Monday, August 6, 2012

So Far Behind

Ugh, I am so far behind!  I totally dropped the ball on Christmas in July this year.  A move in mid-June meant that the rest of that month and early July was spent getting the new house organized and catching up with old friends since we have lived in Virginia before.  Then Sophia had a guest from Rhode Island for a week and we've been gearing up since then with preparations for her trip to Oregon for a month.  And to top it all off, I'm thinking about going back to work so I've been searching for the perfect opportunity.

I did manage to get the August Movie Pick for the Rudolph Club up on the Magical Holiday Home forums.  It's The Christmas Card starring John Newton, Edward Asner and Alice Evans.  Please check it out if you get a chance - it's a lovely story and available on Netflix (DVD), at Amazon.com for $12.97 (since I'm sure you'll want to add it to your collection of Christmas movies), and hopefully from your local library.


You can read more about it at IMDB or Amazon.  Chicken Salad on Rye, Curly Fries and Hot Cocoa with extra marshmallows, anyone?

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Elf on the Shelf

Do any of you have children young enough for Elf on the Shelf activities?  I wish I had known about this when Sophia was small.


Photo courtesy of The Party Dress - a great calendar printable can be found here.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Christmas in July Appetizer

You can't get much more festive at Christmas than this red, green and white appetizer.  Find the recipe here.

Caprese Salad Appetizers

Monday, July 9, 2012

Our Favorite Card 2011

Since I hadn't scrapbooked 2011's Christmas Cards yet, I decided to start our favorite card tradition this Christmas in July.  Here is the winner, the card from my cousins in the UK:


To pick the favorite, I put all the cards on the dining table and asked Vic and Sophia to pick their favorite.  No touching, no opening, just look at the front of the cards and pick one.  Since we all picked a different one, we had a run-off where each card was ranked first (50 points), second (30 points), and third (20 points).  My cousins' card was the clear winner with 130 points.

I need to find a little Christmas something and pop it in the mail to them, along with a note saying that their card was our 2011 winner.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Christmas Tree Decorating Idea

I think this is the cutest idea - it reminds me so much of the scene in Cinderella when the birds are helping to make her ballgown:


Complete instructions for doing this to your tree can be found here.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Christmas Cocktail

My Christmas in July kick-off got a late start so it's time to make it official with this year's Christmas cocktail.  Yikes, moving is expensive so there's not a whole lot in the slush fund to buy exotic liqueurs to experiment with this time around.  I do, however, have a small bottle of Chambord, a black raspberry liqueur that is just crying out to be mixed with champagne (got the champagne, too!).  It goes by the unimaginative name of Chambord & Champagne so I'm going to have to jazz it up a little.  How about the Noël?  You can't get much more French and Christmas-y than that!

So tonight's dinner is Poulet à la Sauce tomate-ail (Chicken in Tomato-Garlic Sauce, my CrockPot favorite) with a Noël - Joyeux Noël en juillet - Merry Christmas in July!

 Photo courtesy of http://www.chambordonline.com/recipe.aspx?id=1282
Click on the photo for the recipe

Thursday, July 5, 2012

July is also Christmas Cards Month

July is also Christmas Cards Month as it says over at Magical Holiday Home's Rudolph Day:

Christmas Cards: This is the month to design, get supplies, and make cards OR if you use store bought cards, then this is the month to get them out and sign them. Perhaps even start addressing the envelopes or at least update addresses as needed on your Christmas Card List.

It's time to start thinking about your Christmas Cards.  Are you a stamper or paper crafter?  This year, I've asked my husband to make a couple of these Christmas Card Display Racks for us.   They are made from window shutters.


Click on the photo for the link to the instructions.

Must.get.busy.thinking.about.cards!!

And here's another thing to put on the calendar for July:


Click on the photo for more details.  Any Hallmark Ornament collectors out there?

July is Stocking Stuffer Month

July is Stocking Stuffer Month over at Magical Holiday Home's Rudolph Day.  I love this list for men:


Click on the photo for the link.

What do you put in your man's stocking?

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

A Couple of New Traditions This Year

I have saved every Christmas card, newsletter, and family photo that we have received since our daughter was born in 1994.  I have an album for each year and it's one of my favorite Christmas activities after the house is decorated to look back on last year's album in anticipation of the cards, newsletters, and family photos that will soon be arriving in the mail.

 This is the design that decorates the spines of our Christmas Card Albums - it used to be available from Creative Memories Persona Album Imprinting service but I think it has been modified somewhat.

A friend of mine recently told me about her family's Christmas card tradition - their Favorite Card.  Every year, her family votes on their favorite card and places it in an album.  I love all of the cards in my albums, but I must say that I would have been a whole lot easier just to save one each year!  So, this year, we will select our favorite card and place it on the first page of our Christmas card album and send a little gift to the sender to say "Thank You for your Beautiful Card".

Another new tradition that I'm going to start is My Favorite Ornament.  It is going to be so hard to pick just one, but I'm hoping that there will be one that will evoke a special memory that I would like to share with all of you.  It may be a new ornament, or one that has been on the tree for years.  We'll just see what special ornament will touch my heart just a little bit more than all the others this year.

Welcome

I moved all the posts from my old Christmas blog, All Wrapped Up in Each Other, over to this site which explains the first sentence of this post:

Welcome to my new blog devoted to all things Christmas.  I'm a bit late in jumping on the 2012 Christmas in July bandwagon but I'm sure you'll forgive me as we've just made the move from Rhode Island to Virginia and are finally settled (and organized) in our new home.  I had a very busy Christmas in July last year and I'm not quite as ready to go this year as I would like to be so I'm going to be sharing a lot of links and photos of things I find interesting on the Internet and I hope that some of them interest you too.

If you'd like to learn more about Christmas in July, please check out Magical Holiday Home and join us on the forums.

You can also check out The Rudolph Club at Organized Christmas for a monthly celebration and lots of great organizational tools.