Busy Saturday and Holiday Lights

Holiday Lights

This Saturday was over way to quickly and I even was already out of the house at 7:50am. I am a night-owl so this time is early for me but I signed up for a class at 8:20am. My gym membership includes 8 classes per month and since I will already miss the Thanksgiving week I better make sure that I take those classes in time.

I spend a good chunk of my day playing with the Cricut again. I want to make a T-shirt for my daughter’s birthday and am going to use iron on vinyl for that. I did choose a picture she hopefully will like and had the Cricut do the cutting. I still need to weed it (that’s what removing the excess is called) and then put it on the T-shirt itself. I also finished up our calendars for next year and the holiday cards. Usually I make one with pictures of the kids and also give it to the grandparents. This year it hopefully comes in time so I can give it to my BIL when he comes to visit. Shipping packages to Europe has gotten so expensive in the last couple of years so this visit really helps on that front. It’s now harder to find good pictures to use. When they were little there were soooo many pictures, now I have to beg them to be allowed to take one of them and then in a lot they make funny faces. I still love the process though. Same goes for the holiday cards. Going through the pictures always reminds me what fun we had throughout the year and we really did make some good memories this year – first on our trip to Germany at the end of last year and then to New York in the spring and not to forget the roadtrip in the summer. I usually use Shutterfly. I already have all our dates saved (I add the family birthdays and special dates on the calendar already), so it saves a little time on that front. I have not looked at any other services in recent years. Maybe I should look around again? Not this year though since the order went out today.

We did end up going to the holiday lights event in Berkeley and seeing the lights was really fun. Most of the shops were already closed when we got there but we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Oh, and my birthday present was picked up today and is now waiting in the garage until my actual birthday (the e-bike). I filled out a bunch of forms already to sign up for the warranty, to get the rebate our county offers when you buy an e-bike and to register it with the bike index what helps supposedly if it gets stolen (hopefully that never happens).

How is you weekend going so far? Do you make photo cards or calendars and do you have a favorite vendor to order from?

Christmas is coming

Tree 2022

This past weekend we finally got our Christmas tree and I am so excited! I do like Christmas as a holiday. I have fond childhood memories associated with Christmas and I hope that my own children will have the same.

One of the Hutschenreuther baubles – painted so pretty

The first year we moved to the US I got cheap tree decorations from Ikea. It was a set with red baubles and stars which was totally fine but this year was the first year I did not even touch it. Over the years I collected Christmas ornaments from Hutschenreuther and I think they are so pretty. Last year we went to Germany to celebrate Christmas with the family and I packed up the ones that were still at my dads house so that I finally have them here. My mom used to collect them, too and to me it feels like continuing her tradition. This year our tree is filled with those ornaments and a couple of others I got over the years here and there as well some diy ornaments made by my kids when they were little. I think those are probably my favorites still especially now that they are older.

Snowman 1
Snowman 2
Snowman 3
Mix it up
California love

Since I was cooped up in my room the last week because of covid I also added some new snowflakes for our big front window. It finally feels a little more festive inside the house, too.

Let it snow

If you want to try yourself at some homemade Christmas decorations here are a couple of links:

How to make a Froebel Star – video and written instructions (thank you for google translate as the original is in danish).

Star made of kite paper – the instructions are in German but the pictures are self explanatory. I made these before in previous years and I love how the light shines through them.

A couple of more stars – if you click on any of the images you get to folding instructions for each. The Stern Vicky is one of my favorites and a good way to use up leftover wrapping paper or even catalogues.

The template for the paper snowflakes came from the Martha Stewart website.

Here is a bell shaped ornament for the ones who don’t like stars or want something different.