I imagine that most years I will not be able to blog in detail regarding our little tradition of anonymously delivering a gift each day for the 12 days leading up to Christmas. But this year, our receiver is not web savvy, so I wanted to share the little things we've done for the sake of sharing ideas and for recording family history.
Day One:
On the first day of Christmas, Santa's elves bring you a little bit of nature to fill your house with its life and love.
-- The Elves
(The gift is a small, live evergreen with fake snow in the container. I added miniature ornaments I collected from previous years of apartment-living.)
Day Two:
On the second day of Christmas, we bring you a fun reminder of the gift from yesterday. It's not perfect, but its sure made with love. ;)
-- The Elves
(The gift is a Christmas tree made of stacked gingerbread stars and sugar frosting. The kids decorated this one. The kit was store bought.)
Day Three:
On the third day of Christmas, we bring you a hand-made craft made of Christmas cards. Just a little bit of cheery color!
-- The Elves
(The gift is a flower vase made of Christmas cards. The base is a pentagon, and the sides are all the same pear-ish shape, sewn together with thick floss. Based on previous experience, this shape with a wider shape near the base is less top heavy and doesn't tip over easily. Granny provided "the kit" with the templates.)
Day Four:
On the fourth day of Christmas, we bring you warm fuzzies. We hope your day is filled with many "warm fuzzies" and no "cold pricklies".
-- The Elves
(The gift is six warm fuzzies. You can see The Warm Fuzzy story is in the picture below. The kids made the warm fuzzies of pom-pom balls, googlie eyes, pipe cleaner antennas, and index cards for feet. Granny made "the kit" for us.)
Day Five:
On the sixth day of Christmas, we bring you .... (I don't remember, it was lame).
-- The Elves
(The gift is clothes pin ornaments, again made from recycled Christmas Cards clipped to a strand of curly ribbon. My son and I made these. Granny provided "the kit", so that saved me lots of work. This is a fun project because you get to pick out tidbits/smaller images from the cards and glue to the clothes pins.)
Day Six:
On the sixth day of Christmas, we bring you some homemade candles. They look like Christmas trees, but smell like fresh pomegrani ates. (how do you spell that?) May you enjoy the beauty of their light.
-- The Elves
(I used a new technique when making these candles. These were the only two that made it "successfully" through the process. My husband thought the others deserved to be "re-melted" and made into different candles.)
Day Seven:
(The gift was a small box of Hickory Farms beef, cheeses, and mustards.)
A special note about Day 7: Up until this point my kids had been the only ones to deliver gifts to the door. On day 7, we got home very late due to a soccer team party, both kids fell asleep in the car, so I made the delivery. I found a note:
"The Elves,
Thank you for your kindness. Your love is making [him] smile. Could you please place any future items on [the] chair. As he fell & broke his rib. Can't bend. :( Tell Santa hello & thank you!
-- Daughter :)"
The greeting "The Elves" was circled and highlighted. So, I'm guessing the note had been there since Day 5 or so. Lesson learned: occasionally Mom or Dad Elf need to go to the door to check out the situation. I felt terrible.
Day Eight:
Because of the note found on Day 7, I wrote a special note apologizing for not seeing his note earlier and explaining that the "delivery Elves" were quite small.
(The gift was three small paper chains made of many different colors of construction paper and stapled together. My husband and I left for the day to finish shopping, and left this project to the babysitter and the kids. Our receiver later hung each paper chain from his screen door.)
Day Nine:
On the ninth day of Christmas we bring you some fruit cocktail cookies and an elf-decorated ornament. A pretty good likeness, eh?
-- The Elves
(Now, this was where it got rewarding as a mother. We colored ornaments during church with the children that day as a Christmas craft. Before I could suggest it, my son decided his ornament would be given as a 12 Days of Christmas gift and wrote on the back "From: ?". I was tickled pink.)
Day Ten:
On the 10th day of Christmas we bring you some homemade banana bread. With all the good ingredients of sugar & eggs, but no nuts. One for now, and one for the freezer? If it makes it to the freezer! ;)
-- The Elves
(So, I didn't think of this when delivering the cookies, but just in case our receiver had a food allergy -- I wanted him to know what was in it. Of course, since the fruit cocktail cookies usually have nuts in them, so this note may have not mattered at this point. Chuckle.)
A special note on Day 10: My son came racing away from the door holding a huge tin over his head like it was the Stanley Cup. It was a tin full of popcorn with this note:
Elves,
Thank you for all the fun, clever gifts enjoyed! [He] left you a treat! :) Merry Christmas.
My son truly thought he'd hit the jackpot.
Day Eleven:
On the eleventh day of Christmas, we bring you Pretzel Carmel Delights -- a Daddy Elf idea. Thank you for the popcorn -- delish!
-- The Elves
(The treat was my husband's idea found online. Pecan halves melted onto Rolo candies, melted on top of a pretzel. Didn't think of the nut allergy issue here, either. ;) But they are delicious! Of course, when we went to make them, my husband discovered he had mistakenly picked up cheese pretzels. They still tasted good, and we still delivered them.)
