25 Days of Christmas

by Sara

This year I'm participating in 25 Days of Christmas.  Thanks to Andrea, from a peek inside the fishbowl, our family has 25 holiday activities planned for the month of December:

"The month of December is a busy time of year for just about everyone. And no matter how much I tried, I found myself struggling to find a way to balance the fun of the holidays with my growing list of things that needed to be done. I knew I needed to get organized, but more importantly, I needed Christmas to be joyful again, not just for myself, but for my family.

A few years ago I hit upon a solution that helped me stay on top of the chaos and enjoy the season; I replaced our traditional drugstore brand chocolate-filled advent calendar with 25 small paper envelopes of my own design. I fill each one with a fun task, seasonal event, or family activity. No chocolate, no shopping, and no cheap gifts — just family time."

I chose to use my childhood advent calendar to store the slips of paper with our fun-filled activities but Andrea gives instructions on her blog for how to make your own calendar and advent envelopes.  My felt advent calendar has a special place in my heart.  It has been glued and taped back together countless and is nearing retirement.  Slips of paper are far more forgiving than little fingers pulling ornaments on/off velcro over and over again :)

Want to join in the fun?  Visit Andrea's post about 25 Days of Christmas for the 'how to'.  I'm keeping our list of activities pretty flexible: we've already had ot make some adjustments!

1. Make paper snowflakes: My 2.5 year old monkey was happy to cut slits into paper and my 4.5 year old firefighter insisted that my snowflakes were actually trees.  He decided to make a winter scene of our house and van, a Christmas tree (with lights), and a Christmas tree outside.  We ended up with 0 paper snowflakes but we had a lot of fun!
2. Listen to holiday music: No kids songs here, just old-fashioned Christmas tunes.  We played them all afternoon and the monkey pretended to play along on his guitar.
3. Read Christmas stories: The boys chose "Olive: The Other Reindeer" to take with them to their Grandparents. 
4. Santa Claus Parade: Perth Santa Claus Parade!
5. Family movie night: Switched out for #11 (Decorate the house) - we couldn't wait any longer to put the tree up :)
6. Christmas tree craft: I traced Christmas trees on construction paper, the firefighter cut them out and then covered them with glitter glue and holiday stickers.  I'd forgotten that even glitter glue leaves glitter everywhere...
7. Colour a Christmas picture
8. Write a letter to Santa
9. Snowman craft
10. Buy food for the Food Bank
11. Decorate the house
12. Lights on Taffy Lane
13. Make reindeer food
14. Visit Santa
15. Make Christmas cards
16. Make teacher Christmas cards
17. Wrap presents
18. Build a gingerbread house
19. Bake sugar cookies
20. Buy a toy for Toy Mountain
21. Play in the snow
22. Family swim
23. Lights on Parliament Hill
24. The pajama elf comes!
25. Family photo in front of the tree

What are your favourite holiday activities?

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 4.5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.

Christmas festivities at the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum

by Sara The Cumberland Heritage Village Museum is located 10 minutes east of Orleans.  The museum consists of several acres of historical residential and agricultural buildings, including a blacksmith, school house, church, and community hall.  For train-lovers, the entrance to the museum is a Canadian National railway station and during summer months children (and adults) can go for a ride on a miniature steam train with the Ottawa Valley Live Steamers and Model Engineers.

Although the museum closes for the season on October 30th, it re-opens on December 5th, 12th, and 19th for a Cultural Christmas Event.  Between 10 am and 5 pm, the village is alive with holiday activities including choirs, horse-drawn wagon rides, and even Santa is in town.  Families can learn about how the Irish and Germans celebrated Christmas as well as traditional holiday foods.  Regular admission fees are charged for the activities (Adult: $7 / Student: $5 / Senior: $5 / Family: $18)

We visited the museum this week with the 2.5 year old monkey's preschool class.  The firefighter, who missed his field trip to the museum last year because he was sick, tagged along for a morning of fun.

There was a blanket of snow on the ground when we arrived and the boys were happy to roll around and make snow angels.  We started our morning decorating sugar cookies and then took them outside.  The boys were happy to sit around the fire drinking hot chocolate and eating their sprinkle-covered snacks.  The museum is a beautiful location year-round but it was especially nice taking photos of the buildings, surrounding by freshly fallen snow and decorated with wreaths.  We finished our morning out with a visit to Santa  Claus and a ride on a horse-drawn sleigh. 

