Days 9, 10 and 11 of the Advent…more ornaments and music.

Day 9 brought us more ornaments to decorate the tree with.  I am quite enjoying adding ornaments to the tree as we make them; it is making for a very special tree this year.  As previously mentioned in the last post we started with all of the one of kind ornaments we had to decorate the tree.  What I didn’t mention is the reason we have so many of these ornaments.  My parents (my Mom) started a tradition many years ago, each Christmas eve we would each receive a new Christmas ornament.  Usually something that represented where we were in our life’s or something that we enjoyed, for example, I love Winnie the Pooh so there are quite a few Winnie the Pooh ornaments.  My husband likes to BBQ and enjoys a glass of red wine so we have a few of those as well.  And of course with the new addition to our family my daughter is collecting her own Christmas ornaments as well each year.

The ornaments we added today were foam ornaments that again were purchases at Dollarama; they have a candy cane theme.  You may notice in the picture that it is a Gingerbread Woman; my daughter decided the bow tie should go in her hair instead of around her neck!

Day 10 brought us more music.  We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas concert in downtown Toronto at the Metropolitan United Church.  The concert featured International Barbershop chorus medalist Toronto Northern Lights and the Intrada Brass Band.  We actually attend this concert every year as my Dad and brother both sing with the chorus as well as a number of our friends.  I love making barbershop a part of our holiday tradition as it is such a large part of our lives.  After the concert my daughter let her Grandpa know that “he did a great job”!  I, of course have my favourite songs such as Mary Did You Know performed by Toronto Northern Lights, always make me want to come home and listen to my Gas House Gang Christmas CD and of course the Toronto Northern Lights Christmas CD.  I also enjoy Sleigh Ride as performed by the Intrada Brass band.  This year the audience got to participant in the song helping out with the jingle bells and horse whip!

As for today’s activity we made more Christmas ornaments for the tree.

So easy to make and of course fun for the kids because it can be a little messy.  Here is the recipe (courtesy of the Aylmer Express):

Materials: applesauce, ground cinnamon, cookie cutters and ribbon

Instructions:

1.  Mix ¾ to 1 cup of applesauce with one 4.12 ounce bottle of ground cinnamon to form a stiff dough.
2. Roll out to ¼ inch thickness.
3. Cut with cookie cutter.  Don’t forget to make a hole for the ribbon.
4. Carefully, place on a rack to dry.  They will take several days to dry.  Turn them occasionally to dry both sides.

Feel free to decorate them with whatever you have on hand.

I have to say my entire house smells like cinnamon now!  Can’t wait for these to dry and hang them on the tree.

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