A Delicious Snowy Decorating Day

The snow was beautiful today, and made for the perfect atmosphere to get out some Christmas decorations and write a Christmas card! We arranged our Nativity Scenes along with some candles and music boxes. We've not decorated our tree yet, but that may be coming in the next week or so. I think this is the earliest in the season we have ever had Christmas decorations out! (Except for advent calendars which we have often used in years past at the first of December.)

We traditionally have tried to hold off all the festivities until closer to December 25th, with the thought that folks in the old days apparently did not really celebrate Christmas until Christmas Day! It seems the tradition of yesteryear was for the tree and decorations not to be around until Christmas Eve after the children went to bed! Before that and then immediately after that, I'm under the impression life went on business as usual. With all the work and chores just to stay alive, there was not much time for frivolities! Now a days, you start seeing Christmas decorations right after Halloween, which we think is a bit crazy.

I took some pictures of our decorations tonight, and I thought I would show some of them here. These are the advent calendars we are using this year:







Beginning December 1st, Simon, Christina, and Matthew each open one of the doors to see what is behind it. One of them has a bible verse, so we always read it and perhaps the passage it comes from.

We put out several Nativity scenes this year. Simon and Christina were doing our decorating and they really liked finding our various Nativities in the attic and setting them out.

These are from my childhood:





And this is from Lisa's childhood:



This one was a gift one of our first Christmases:




On this shelf, we have 4 different representations of the Nativity (the one in the top middle was painted by my brother), as well as some other Christmas mementos:




And lastly, here are some music boxes they put on one of the window sills:




Our nice snow today began around noon and stayed with us all day while we were decorating. It has been one of those wet snows with the temps staying above freezing all day. A lot of it was melting as soon as it fell, but we still ended up accumulating a couple of inches of the wonderful white stuff on the cars, and a good covering over the yard and trees. It was enough for a good helping of snow cream!

Snow cream is such a great tradition at our house, but I don't think I have ever posted about it. Generally speaking, we feel it is not best to use the very first snow of the season. Lisa's mother used to always say that the first snow caught all the impurities in the air, but after the first snow the air pollutants were not as bad and the snow was better. It makes some sense to me, and it has been snowing for a few days now. Today's snow was the first good accumulation when there was enough to make snow cream, anyway!

I guess everyone knows how to make snow cream, but I thought I would tell you anyway!

First you need to get a BIG bowl full of snow:




Then you mix in a can of sweet and condensed milk:


Add a cap full of vanilla:


Stir it all up real good, and serve:



I should have taken some pictures of us eating it in our individual bowls, but I was otherwise occupied. YUM!

It has been a nice Saturday! I am thankful for God's many small blessings and simple joys. The pretty falling snow, time with my family, reminders of the birth of our Savior in the form of decorations, sacred Christmas songs on the radio, and sweet snow cream all shout the fact that I am wonderfully blessed!