Holly Jolly Bingo: Day Thirteen

Thursday is here - we're two weeks in. Can you believe it?Extra words today:

I've been ice skating twice before. It was so much fun! The first time was on a weekday morning, and the rink was basically empty - very nice to have it to ourselves. I only fell once! :) The second time was on a Saturday, and it was SO crowded you could hardly move. Too bad it's not cold enough here, or we could just flood part of the yard to make our own rink like they used to in the old days! :)

What kind of nativity scenes do you have? We have one ceramic set that we've always put up, then we have one fabric one that a friend made a few years ago. (Thanks, Mrs. O!) There's also our nativity flag outside and a manger that Dad made on the porch. I cut some fresh cedar branches to fill that and put the blanket wrapped doll on top.

Do you have a good recipe for cinnamon rolls? I have found that The Pioneer Woman's recipe is absolutely delicious! It has to be, with all that butter. :) We don't care for coffee, so I don't put that in the icing, and usually I've substituted orange oil for the maple extract. Yum! I'll have to make some of those in the next week...

What kind of ornaments do you put on your tree? Classy? Country? Handmade? We have such a plethora of ornaments - our tree is soooo full. We have so many family favorites, plus we add new ones every year. Each of us kids has our own collection, that we will one day take for our own family. Until then, they just keep multiplying! ;)

We have two wreaths, one on either side of the front door. Back in Williamsburg, Mom went with a colonial look some years, decorating them with fresh fruit. Nowadays, we have candy canes tied on them. Have you ever made fresh wreaths? A few years ago, Mom and I took a class on how to do it. I tried later on my own, and it didn't go so well. Fresh wreaths are so pretty, though!

I love secrets! It's one of my favorite parts of Christmas - sneaking around and getting just the right thing for each person. I love it when it's a total surprise, and not even something they were expecting. Last year when I made Mom a snowman table runner and placemats, I was up late at night, sewing furiously. Then there was a lot of handwork to do, and I was able to sneak some in the van on the way to church and do it quietly in the back without her suspecting.

Then there are the whispers, the locked doors, and you can hear rustling paper in there. There might even be signs posted to warn off possible offenders!

Lots of good words today. :) Getting close to the end!

 ~Sarah

Comments

[Dorothy]

Sarah...best post ever! :-) We have twelve nativities on display. Some are fabric (Thanks, Mrs. O!) and some are ceramic. Some are small and some are quite large. We even have a hand knitted one from a sweet older lady in England. Our tree is also full of ornaments...lots of different kinds! I give my kids an ornament each year to represent something that was a part of their life that year. One year I gave John a glass blown piece of pizza because he got his first job at a pizza place! We really don't make many gifts at our house...we are not as talented as your family. But there is lots of sneaking around to get them into the house unnoticed then wrapped quickly. I keep the presents from us to our family upstairs and put them out after everyone goes to bed Christmas eve. I'm surprised no one has won your bingo game yet! Merry Christmas!

[victoria]

We have several nativity sets. One was passed to us from my husband's grandparents. It was given to them as a wedding gift more than 75 years ago. It's fragile, and we have to be very careful with it.
We had a pond on our property when we lived in Wisconsin, so our kids basically grew up with skates on their feet. Down here in the deep South, ice skating is merely a dream.
Lots of wrapping going on around here these days, so I can relate to the sign on the door to keep out!

Blessings,

Victoria

[Aunt Bet]

Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls?? yes! next week? yes! ;-)

[Aunt Rhonda]

Only four words to go! :) We have several nativity sets as well. Two were made in Germany (we collected most of our ornaments while we were there!--Germans love Christmas!). We have two trees, both stuffed with ornaments. One is our "German" tree--decorated exclusively with German ornaments (it's artificial and used in our den with the fireplace). The real tree is in our front window (in the library) and it has the ornaments we've collected over the years. We buy a new ornament every year, and the ladies in my church have an ornament exchange every year, so we get new ones all the time. :) My daughter and I like to play the game of "find the ornament." We'll describe one and try to find it on the tree. You can tell... we have a LOT of ornaments!

[hannah]

Wow, 4 whole words yesterday, then 5 today; I'm catching up fast! ;) You wrote about two of my words, ice skating and secrets. Let's go ice skating again! And secrets are a lot of fun.

[Tammy C]

I inherited the navity scene that my mom bought in 1945 their first year of marriage.It was handmade in Italy.

I learned to skate in our backyard growing up in Rhode Island.A couple fun memories of ice skating are of skating on the pool in my neighbors backyard and around the elementary school during the breaks.We also were members of an ice skating club in Rumford,Rhode Island.

[Kathy W.]

As a young girl, I used to ice skate with my brother on a pond near our house. It was great fun. We always wore our big bulky snow suits which offered lots of extra padding for the many falls we took.

Some years later my youngest brother was skating on the same pond with a friend and my brother came home sick. It took a little prodding, but my parents finally learned that he had fallen on the ice and had a concussion!

Well, now...two whole day's worth of words and not one from my list! I'm guessing tomorrow will make someone a winner. Thanks again for the fun!
Mrs. White
I can almost smell those cinammon rolls baking! YUM!