Day Twelve:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, we bring the fresh bounty of the season. We have enjoyed this so much this year -- thank you. The secret elves are .... ..... still a secret. ;)
-- The Elves
Ah, day 12. Some projects are just doomed. So, this is Christmas day. We had found two boxes of white Christmas ball ornaments at the thrift store for $2 each the week before. We picked them up and I thought we could paint them with craft paint, and make them really cute. My husband asked if the craft paint would stay on without lacquer. Since I failed to pick some up, we switched to decorating with glitter pens. I told the kids they would have to decorate lightly (this was 5pm already), so the glitter would dry in time for delivery. Yeah, right! So, we finished them ...... and then I quickly moved to plan B. We created a fruit basket with mandarins, two red apples, a pear, and some cellophane. It looked pretty, and pre-planned when it was finished -- thankfully.
When I checked the ornaments the next morning (we had discussed making a Day 13 delivery), I was glad we hadn't delivered them. The glitter glue had pulled the white paint off the ornaments. Basically, they were silver ornaments with white paint on the OUTSIDE, and now the glitter and the white were coming off.
On the sixth day of Christmas, we bring you some homemade candles. They look like Christmas trees, but smell like fresh pomegran
-- The Elves
(I used a new technique when making these candles. These were the only two that made it "successfully" through the process. My husband thought the others deserved to be "re-melted" and made into different candles.)
(The gift was a small box of Hickory Farms beef, cheeses, and mustards.)
A special note about Day 7: Up until this point my kids had been the only ones to deliver gifts to the door. On day 7, we got home very late due to a soccer team party, both kids fell asleep in the car, so I made the delivery. I found a note:
"The Elves,
Thank you for your kindness. Your love is making [him] smile. Could you please place any future items on [the] chair. As he fell & broke his rib. Can't bend. :( Tell Santa hello & thank you!
-- Daughter :)"
The greeting "The Elves" was circled and highlighted. So, I'm guessing the note had been there since Day 5 or so. Lesson learned: occasionally Mom or Dad Elf need to go to the door to check out the situation. I felt terrible.
Day Eight:
Because of the note found on Day 7, I wrote a special note apologizing for not seeing his note earlier and explaining that the "delivery Elves" were quite small.
(The gift was three small paper chains made of many different colors of construction paper and stapled together. My husband and I left for the day to finish shopping, and left this project to the babysitter and the kids. Our receiver later hung each paper chain from his screen door.)
Day Nine:
On the ninth day of Christmas we bring you some fruit cocktail cookies and an elf-decorated ornament. A pretty good likeness, eh?
-- The Elves
(Now, this was where it got rewarding as a mother. We colored ornaments during church with the children that day as a Christmas craft. Before I could suggest it, my son decided his ornament would be given as a 12 Days of Christmas gift and wrote on the back "From: ?". I was tickled pink.)
On the 10th day of Christmas we bring you some homemade banana bread. With all the good ingredients of sugar & eggs, but no nuts. One for now, and one for the freezer? If it makes it to the freezer! ;)
-- The Elves
(So, I didn't think of this when delivering the cookies, but just in case our receiver had a food allergy -- I wanted him to know what was in it. Of course, since the fruit cocktail cookies usually have nuts in them, so this note may have not mattered at this point. Chuckle.)
A special note on Day 10: My son came racing away from the door holding a huge tin over his head like it was the Stanley Cup. It was a tin full of popcorn with this note:
Elves,
Thank you for all the fun, clever gifts enjoyed! [He] left you a treat! :) Merry Christmas.
My son truly thought he'd hit the jackpot.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, we bring you Pretzel Carmel Delights -- a Daddy Elf idea. Thank you for the popcorn -- delish!
-- The Elves
(The treat was my husband's idea found online. Pecan halves melted onto Rolo candies, melted on top of a pretzel. Didn't think of the nut allergy issue here, either. ;) But they are delicious! Of course, when we went to make them, my husband discovered he had mistakenly picked up cheese pretzels. They still tasted good, and we still delivered them.)
Day Twelve:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, we bring the fresh bounty of the season. We have enjoyed this so much this year -- thank you. The secret elves are .... ..... still a secret. ;)
-- The Elves
Ah, day 12. Some projects are just doomed. So, this is Christmas day. We had found two boxes of white Christmas ball ornaments at the thrift store for $2 each the week before. We picked them up and I thought we could paint them with craft paint, and make them really cute. My husband asked if the craft paint would stay on without lacquer. Since I failed to pick some up, we switched to decorating with glitter pens. I told the kids they would have to decorate lightly (this was 5pm already), so the glitter would dry in time for delivery. Yeah, right! So, we finished them ...... and then I quickly moved to plan B. We created a fruit basket with mandarins, two red apples, a pear, and some cellophane. It looked pretty, and pre-planned when it was finished -- thankfully.
When I checked the ornaments the next morning (we had discussed making a Day 13 delivery), I was glad we hadn't delivered them. The glitter glue had pulled the white paint off the ornaments. Basically, they were silver ornaments with white paint on the OUTSIDE, and now the glitter and the white were coming off.
I love the gingerbread tree!
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