I had hoped to post some of the crafts we did for Christmas on the blog.  But, we were so busy doing them that I didn't have time to figure out how to put pictures on the blog.  Anyway, here's some of the things we did:

We made homemade gift tags using some old business cards that my mother in law gave us.  A friend came over and we stamped some, used stickers, and even used felt and embroidery floss.  They looked so nice on our gifts.  My daughter (age 7) made ALOT of gift bags out of fabric, so we can use them year after year.  We also went to the newpaper got a unprinted newsprint.  Since we homeschool, they gave it to us for free!  We used this to wrap some gifts. 

We made each of the grandmas and aunts a jewelry set which included a necklace, a bracelet and earrings.  My husband and children made each of the grandpas and uncles (plus a few friends) checker boards out of some scrap wood that they got from a man down the street who was building a house.  They didn't quite turn out like to picture in the Lowe's Wookworker magazine (we decided not to spend $100 on a biscuit joiner) but they turned out really good and they kids had fun making them. 

We also made tamales and read Too Many Tamales, yummmm!! 

We baked LOTS of goodies, including truffles, Reese's peanut butter cup/chocolate chip cookies and melty mints.  We decorated brown paper bags to put the goodies in.  We gave them along with homemade hot chocolate mix to people in our community, like the ladies at the library, the mail lady, the trash collectors, the police dept. and fire and EMT dept and of course, our neighbors. 

Our church put on a live radio broadcast of It's a Wonderful Life.  My husband was several characters and my oldest son helped with production stuff.  It was great!  It was even broadcast on a local country radio station for 2 nights.  The night that we listened to it, they didn't cut it off and go back to their regular programing until after one of our pastors presented the gospel! 

On Christmas Eve, my dad and stepmom came to visit for a few hours, so did my brother.  My sister came and stayed until Christmas night and my husband's brother and his wife also came and stayed until Christmas night.  My husbands parents came on Christmas day and stayed for the day.  It was such a wonderful family time! 

So, now were back to the daily grind!