Make your own Christmas gift bags...

I worked at a fabric/craft store while I was in high school and on college breaks. If you work at a fabric store- you should be a good sewer- right? Well I was 16 and didn't know much but my mom taught me the basics. I am no seamstress but can handle simple projects and hemming.

Anyways, something I started doing over the last couple of years was sewing gift bags with old remnants of Chrismtas fabric that I'd collected years before. I wanted to use it up and thought it would be fun to have some reusable gift bags that I'd made. Last year after Christmas I purposed to use up ALL of the fabric I had laying around and come this year I had a nice little stash of bags to use for gifts. Here is one:


Besides the thoughtfulness of a homemade bag, I obviously like these because they are reusable and create much less Christmas waste than wrapping paper....(though I do enjoy some wrapping paper too) They can be passed back and forth between family members for years or given away to friends. Plus....you can get remnants of Christmas fabric for pretty inexpensive that they don't end up being any more than a gift bag you buy....you just have spend the time to sew. For example, I spent $10 at Joanns recently on Christmas scraps. I'm sure I'll be able to make 15-20 bags from all of this depending on the size.

Goal for January: Find a baby free hour to sew!!

12 Dates of Christmas and our Christmas Blessing project

Things have mellowed out a tiny bit around here! Aaron still is limited on what he's supposed to lift (not more than 15 lbs) for a bit longer but he's feeling a lot better and can help with Alex (who's a whopping 14 lbs!!). Mateo can't wait for his daddy to be able to pick him up. Soon. I think Aaron was impressed (or intimidated) with how strong I've become these last two weeks. I'll gladly give him the muscle jobs back when he is ready....

Alex, who though pretty cranky in the afternoons and evenings...has been doing so well at night (besides it taking me too long to get him down) and I'm thankful for that! Last night he slept like 10 hours straight, nursed for 10 minutes, and then slept for 3 more hours. I was beyond confused. Mateo didn't sleep that long at a stretch until like 9 or 10 months or so. Same mom, same milk, same crib even. I guess every kid really is different. I cannot say we did anything different at ALL really. We just got lucky. I'm hoping it will last...! Next hurdle.... convincing Alex that taking a nap during the day really isn't such a bad thing...and that it would sure help Mom from being utterly exhausted by the time Dad gets home, haha. Right now I kind of have him kind of asleep in the moby wrap... which hurts my back mucho...but hopefully he will chill long enough to finish this blog post!!

Speaking of Aaron, we decided to do a unique present for Christmas this year. I got the idea from the Advent Conspiracy http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

It's called the 12 Dates of Christmas. We did $20 stocking stuffer stuff each...and then decided to do these 12 dates...some of which involve the kids...and some that we still need to finish (getting an appendix out wasn't on the plans for December...thus we need a little more time ;) Many of these may seem overly simple and things you may not even consider "dates" but we've had quite a 3 months and just doing anything together is quite enjoyable....and much more fun than a tangible present.

1 Get a Christmas Tree and decorate it with Mateo.
2. Watch Elf
3. Watch an episode of Psych (our fav. tv show that we rarely make time for)
4. Coffee shop (which means we set up a coffee shop downstairs and make hot drinks and hang out)
5.Take the boys to see Christmas lights (
6. Shop for our Christmas blessing project and assemble bags (care packages for homeless people)
7. Distribute blessing bags Christmas week
8. Play Mario on wii
9. Sing Christmas songs with Aaron playing guitar
10. Do weekly devotionals (Aaron's been choosing one verse and having us each answer a few questions separately before chatting together on the weekend).
11. Go to bed by 9:30pm
12. Make cookie dough together.

There are still a few that we need to finish...and I look forward to cashing in this Christmas present in the next week or so. Below are a couple pics of our care packages. Mateo had fun helping us put them together. One fun thing is that I collected all the oral hygieme items for free this year with coupons. I hope as Mateo (and Alex) get older, Christmas is not all about presents but more about Jesus' presence in our homes and world. What would Jesus want for Christmas?

Presents?

Do you wonder how much the stuff below cost me on Thanksgiving? Let's see how many of you watched The Price Is Right...

So Black Friday is traditionally (in our country) where people go out and spend lots of money on Christmas presents. I love a good deal like anybody, but I've been increasingly turned off of the commercialism of Christmas the last couple of years...convicted to be less of a consumerist. I don't envision that would be how Jesus would want us to celebrate his birth. Gift giving is fun, but that's not really what it's about. I know when I would see people after Christmas, the common question I would be asked is, "What did you get for Christmas?". Isn't that bizarre? We are so indoctrinated with how our country "celebrates" that we are so focused on presents. This is an awesome site (and movement) http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
Check it out! What if we all spent less and gave more?

Now that we are parents, we have the opportunity to create new traditions, new celebrations, and it's kind of exciting. Mateo doesn't know who Santa Claus is, or how many presents he's supposed to get. He's innocent and it's amazing to see the joy he has in something so simple- like stabbing a piece of food with his fork successfully. If only we could retain our childhood authenticity into adulthood.

Oh, and I paid $3.75 for all the goodies in the picture. That's less than the price of one Noxema!
That was just at Walgreens. I was so excited getting home from Rite Aid that I put all the stuff away in my stockpiles before I remembered to take a picture.

I'll leave you with Advent Conspiracy's words....

Worship Fully
Spend Less
Give More
Love All

Great, great, life motto!