December 8, 2011

• If I can be creative...

  I have long ago accepted this fact about myself.

  I am not a very creative person when it comes to making things, decorating, thinking of cool ideas to re-purpose things, etc.

  I just don't really have it in me.  What comes naturally to others, I stumble and fumble to figure out.

  Last year I did a post about my lack of Christmas decorations in my home. Mostly because I was starting to feel really bitter when I kept seeing posts of everybody's houses in all of their Christmas glory.  I WISHED my house were that pretty, but do I have the creativity to make it happen?  No. 

  Enter Pinterest.

  My world has become a different place.

  As I've said before...if Pinterest can turn ME from "so-not-creative" into "Hey, I could do THAT!" and actually starting to feel somewhat creative (even though, really, that is just a joke, because I am totally copying ideas that I see on Pinterest), I consider it to be somewhat of a miracle.

  So this year, there are a few additions to the Christmas decorations within the Miller home. And you can pretty much credit all of them to Pinterest.

  (If you aren't aware of Pinterest yet, you must have had your head buried in the sand for the last few months. But if you still wondering about it, go check it out at www.pinterest.com)

  Besides the Christmas candle holder wreath thing on my table and the wreath on my door and my Christmas tree, we have now added:

  

  The Nativity Scene (This has nothing to do with Pinterest, I guess. And I had already bought this last year. And...it required no creativity. Although I think that the way that sheep is resting up on that platform may have required a little creativity on the part of one of my kids.)

  

  Totally stole from Pinterest (This is at my living room window)

  

  Also, idea from Pinterest...to wrap up a bunch of Christmas books (I bought a "lot" of them on E-bay and then also rounded up any Christmas books we had around home and wrapped them. - Although I did catch some crap for that one when one of the kids unwrapped a book that they recognized as one we had already owned. Sheesh! I can't get away with anything!!   We are unwrapping and reading a book every day. The kids love it!  But...be warned. Wrapping that many books gets really old. I'm just sayin'.)

   

  The ormaments in a glass bowl thing I probably actually got from someone else's Xanga site at some point in time. Not sure who to give credit to.

  

  The tree and the presents. Yay! This just makes me happy. The warmth and coziness it adds to our living room makes me kind of wish I could just leave it up 'year round.

  

  And...my pride and joy!! The "Advent Calendar."  Thanks to Pinterest, for the first time the Miller Family has an Advent Calendar. I searched lots of pins and websites and finally came up with this. It was a combination of many ideas.

  I bought little tins at Michaels for 99 cents each. But I will be re-using them, so I justified it that way!

  The numbers for the lids of the tins I printed out from a website I found through Pinterest.

  The decorations for the tins I just sort of made up on my own.

  See, once you get me started, I CAN actually think of something myself.

  

  

  And then as far as what to put inside of the tins...I found this website  (if you click on the link, then scroll down a bit and you will see the little tags I am talking about) where they have TONS of activity ideas for the advent calendar. And...you can print them off and just cut them out and stick them in your calendar. 

  I used a lot of those. Some tins just have candy in them and a few have verses.

  We are bringing the magic back into Christmas at our house, baby!!!  At least a little of it.

  Derrick was outside while I was doing some decorating and he came in and was like "Wow, Mom! You are really going all out for Christmas this year!" as he took in the new decorations around the house.

  See, here's the thing. If you barely decorate at all for the first 9 years of a kids life, they are much easier to impress when you actually do a few extra things.

  Lower expectations. Lower expectations. That's my motto. (Although I may have just shot myself in the foot this year!)

  And I know my Christmas decorations are still quite lame compared to most of yours. I get that. But...I am so dang proud of myself for doing what I did. Because, for me, it was a lot. And when I look around my house at the little touches of Christmas that have been added, it makes me happy.  Guess sometimes it doesn't take much.

   

  I have to leave you with this funny story about my advent calendar.

  If you know me, then you know that if it is "ON THE CALENDAR" then it must happen.

  So, one of our first tins had a paper in it that said "Take a walk and look at the stars."

  I thought that sounded like such a very fun thing to do as a family.

  Come dark on Sunday night, I rounded up the troops to go on a little walk.

  In the frigid cold.

  On a night where it was extremely cloudly and there was not ONE.SINGLE.STAR in the sky.

  Plus, my boys were watching TV and did not want to be pulled away. But, believe me, it was on.the.calendar, so it was going to happen!!

  So, with me all upbeat and cheery, as I would only be if this were MY idea and not someone else's, I got everyone stuffed into their coats and boots out and we headed out with a couple of flashlights to light our way.

  We live on a dead-end road, so I figured we would just walk to the end of the road and back. Stars or not, we were going to have a good time!

  Except that Jeremy was so not in the mood. He was complaining almost as badly as the children. About 5 minutes into our approximately 10 minute walk, Nikki said her "legs hurt" and she didn't want to walk anymore.

  There were comments such as "This is boring. There are no stars to see anyway!" and the such like.

  But I plowed along, dragging my family with me, being all Polly-anna-ish in my "Isn't this fun, kids?  We're all outside together!" and "Isn't this fresh air so good for you?"  "Don't you just feel better now that you've been outside for a few minutes??"

  But no...they couldn't see my point. They were mostly concerned about getting back inside as fast as they could.  And Jeremy made comments, in a very, very mockingly excited tone of voice, like "Hey, kids. Once we get back, why don't we all go down together and put wood in the woodstove?? And then...we can all help clean snow off my car!! Wouldn't that be fun, kids??"

  I get no respect. That's all I can say.

  Thankfully, I saw the humor in it all and got a good laugh out of it.

  Plus, that clear, crisp night air did clear my brain.

  At least enough to know that I was being completely mocked. But really, I was OK with it.

  Their turn will be coming.  Just you wait.

  Christmas Cheer, everyone!!

  • 2:53 pm
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