’s point of view beautifully illustrates Christmas’ true meaning – reorienting our self-centered living to a wonder at God’s love.

6. A Small Christmas – We love Fireman Small from the classic book by Yee and while the rhymes aren’t quite so perfect in this one, the storyline of a pint-sized fireman shrinking Santa’s suit by mistake and taking over the toy deliveries (using his fire truck’s ladder to access the rooftops) has lots of appeal for any truck-loving child.

Here’s another list that has lots of great-looking selections too. Reading through it has me thinking… maybe we’re not too far removed from the Christmas season for me to try to find some of these at the library!

Christmas catch-up: A holiday home

With all the busyness of Christmas hosting, advent-ing, and traveling, I didn’t find time to share photos of Christmas cheer around our home. Before it all gets packed up this weekend, here are a few pics from our wintry yuletide hacienda!

Some natural touches in the entry (and a glimpse of our mantle in-progress)

Lots of red and green in the front room

A close-up of the dining hutch and the kids’ gingerbread house

Mantle #1 in the front,

Mantle #2 on the back,

And my kid-magnet collection of nutcrackers.

A little Christmas in the kitchen…

And on the porch.

My only Christmas décor purchase this year was a big one… a new artificial tree! First we retired our decade-old petite one to the playroom (and trimmed it with shatter-proof ornaments).

Then we brought in this full-size beauty for the living room!

I love how it holds all our ornaments without looking crowded and the way my Danish hearts suit it so well.

Here’s hoping your Christmas was most merry, and that there’s room for the new tree in our garage storage area! (:

Christmas gifts & advent activities

As Christmas quickly approaches, a few gift questions always linger for a self-second-guesser and practical gift-giver like me. Do I need to go out and buy a few stocking stuffers for me and Erik or can I just go through the junk drawer and throw in various items we already own? Do I really want to give Eleanor the vintage Playmobil house that I’ve been saving for her (it’s the exact same one I adored as I child!) or will the precious little pieces drive us all crazy? Will Luke do fine with the 8-12 age range of Lego sets or should I stick to 6-12? How is it that Erik would prefer another waterlogged camera just for the fun of attempting a repair, when his shoes are falling apart and I happen to be an expert on men’s sunhat options? Maybe I should just get him Legos too – I better check those age ranges again…

But last night’s advent activity put all my gift ‘quandaries’ in perspective. We talked to the kids about several different donation gifts available on World Vision’s website, watched the short video on each one, and let them choose an item to send to those in need. The world’s injustices were unbearable in a fresh way as I explained to the kids the harsh contrast between their privileged lives and other perfectly innocent children’s situations. I wasn’t sure how much our stoic Eleanor was understanding, but at the end when I asked her what she would like to give she firmly replied – the clothes. I asked her why she chose that gift and she looked in my eyes and said earnestly, “So they be warm!” Luke was more touched by the plight of the sick and chose the medicines but told us that he wanted to get them all. Then Erik and I each chose our gifts, and our evening prayers with the kids for those in need were sent up with fresh urgency that night.

The World Vision gifts are part of the mix of traditions that we’re practicing with the kids this advent. Each day we do a special activity, which I’ve tried to make both fun and others-focused. So far our activities have included: having friends over to make snow globes (which wasn’t quite as idyllic as it sounds when Ella dropped hers and we were sterilizing tweezers to pull out a glass shard from her toe, but she’s fine now), attending the choir concert at church, and crafting lots of other less injury-prone cards and gifts. This weekend is our most anticipated activity – we’re taking the kids shopping to choose gifts for each other. I’ll sit with Eleanor for a Starbucks date while Erik takes Luke to find a present for Ella and then we’ll trade places. I wonder if Erik’s planning to ask Luke what to get me then too. I’ll have to drop some hints for them both. (:

We’ve also been focusing on a different piece of the Christmas story in the book of Luke each night and reading our Christmas themed storybooks. I’ll have to do a separate post with our favorite children’s Christmas books since there are so many sweet ones and I’d love to remember them. For our number-loving Luke, we’ve been counting down the days on our advent sticker calendar, and this year we added a new tradition that I never thought I’d embrace – the elf on the shelf. But our variation on the elf storyline and how the kids have responded could be its own post too so I’ll wrap this little 2013 time capsule up here. Happy holidays!

A cheery table for Thanksgiving

Sunday our afternoon schedule was cleared by an early snowstorm that dusted everything outside and hung thick clouds over the mountains. We played with the kids in the snow, Erik lit a fire in the wood stove, and I puttered away at our Thanksgiving table settings. 

I used our wedding china and turkey place card holders with a little ribbon embellishment for pizzazz,

In the middle is a thankful tree that Eleanor made in preschool. On it our girlie is quoted as being thankful for baby dolls, Mommy, Daddy, Luke and Russell (our pet lizard).

