I thought I'd present the whole of the envelope, since they are all quite lovely and have thus far not been shown.
This depicted candied yams or some such thing, but did not, in fact, involve candy or yams or even sweet potatoes. Or cranberries, for that matter. Lovely colors though, all, and which sufficiently fill up the space.
And finally, we get down to it:
Jon took no photos, but rest assured, they did indeed take a candlelit bubble bath. Jon evidently poured wax in the water - I suppose to make the interesting shapes that hot wax makes as it hits water - which I had to then scoop up from the bottom of the tub when I wanted to take a shower the next day. It was green and scented like apple and came from a dollar store, though no one in my house actually purchased it. The crumby bits of said candle were no fun for the wiping, to be sure.
2 comments:
Hey Anna! We've been so busy trying to do our own festive things for the holidays that I completely missed your Christmas countdown idea, which I love and want to steal. When I read your first post (I read them in order, even though I read them all today), I thought, that's so cool! Only it would be hard to know what to put in each day, as you wouldn't know what sort of day you would be having in advance...i.e. "get a Christmas tree" would be something would be a hard one to necessarily fulfill. I see you have had some of those issues, but overall, it sounds really fun. I can sense a bit of waning of enthusiasm as the days pass and you pick an activity for which you are not yet ready, but I am also guessing that this is also part of the fun for you, "pushing" yourself to do something on a day when you might have otherwise thought about it but dismissed it.
I've been filling our Advent calendar the night before (or the morning of) because 1) they might be too tempted to check all the days right away, 2) I am not organized enough to have all 24 days of gifts together by the beginning of the month, 3) many of the items don't fit in those sweet little pockets I so ambitiously sewed on three years to our giant felt calendar which once seemed huge and now seems inadequate and 4) some of the gifts involve an activity, i.e. i got them red and green sprinkles and some festive cupcake papers that I know will say "make cupcakes now!" and I want to be sure we have the time and energy to do it. So far, the sprinkles have remained in the big bag of Advent potential gifts and have not manifested in a pocket...
So I like your idea and am trying to think of how I will incorporate it into our lives next year. I'm thinking these envelopes could solve a lot of things for us, like the fact that many of my gift ideas don't fit into the squares we have. I can certainly make an envelope that would fit in those squares. Or I could just put the pieces of paper in our little pockets. Then my note can say "make Christmas cupcakes" and I can whip out the supplies.
I do really like the idea of opening these envelopes, though, and I really like that you yourself have forgotten what is there, so it is, in theory, fun for you too. So maybe our Advent calendar can be filled with only chocolate or something like that, and the envelopes will give us the bigger possibilities... I think the added surprise each day will also serve to motivate me to do things I might not otherwise be in the mood for, and in that sense, I guess that's what it's all about, keeping that surprise and excitement going for all of us. So when are those marshmallows going to show up? ;)
It's actually working out pretty well. There has to be some flexibility, of course. We've only not done the stargazing and only traded or delayed one other activity for a different day. I'm behind on updating the blog though! I'm working on that right now.
It also seems like Christmas is really, really soon now and that there's so much else to accomplish. There's also some grumpiness and discomfort (and extended family issues) happening here, so it's a hard time. We're doing all right with it, all things considered, but I definitely like the days when we just relax. I was sure to include lots of things that didn't involve leaving the house much as I'm very much a homebody right now. There are some good lists out there that I stole from. I could list them out here... I'll be sure to make a post solely about that for you in a minute!
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