Well, I'm trying, anyway...  I am trying to think of my favorite Christmas memory so that I can enter the Homeschool E-Store's 12 days of Christmas contest for a free $50 giveaway that is being offered on Janne's Jabberwocky blog (http://janne.cc/blog/?p=308), and I am really pushing it to decide on one.

Well, there were a lot of things about my childhood that would make it hard to have had a favorite Christmas in my own childhood, so I think I am going to settle on a favorite Christmas with my own children.  Because of the way my life has gone in the '00s, recent  ones would not be my favorite Christmas memories...

So, I am thinking my favorite Christmas memory would be from over a decade ago, when DD1 and DD2  were little and we lived in Colorado.  My favorite Christmas had snow.  DDs were 4 and 7 years old.  I had managed to sew the annual pairs of pajamas for them, which we allowed them to open on Christmas eve.  We took the entire month of December off of academics to do art and gift projects.  I had been able to sew dresses for my nieces, a flannel shirt for my nephew. I had managed to make lined, painted market baskets for all of my adult family gifts, and baked goods to include in some of them before mailing.  We had made gingerbread Christmas tree ornaments using a recipe and instructions I got from a 1990 Women's Day magazine, which I can't seem to find online (duh!), but there is a recipe that would work here: http://il.essortment.com/gingerbreadchri_ripg.htm for heavy-duty gingerbread ornaments.

Instructions:
Trace your child's hand onto a piece of posterboard (either as a mitten or as a glove).  Cut out the trace and use this as a pattern to make ornaments for your tree out of the gingerbread ornament cookie recipe.  Before baking, use a straw to poke a hole at the wrist, and this will be the opening for a ribbon to hang your ornament.  The WD also had a recipe for an egg white icing to decorate it with, which had to be used with the caution that kids sometimes eat cookies found on trees, and egg whites can carry salmonilla.  Well, our DOG ate all the cookie ornaments over the years, so all we have now are the memories, but I think I'll do it again with JBoy this year and start our new memories.

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To participate in the Homeschool E-Store's "12 Days of Christmas" contest, either go to Janne's Jabberwocky, linked above, or go to HomeschoolEstore.com and read up on the contest.  There are 12 blogs promoting prizes in the contest, and you can only pick to participate in... I think it is three, but read it and find out.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Let's go make some memories!

Now after trying to find any image of a mitten cookie ornament (I failed) found an adorable embroidered bird ornament at http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=242 (actually it links it to Sunshine's creations at http://sunshinescreations.vintagethreads.com/2006/11/how-to-make-embroidered-felt-ornament.html ) that I think I need to go try today...  Hmmmm.....