There’s my grandmother’s candlesticks and petite stemware, alongside some Target clearance faux acorn branches.

All atop some punchy autumn table linens and we’re ready for dinner! Oh, wait – there’s also the food shopping and cooking to attend to… off to pick up a turkey for me!

Five variations on an autumn mantle theme

Our house was built around a big double fireplace – doubling the fun for seasonal mantle-scapes! But the massive dark stones make it a little bit tricky to style – items that are too dark and/or small are easily lost. And I have trouble achieving the right balance between working with the dominant rustic casual feel of the stone and nudging it toward the prettier, more elegant style I prefer.

But who doesn’t love a challenge? Here are five autumn mantle scenes from the past couple months, and there have probably been a half-dozen more mantle iterations this season. I’m always adding, taking away, and rearranging. Sometimes I just happen to have the camera out to snap a few pics!

First a few Halloween-ish styles from October. I made the bunting with fabric scraps and the candelabras are from a cute resale shop in old town. The little owl on the right and the watercolor painting are both Luke and Mommy collaborations.

On the other side: sunflowers, a white pumpkin, and happy lanterns (an after-Halloween Target find a few years back).

Then there was a brief stage with homemade pumpkin garland and the kids’ autumn leaf wreath crafts. It was only captured as the background to my handy hubby…

Currently, we’re channeling turkey day, with two feathered fowls and autumn faux branches in the back.

And a festive handprint invite to Luke’s preschool Stone Soup feast plus a little wreath for the front room.

Most of our mantle items come from Target’s clearance endcaps – such an easy spot to check for seasonal markdowns. Any other mantle meddlers out there? I so enjoy easy little changes like these to make the house feel fresh and holiday-ready!

Kitchen progress à la carte

For some time we’ve been deliberating over a kitchen remodel. We’ve pondered the possibilities from every angle, producing pages of potential layouts, special features, pros v. cons, and debating each option backward and forward. We were hoping to arrive at a grand plan and then launch into it, but in the end we’re still not ready to commit the funds and time to anything too drastic. So we’ve put the ‘Stage 2’ remodel off for the time being, and (mostly) finished up ‘Stage 1’. For Stage 1 we’ve limited ourselves to the straightforward changes that we knew we wanted, provided they weren’t too costly and/or intertwined with the Stage 2 decisions.

This was the view toward the kitchen when we first saw the house.

Right away we started thinking about removing the full height section of wall that blocked the space off from the family room. That meant moving or replacing the double ovens behind the wall. The pinty pendants weren’t my style either and the big-screen microwave showpiece needed to go too.

We decided to sell the double ovens, range, and microwave on Craig’s List, and use those funds to buy appliances that better suited our style. I was initially quite pleased with myself for covering our new-to-us range and vent hood purchase costs with the Craig’s List sales, but once you add in the 8-hour round-trip drive to El Paso for the range, running gas pipe from the meter (the previous appliances were electric), and installing hood ducting through the roof, this switch-out was far from free. BUT the gas range is so much more responsive for cooking, the ducting keeps the kitchen tremendously cooler in the summer, and you can judge the aesthetics for yourself! I love the heavy duty grates on the Viking range and am so happy that I sought out a hood with more personality than the all-stainless models.

Instead of looking into the kitchen from the family room and seeing a huge microwave, there is this lovely view.

The range swap has allowed us to remove the chunky double-oven wall, producing a much more open flow between the spaces.

There are a few lingering tasks to complete, such as rogue wires, duct-taped drywall, and a patch of exposed slab where the ovens used to be. But let’s not think about that. Instead direct your attention to the new cabinet hardware (Home Depot super-clearance), the light fixtures (a terrific value at Lowe’s), and our bit of open shelving (a Pottery Barn shelf I’ve had for years). We took out a section of cabinets to allow for better sightlines to the kitchen window and more roominess when working at the counter.

Painting the walls, adding art, and replacing the flimsy faucet didn’t hurt either. Here’s another before…

And the happier after!

There’s still work to be done, but we feel so thankful to be spending Thanksgiving in a kitchen that suits our taste and lifestyle so much better. Down the road, we’d like to take out the soffit, replace the window with a larger unit, extend the cabinets to the ceiling, take out the peninsula and build an island, cabinet in the fridge, paint the cabinets (white I think?), replace the backsplash, and take up the wall-to-wall carpet and tile so we can re-floor the space with a single material, probably engineered wood.

But since each one of those tasks is slightly daunting on its own, a humongous run-on sentence of them begins to alarm me. Erik is loathe to hire out anything so they spell a long season of dust and caution tape. For now we’ll finish up a few Stage 1 loose ends (or wires), waiting for the right time to launch Stage 2 and stocking up on respirator filters!

Let me know if you have any kitchen Qs!