The boys made reindeer paintings with their Grammy. Lo wanted to add them to the blog. He describes the making-process:

“Me and Rohan put our foot in brown paint and then pressed it down. And the same with our hands, put one and one in the brown paint and then put it on the reindeer and paint a red nose. Then, picked coloured eyes and wait for it to dry. Grammy really wanted the antlers to be black, not brown, but we decided it should be brown.”

 I thought they’d make great Christmas cards.

During the last few months Noa has become very interested in alphabets and has been practising writing and saying letters in English and in Finnish nearly every day. That’s why we thought it would be a good time to write an important letter to ‘Joulupukki’ (Father Christmas). When I first mentioned the idea to Noa, I asked him to think about what he would like Joulupukki to bring him. Few days later he told me that he had been thinking about his wish list and was ready to write to Joulupukki. We started off in Finnish, continued in English and finished in Finnish again. The letter says: ‘Joulupukille (to Father Christmas), spriderman, lightning McQueen hat, joulukyna (Christmas pen???) t: Noa’. He then also decorated the envelope with snowflakes.

Whilst waiting for the snow to arrive to Wales this winter, I taught Noa how to make snowflakes out of paper. First we folded a square paper into half and folded it half again. By holding on to the corner that was the central point, we brought the side corners together so that the paper became a triangle instead of a square. This was a bit tricky... Then we cut out bits from all sides. Noa loves cutting paper and is getting quite good at handling scissors. He was very focused. Once we had few snowflakes ready we taped them onto our dining room window. Noa shouted happily: ‘Look mummy, it’s snowing!!’ He is looking forward to the real snow, but at least these compensate a little.

We decided to make some ‘joulutonttuja’ (Father Christmas’ helpers) which are very important characters of the Finnish Christmas tradition. They are small. They usually wear red jackets and pointy hats. They have long white beards like Father Christmas and they sneak around to find out if children have been good or naughty. Noa drew green googly eyes for one of them and had a little chat with them.

Detangling hair and searching for the very un-festive but pernicious nit isn't great but does give time for some good discussion as to what the next day of Christmas should be.  G has some pretty tricky ideas inspired on the whole by Mr Maker, but until we work out the finer details, stencil cutting was something we could get our, I am glad to say nit free heads round this very night. G drew the subjects, I said I would cut out the shapes, but then the problems began about which bit you will see on the paper and which bit is left white from the stencil. Attempts at Father Christmas left us a bit frustrated as his detailed face became a big hole. A Christmas tree with surrounding presents worked much better, and G was pleased to discover that the angel cut out we thought we were throwing away could be used to make a halo-ish aura shape, next to it. Many angel pictures were then produced until the template was quite soggy and undefined round the edges....

Lola wanted to enter a book review competition at school so she decided to make a 3D model of the main character 'Cosmo' and write the review in a spell book at his feet. We discussed the best way to do this and decided to scrunch up tin foil to make the main shape. Lola did pretty much all of the modelling and I was just on hand for technical advice! The finished structure was covered in tissue then painted with acrylic. It took about 3 separate sessions to complete. Lola was very happy with the finished results, saying it turned out how she imagined it to be and liked doing the activity together.

Having spent ages trying to find an affordable panto for family and friends, G decided that we needed invites.  She was trying to describe the shape of theatre curtains, drawing them, gathering up the stair curtains, so I found some material for her to try and make them with. Actually, I think the material is too stretchy and difficult to shape really but she had a good go, and I helped to follow the lines she had drawn on with felt tip to help. It was pretty tricky.  We had been bought a box of chocs the week before, so G used the purple paper from inside, pleating it and then pulling it into a fan shape to make the kind of frontage of the stage, it could be that only me and her get this, but it did mean that we needed to finish the last few chocolates which was a bonus.....

Rohan not well. Asleep. He had Calpol and blueberries, Quorn sausage and cheesy bread in the shape of a dinosaur lovingly made by Daddy.  Logaan and I made Father Christmas out of plasticine. Lo did a great job with the legs and boots, arms and gloves and the beard.  Finished it off with a snowy drawing of Rudolph, the sleigh and two moons (because “Father Christmas is visiting a place where there are two moons”), as a backdrop to the photo.

First stage done, we painted the brown paper white. Both boys sniffling. Lo home from school today. With brushes washed and waiting for paint to dry, I washed bits of paint off of Lo’s locks, accidentally applied by Rohan due to his holding the very long paintbrush at the tippy end.

Okay, so I wanted us to do a Christmas angel, but Lo said he’d rather do an elf, 2 elves! Traced the boys’ body outline, Lo sorted the colour scheme and Rohan had a nap (he has fever today). Lo did very careful painting, drew the faces and in-between Deady 360 episodes, we managed to finish our first contribution.  Rohan didn’t seem too impressed with the final piece initially and admitted that it needed white dots in the background. He had just woken up.

G had found a recipe for ginger Christmas stars in her cookbook, and was determined to try them, particularly as we keep catching this 'bake off' show on CBBC that she is very impressed with. We had to get black treacle specially and it went everywhere, sleeves were in it, blobs were on the floor sticking up socks, G had more or less a complete costume change during the mixing, but it didn’t take long before the mix was in the oven and smelling lush!  As always the big pull was icing and specially chosen sprinkles. Taking heed of a disappointing peppa pig cake experience where the icing ended up so thin it couldn’t stay on the cakes, we added water cautiously. I think they look pretty good, G just ate the silver balls off one and gave the licked cake to me. it was ever thus.......

 

Missed planting bulbs last year and thought it didn't really matter, but you know once Spring comes along you really wish you had. After all the darkness, and soggy leaves I find I am desperate for signs that the garden is waking up again.  So with the last of the misshapen tomatoes pulled up, they are never going to ripen now!, G and me stuffed bulbs in their places rather unceremoniously. Alan Titchmarsh assures me courtesy of TV in the day room at work, that bulbs don't need any special soil or compost and can be packed many to a pot so we took him at his word.  Bamboo compostable pots in the bargain bin at B and Q looked like they had the right texture to actually take decoration without it all peeling/sliding off.  G chose wax candle decorating pens for wiggly lines all ‘round the pot and glass paint pens to draw hearts and flowers at intervals. No help required from me, so we are keeping these ones indoors and taking extra special care of them. The rest will have to fend for themselves......

wow it does seem a bit early, but Christingle gatherings would be all about making these decorations, pomanders I think they are called, basically enough cloves stuck in an orange to preserve it through the season. Can it really be true, well we will hang it up and call it an experiment.  We thought those pumpkins would last forever and then one morning a light touch and the whole smiling face just implodes into mush, to our delight actually.  It smells good at the moment, pipe cleaners were easy to wrap round for G , but some of the cloves were pronounced sharp, the ones that had their little bobble off and look like a spiky star, they were all for me to put in, also a fine paintbrush can make you a hole ready so your thumb doesn't have to take so much punishment. G wants to hang it above a doorway, I imagine we may forget about it and then one morning an unsuspecting person will get it on the top of their head. Have faith in the cloves, must discover what they really are......