December is a Busy Time

Especially when you have a boy turning ten on 1) The Day of Buddha's Enlightenment, 2) The Day of the Immaculate Conception, and 3) aka December 8.

This morning, the housecleaning was done by 8 a.m. and then I moved on to some seasonal tasks.

Such as finishing the Eichenlaub Annual 2008 edition, our version of a Christmas letter, a borrowed idea from Toki (is this the third year I have made one?). It's full of bits of things, little funny cards, articles of note, extra wonderful police report entries, and the wonderful and strange things our children say throughout the year. (A favorite from last year, while listening to a recording of the Dalai Lama chanting, Sylvan asked: Is this Johnny Cash?) It's sort of like a zine. Here's last year's cover:
And a few images of what is to come in this year's offering:

Also, belatedly, got the advent angel in her place in our large living room window. There are four stars made of silver paper, each getting progressively closer to the "earth" (the window ledge where we have our nature table). On Christmas morning, angel hovers just above the tableau, where baby rests surrounded by our wooden animal collection. (Mary Nanny Sews has a lovely handmade advent calendar also.)
I made this for Jonas's second Christmas, a little easier for a young one to wrap his mind around than an advent calendar. (Now we have calendars too!)
Then it seemed strange to have the autumn nature table still up, ala Sylvan, so out came the winter characters:
And finally, Sylvan gets his candle lit at the Winter Spiral this week at school. Check out Erna's photos for a very tiny sweet spiral also!

Did you see the list at the beginning of this post? I am off to go shopping for birthday dinner supplies...