Sunday, December 4, 2011

Get Ready for Christmas and/or Chanukah! - a post with lots of links!

So it's now Advent. There is a little more than 2 weeks left till Chanukah, and three weeks left till Christmas. So I'm going to help you with getting ready for the holiday of your choice.Be careful, this will be long!
  • First of all, I'd like to recommend Christie Minich's Christmas posts! Their many Christmas traditions and her thoughts on the reason for the season can give anyone wonderful ideas how to spice up their own Christmas celebrations.
  • Want to learn the Chanukah blessings? Here is some help from the very adorable Harel Skaat, the actual blessings starting at 0:29:
  • Another good charity idea for the opera fans is supporting Opera Seria, a UK based non-profit opera company. You can also book advance tickets to their Easter performance of Handel's Messiah. If you are in the UK at that time, it's something worth going to! I just love the Messiah. I mean the oratorio.
  • You could make candy canes! It's really not that difficult, if you have access to corn syrup. I might actually make some blue-and-white peppermint sticks to stir hot chocolate over Chanukah... provided the temperature ever gets low enough that anyone wants hot chocolate! 
  • Want to make your own Sufganiyot? Here is my favourite recipe online!
  • If you are conveniently geeky, make sure you get ready for this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, which will be airing on Christmas Day!  Wikipedia tells me that it was partially inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. To prepare, you might want to re-watch last year's special, which was not only great, but really heart warming, and it was based on The Christmas Carol by Dickens.
  • And now onto the topic of gifts! If you want unique stocking stuffers for your girls, I can recommend the site Wares by Cherry. This young lady takes custom orders as well. Her flowers and stuffed animals are just the cutest, and those flowers are truly multi functional, for whatever your accessory needs might be. 
  • If you like to read, I can recommend the e-books of Biljana Petrova. They can be found here.
  • A gift of unique jewellery is always nice. Fräulein Pfau's Etsy shop has a lot of new stuff that are worth checking out! One of Fräulein Pfau's and my favourites is this matryoshka bracelet. I think anyone with a connection to Russia or Ukraine would love it! As Fräulein Pfau just confirmed, there are more beads, so she can make child sized versions upon request for a mom and her daughter(s) to match. I think it'd be a perfect gift for some Russian or Ukrainian adoptees and adoptive mums!

    Another one of my favourites is the pair of earrings on the right, called pink roses for Ruzica. These are named after Fräulein Pfau's grandma, and I think they are just beautiful. Grandma Ruzica lives in Serbia, so that, too, is a perfect gift for the adoptive mom of a Serbian child!
  • Sponsor a lone soldier this Chanukah! Or write them a letter! Or just generally, partcipate in this, to cheer them up and say thank you!
  • More gift ideas: Encaustic art by Ruth Walker.
  • Another great source for handmade jewellery is Nicole Rose Designs.
  • And now Chanukah post can be complete without mentioning my TARDIS dreidel. Have fun, everyone!

2 comments:

  1. I heard someone on the radio talk about making real sugar plums, and I really want to! Sounds easier than candy canes, somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mmm, sugar plums. Two years ago we made some from dried apricots. Super yummy.

    ReplyDelete

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