Our visit to the museum was a great opportunity to participate in some holiday activities while also enjoying time outside together as we trekked from building to building.  I encourage everyone (adults included) to bundle up in snow pants and if you have small children, it might be helpful to bring a sled in case little legs get tired.   

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 4.5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.

Holiday Traditions

by Sasha I felt pretty lucky as a kid.  The way I saw it, we got to celebrate Christmas (read: open presents) no less than four times.

St. Nicholas was known, among other things, for leaving gold in the shoes of young girls who could not afford dowries.  This odd little habit made him the model for the modern-day Santa Claus.  When we were kids, this meant that the Christmas season began on the night of December 5, when we would put out our shoes for St. Nicholas to fill with candies, trinkets, and gold-wrapped chocolate coins. Those coins were simply awful, I don’t know how anyone could justify calling them chocolate, but we cheerfully ate them anyways.

December 24 is the ‘big day’ in the German tradition, so after a candlelight Christmas service, it was off to Oma’s and Opa’s for knackwurst (yum!), boiled cabbage (umm, yeah, we’ll just skip that, shall we?), and Oh Joy! Presents!

December 25 was, of course, the day Santa worked his magic under the tree.  We weren’t allowed out of our bedrooms until some impossible hour (8am?). Rather than have to wait it out alone, my sisters and I started the tradition of camping out on the floor together in one bedroom.  As we got older (and lazier), this also meant that we could send our baby sister out at the appointed time to retrieve our stockings for us.  Then, after gift opening and a breakfast of peameal bacon and pancakes, it was off to Grandma's and Grandpa's for the traditional Christmas dinner. Oh, and more presents.

Epiphany, in the Christian calendar, is the day the 3 Magi arrived in Bethlehem to pay homage to the baby Jesus. In our house, it was the last day of the Christmas season, and the day the tree came down.  And somehow, there were always a few ‘missed’ presents hiding under the tree skirt, wrapped in distictive Magi paper.

Today, of course, presents aren't nearly as important to me - but traditions are. I have been thinking a lot about Christmas traditions and how to adapt those of our childhood for our new family. I would like to keep the ‘4 Christmases’ I remember, but I also want to make sure the season is not entirely about material things.  Some of the traditions we're planning on keeping (or starting) include:

Christmas starts on Dec 6. More or less. I don't want to get too fussed (or stressed) about dates.  But we'll let St. Nicholas herald the start of our (roughly) 25 days of Christmas, try to get a decoration or two up that day, and open the Christmas music floodgates. Boney M will definitely be making an appearance.

Live Tree. Real Candles. I love this tradition. There's nothing like the smell of a live tree, or the look of real candles. Tree lighting becomes a very special time: nothing else goes on while the tree is lit - partly for safety - so it becomes a quiet moment in the middle of the hustle and bustle.

Understanding holiday traditions. We're not a religious family.  But I think it's important that my kids understand where Christmas comes from, including both it's Christian and pagan roots (there's nothing Christian about a Christmas tree). I'd also like them to understand some of the practices of other religions and cultures.  And I dearly miss the candle-lit reading of the biblical Christmas story - the poetic King James version - that I can probably still recite even now. I'm still struggling with how I'm going to do this meaningfully and respectfully.  I expect there will be readings from several different texts.  And I'm definitely going to need to do some research.

Santa Sacks. For several years I've been making gift bags for as many gifts as possible, both to cut down on paper and because, once they start to come back, wrapping becomes a breeze. I recently wrote a letter to Santa asking him if he'd start doing this too. I still need to figure out how to get St. Nicholas and the Magi to go green.

Christmas ends on January 6.Many years ago, DH and I started exchanging our gifts on January 6.  This is all about destressing the holidays: we can do our shopping during our time off between Christmas and New Years, and then exchange them at our leisure after all the Christmas travelling is done.

What are some of your holiday traditions?

Sasha is mom to 2-year-old Miss Bea, and 4 month old Baby Em.  Her ramblings can also be found on her blog, The Rambling Stroller.

Orleans Santa's Parade of Lights

by Vicky

I grew up in Ottawa's east end, and now I'm raising my own family here. Every year, for as long as I can recall, there has been a Santa Claus Parade in Orleans. It's a yearly tradition for many families. Yet I'm a bit sad to say that I waited until last year to actually experience it for the first time! Even though the parade wasn't a part of my childhood, it will definitely become a tradition for my kids.

