are things complicated yet?

Advent Day 3: Polar Express Pajama Party

Our local museum was showing The Polar Express in their Omni/IMAX and I thought it would be a fun thing to do with Claire. They'd been pushing the event for weeks via email and it was pretty high on my list of "That will be SO MUCH MAGICAL FUN." They had even promoted a Polar Express Pajama Party where you get hot chocolate and marshmallows before the movie and then go see the movie in your pajamas at 10 am. I thought that sounded totally up Claire's alley. She is getting to the point where she will watch an entire movie without wandering off or getting distracted and she really enjoys the book so this appeared to be a very obvious choice for the Advent calendar. Plus we are members of the museum and it was going to be almost free.

Then when I went to buy the tickets I saw that the pajama parties were all sold out (!!) and I wondered if I even wanted to go to the non-pajama party version, now that I'd built up the pajama party and how much fun it was going to be. (For me, not Claire. Claire had no idea.) Then I remembered there is maybe something weird about The Polar Express movie but I couldn't quite recall what it was, so I asked Twitter and sure enough there's a bad guy in it that isn't in the book and some people said the animation was kind of creepy. Twitter had mixed reviews.

Huh.

So, given that the 10am was sold out for the next two weeks and I didn't feel like waiting around all day for the 320 and there wasn't going to be a pajama party on ANY day in December for us, we went to the museum today and played with hula hoops and paper airplanes and then saw a short movie in the planetarium with Big Bird and Elmo that was a very basic introduction to stars and moon and earth. She liked it well enough but we had to take Charlotte out mid-viewing.

After the museum we went out for enchiladas, came home, and watched Star Wars, Episode IV, A New Hope.

It was a good day. Not exactly what was in the calendar but I didn't hear anyone complaining.

Advent Day 2: Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

Yesterday when I was at Walmart I looked at the applesauce jars and I thought I should probably buy some for the cinnamon applesauce ornament project that was somewhere in the Advent calendar. But the jars were on the very bottom shelf and I didn't feel like bending over to haul one up and wow that is the top tier of lazy, isn't it? Anyway, I didn't buy any applesauce yesterday despite pausing my cart right in front of the stuff and taking a moment to look at it.

Today, Claire opened the sleeve and it said, "Make cinnamon applesauce ornaments!"

Shit.

After I dropped her off at preschool, Charlotte and I took a bonus trip to Target where we picked up:

1 giant jar of cheap applesauce

2 jars of ground cinnamon

1 Christmas card and some stickers to send to a friend

Things I considered purchasing, but passed on:

A serving tray

One of these weird curling iron wands that I keep seeing. (Does anyone have one? What is the deal with those?)

A pair of silver reindeer to put on the mantle (am actually still thinking about this one)

I also considered helping myself to a peppermint mocha at Starbucks but the dude that was working is overly friendly (ha ha, YES I am familiar with my local Target Sbux dude) and he does that high-five HEY YOU! chatty type thing and I didn't feel like interacting with him so no peppermint mocha for me today. (Related: Do not order one of those awful skinny peppermint mochas. It sounds like a good idea, but it's a terrible one. The non-fat milk with the sugar free syrup tastes like used motor oil with mouthwash and what is the point of a holiday drink if there is no whipped cream, COME ON. Go full fat, all-the-way or not at all. That is my advice.)

So, uh, anyway, the ornaments! We did this last year with Jennie and Kyle and it was pretty fun. Basically you just dump the cinnamon into a bowl and spoon applesauce in and stir it up until you get a dough-like consistency. Roll it out, use cookie cutters to make shapes, bake on a low heat for a couple of hours to dry them out. A nice side effect is it makes the house smell delightful all afternoon.

***

Step 1: Situate baby in high chair with a holiday-themed spatula to chew on. Ensure she is wearing ruffle gingerbread pajamas that Grandma sent. Comment to yourself once again how godawful ugly this high chair is.

Step 2: Dump cinnamon in bowl. Dump applesauce in bowl. Stir. Try not to wince when the child ends up thwocking several tablespoons of cinnamon on the floor. (At least it's a pleasant smell.)

Step 3: Roll out the dough. Use mini-rolling pin that Grandma sent.

Step 4: Use cookie cutters and cut shapes. Repeat until you use up all the dough.

Step 5:Place on cookie sheet. Use a straw to punch a hole to run a ribbon through. Bake at 200 or 250 until they get dry. (This took about 90 minutes at our house. It depends on whatever ratio of applesauce-to-cinnamon and moisture you end up with.)

Step 6: Clean up. Make a mental note to stick to no more than four shapes next year because cookie cutters are SUCH a waste of top-rack dishwasher space.

Step 7: Run a thin ribbon through the hole and gift the ornaments or keep for yourself. The ones we made last year held up pretty well and my mom has some from the nineties that still smell good and aren't like, gross or moldy or anything. These seem to last, which is rather nice since most projects like this really don't.

***

PS I went to a Christmas party last night, and I took this crappy low-res photo with Instagram and I kind of like it. The end.

Advent Day One: Implement Advent Calendar, Open a Present

Today we filled out and hung up the Advent Calendar. I was going to hang it on the mantel but the stockings are in the way. Then, I figured the staircase was a good choice but my staircase has a sofa in front of it and it would have been impossible to get the activities OUT of the little muslin bags each day without standing on the sofa or a table and, well, that's not an example we want to be setting around here. I hung it in the kitchen window, which is not quite as fabulous as I had envisioned, and I might move it if I come up with a better idea, but that's where it is for now. 

We're going to start off big on Day One with opening a gift (in addition to the activity of hanging up the calendar in the first place). The gift will be Fancy Nancy's Splendiferous Christmas, which I picked up at Costco a week or two ago. As I am typing this out, I am feeling like anything Fancy Nancy is not in the true spirit of Advent or Christmas whatsoever but, well, we are not very religious so Splendiferous and Fancy Nancy are where we're starting out this year. So be it. She'll open that tonight before dinner.

Here's our calendar in all its Etsy glory. It is worth noting that as I was putting this together I realized that number 24 was missing so I emailed the seller and she's sending me a new one straight away, which I was rather relieved to hear. I punched scalloped rounds out of green scrapbook paper that I had and used a silver Sharpie to write the numbers on front and the activity on back. I also made note of the activity on our master calendar so I don't forget what's ahead of us.

Claire will open a bag each morning at breakfast. She liked it today and asked to get more down. 

Advent. Here we go!