The Weekend What

Since we celebrated Thanksgiving in October, this past weekend was just a normal one here in Canada. As Dave is Jewish, and since we celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah, and as Christmas often completely overwhelms Chanukah, we try to be low key about Christmas until it gets a little closer. This year is particularly nice since Chanukah will be over by December 13 so we can separate the holidays even more.

However, I did do a few Christmas things this weekend. The first was a cookie exchange among youth from our church and their mentors. We spent a few hours on Saturday at the church making, baking, and/or decorating cookies. A and I made chocolate truffles. Yum.

 

We rolled them and then dipped them in cocoa, Oreo crumbs, or coconut. They are delicious and I am looking for an excuse to make them again today as soon as possible.

There was quite the display of cookies when we were finished and the kids were very excited to dig into the container I brought home.

On Sunday we went to church and then did some yard work. Our snow from last week melted so we were able to do one last rake of the yard and put away the trampoline and the rain barrel. And since it was fairly nice out, I did a little outdoor decorating.

Our house, before. Note the empty window boxes and the naked tree.

Rachel was excited about dragging the branches we pillaged from the hedge to the front. Some of them were almost as big as she was.

And after about an hour the tree was decorated as were the window boxes. It's a good thing that you can't tell from this picture that the fall wreath is still on the front door! Ha! As soon as I find the ornaments for the Christmas one I will be putting it up.

I wanted to also make an Advent wreath on Sunday but I just ran out of time. Our church puts out an Advent for Kids guide so the kids have made their Advent posters. The theme this year is "Freedom Bound" and it's about different paths to the stable.

The kids wanted different colours of posters so I decided they could each make one. Rachel chose pink (of course!) and Sam chose white. It'll be interesting to watch how each kid interprets the theme throughout this season.

Tonight I'm looking forward to making our Advent wreath and putting out my nativity set. And then we will hold off on any further Christmas decorating until December 14th. But sometime this week we will be pulling out all the Chanukah decorations. Yay!

So that was our weekend -- somewhat low key and full of cookies.