I slept last night!!! Oh my, I feel like Superwoman! Well, maybe if Superwoman had been hit by a truck…several times over. Either way, I’m very glad to have gotten some sleep! While I’m not exactly comfortable these days, I’m more then happy to wait for this little one. Having been through this a few times before, I’m well aware that this little bit of time is just a drop in the bucket. The wee one will come when the time is right and it will be infinitely better for both of us that way.

Maybe the wee-one will decide to be born under the full moon tomorrow night? It’s to be the largest of the year. I’m very excited about this! Now that we’ve finally moved into our bedroom, we’ll be able to see it from our bed! It’s nice to sleep in a room with windows again. Though I do expect that the wee-one will be another week or so in coming yet, big moon or no.

Ok, enough of that, I promised festive and festive you shall get!

Another advantage of a bedroom with windows?? Enough light to make the perfect venue for top secret holiday crafting photo shoots. Well, having a door would probably make it a little more ideal, but it’s better then nothing.

Check out this fabric that I found:

I am so pleased about this as it’s perfect for my Nutcracker loving boys. Being all about the home-made this year, I paired it with a star covered fabric to make reversible gift bags for the Christmas pajamas of two little boys I know…

And of course a gift sack for the Galey-Goose’s pjs…

While I know that the boys will love the Nutcracker fabric, *I* love this one. I’m not really sure why, but I do!

And these will be for a bunch of little presents that I made…

While this one currently contains Steve’s gift for Galen…

The gift making is coming along fairly well. I came very close to making my December 1st deadline for having everything completed. Unfortunately, I’ve been a bit preoccupied since then and things seem to have slipped by the wayside. I’m hoping to get back on track today.

The babe’s gift has been finished for a while now. Galen’s is in gift-able condition, but I might still go back and add a few more details. I need about five minutes alone with Elijah’s for it to be complete. I still need to devote some time to Iain’s, I think it’s probably 70% done. So there are still quite a few loose ends to wrap up! I told Steve that this year for Christmas I am making him a baby, and that’s coming along quite nicely.

Then there are all of the little projects made with little hands that still need shepherding to completion. Many are done and many are close, but it’s the finishing up that always seems to be the hardest! And the Mama always has to be ready to provide supplies, help, advice and encouragement.

Steve’s gift for Galen is done and his rather large gift for Iain and Elijah is nearly complete. It’s going to be incredible! I can’t wait to share it with you!

All of the stocking stuffers have been obtained and carefully and quietly wrapped and tucked away (this was my nights work while listening to election coverage!). We wrapped them in red, gold and silver foil paper; one color per child. That way if anything get accidentally mixed up, we still know what stocking to put things in!

Santa was very particular about gifts this year. It was very important to me that the little gifts be useful, beautiful, healthy, and from a source that I’m happy to support. At the same time, money is tight, so that had to be taken into consideration as well. Starting early allowed me to look for bargains. Many of these things came from co-ops, and some were things that I had around to begin with. For those of you still looking for little stocking stuffers, I’ll share what we ended up with.

Iain (nearly 9 years old):

*A Jim Weiss story CD (bought last year when a small internet toy store went out of business)

*An amber necklace from Inspired by Finn – ‘Milk and Butter’ (obtained through a co-op)

*A copy of Harry Potter ($.25 at our library book sale)

*three individually wrapped pieces of modeling beeswax (from our local Waldorf toy store)

*Art supplies from Stubby Pencil Studio (nice family run business, great service and very reasonable prices on eco-friendly products):
~GRIP Trio Pencil Sharpener in blue
~Water color crayons
~ and two of the funny face pencils that came as a free gift!

*two small paintbrushes (that I had already)

*a pocket knife**

*some sort of sweet treat (we’ll pick this one up a little closer to the 25th! I’m hoping to find gluten-free, dye-free, old-fashioned candy canes)

Elijah (6 1/2 years old):
Very similar to Iain’s list!

*”The Festival of Stones: Autumn and Winter Tales of Tiptoes Lightly” by Reg Downs (from Bob & Nancy’s Bookshop)

*Deck of playing cards with pretty illustrations (already had)

*An amber necklace from Inspired by Finn in ‘Cognac’ (obtained through a co-op)

*three individually wrapped pieces of modeling beeswax (from our local Waldorf toy store)

*Art supplies from Stubby Pencil Studio :
~GRIP Trio Pencil Sharpener in red
~Water color crayons
~ and two of the funny face pencils that came as a free gift!

*two small paintbrushes (that I had already)

*a pocket knife**

*some sort of sweet treat

Galen (nearly 3 years old):

*pack of watercolor paints (already had)

*3 animal finger puppets (hand-knit by a local crafter, from local yarn, and bought at a fair for $2 a piece)

*Padraig Cottage slippers-beautiful, hand-made, wool slippers from a small group of artisans (bought in a pre-sale through the GreenTaraMama yahoo group)

*long-sleeved wool undershirt (also from a pre-sale)

*Rock Crayons from Stubby Pencil Studio

*Custom made wooden Mama Cow and Calf by MamaKoppShop

*”The Story of the Snow Children” by Sibylle von Olfers (from Bob & Nancy’s)

*sweet treat

Dolls:
(yes, the dolls have stockings too!)

*little pocket gnomes

A box of clementines under the tree and that about does it for us!

**The pocket knives were really my one compromise gift because we obviously couldn’t find them hand-made or from a great source. But they will be well loved and cared for by my boys, who have been wanting them for a long time now, for carving and woodworking.

Oh, one last festive touch! If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s a lot of fun and a favorite with my family right now. Enjoy!