Santa's Parade of Lights takes place on Saturday November 28th at 6:00pm, along St. Joseph Blvd, from Youville Dr to Prestone Dr. There are lots of great places to stand and watch the parade. However, with small children who get impatient quickly (like mine,) I would recommend standing somewhere closer to Youville Drive (at the start of the parade). That way you'll get to see Santa fairly quickly and then can head off for hot chocolate or to put the kids to bed. We waited closer to Place D'Orleans, and missed Santa all together since Joel got tired of waiting and wanted to go home. I would recommend going early and getting a good spot along the route because it fills up fast! Especially with young children, it can get hard to see.

We also didn't think to bring a toy or a cash donation collected by the Firefighters along the parade route, but many families did.

Bundled up!

The boys sat on their dads' shoulders for a better view. We all loved seeing the floats decorated with lights, and ooh and aah'd as each one drove by.

Babywearing!

The symphony for kids

by Lynn I love the NAC. I've been to uncountable plays, concerts, and dance shows there. I still remember the first time I saw a symphony - we had to take a special out-of-town trip and it was a Very Big Deal - and it was wonderful and magical and so interesting. I think it's fantastic that we live in a town that is big enough to have its own symphony, and I want my kids to take full advantage of that.

The NAC is working hard to draw in the younger crowd by offering more than one child-friendly event. We're already subscribers to their Kinderconcertseries, which is aimed at children aged 3 to 8 years old. They're fairly laid-back events - everyone snuggles together on pillows on the floor. The great thing about the Kinderconcerts, though, is that they are so intimate - a small venue where the kids can really get up close and personal with the music.

Once your kids turn five, you can start thinking about their Family Adventures Series, which is a set of three concerts in the main hall featuring the full orchestra. I had a chance to check out the first in the series, Trick or Treat to a Wicked Beat, on Saturday, with my six-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son.

I was kind of worried, actually, that the kids would be bored. I find watching the orchestra to be fascinating, but you never know what's going to appeal to the six and seven year old brain. Would they like the classical music? Would they enjoy watching the instruments and the conductor?

I'm very happy to report that the NAC did a fantastic job of making the show kid-friendly. First of all, there are crafts and activities to do in the lobby areas - our concert featured pumpkin carving, ghost necklace making, and a display showing how various spooky special effects sounds are made. Be sure to leave lots of time to explore all three levels of the theatre to try everything. The craft stations open 45 minutes before the show, but they do get very busy so earlier is definitely better.

During the actual show, there's plenty to entertain the kids. I loved the big screen above the orchestra - it focused in on the soloists, just like at a rock concert, and I could quietly identify the instruments to my kids. I also really appreciated the awesome costumes the orchestra members were wearing - check out this photo and see if you can spot Supergirl, some really great witches, a bumble bee, a clown, a construction worker, a convict, a monk, and the classic dude-dressed-as-a-lady.

There were also dancers to interpret some of the numbers, which my kids ADORED, and there was a fun witch, Samara, who exchanged cute banter with the conductor and kept the kids interested and engaged between numbers. There was even an audience participation component - everyone took part in making musical sounds to create a "spell" for Samara, and a few lucky kids were pulled up onstage to help interpret The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

As for the music...it was amazing. A great collection of classics that I was happy to introduce to my little ones, and a Harry Potter song to close out the concert that my kids actually recognized. At exactly an hour long, it is the ideal length - enough for everyone to enjoy without getting fidgety or needing a bathroom break.

I had a great time, the kids had a great time, and most of all, I was glowing at the idea of introducing the kids to a whole new world of the arts. These concerts are such a good way to introduce your kids to the arts and the orchestra and I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series. Still to come are Rhythm & Shoes, A Musical Zoo! and Platypus Theatre's Charlotte and the Music-maker. 

In other news, The Nutcracker is coming back to the NAC this December. I took my two kids last year - when they were a year younger - and it was a hit. It's much longer than the Family Adventures concerts - with the intermission, it was over two hours. My two did get tired partway through, but on the other hand, they still talk about it all the time and have already asked to go again this year. We sat in the very last row of the upper balcony last year, and not only could we easily see and hear everything, it turned out to be ideal seating for kids who needed to stand up and have a stretch on occasion, and who wanted to ask LOTS of questions.

So if you see a few squirmy kids in the very back row this year - come over and say hi!

(Thanks to the NAC for providing Lynn with complimentary tickets for Trick or Treat to a Wicked Beat. And thanks to Lynn for sharing her experience with us!)

Lynn is mom to 7-year-old Captain Jelly Belly, 5.5-year-old Gal Smiley, and 2.5-year-old Little Miss Sunshine. She blogs over at Turtlehead.