First Day of Advent

I decided to give myself the first Door of the Advent Calendar this year and I'm making it a Little Stitcher post.

Last year I stitched The Little Stitcher's Twelve Days of Christmas as a monthly project.  Laura designed twelve charts with a different theme for each one to represent the days of Christmas.  She invented the different themes herself using her lovely imagination!

I stitched them all on the same fabric, it just photographs differently depending on the light on the day!  The centre piece was in Just Cross Stitch's Ornament Preview issue in 2014.  I am making them into a mini scrapbook which was going well until Christmas was over and I didn't feel so seasonal.  One of my goals is to finish it this year.

Two years ago I completed the Advent Calendar designs also from The Little Stitcher and display them on this rather useful wooden tree.  I add a different one each day:

The theme for the Advent Calendar Blog Hop this year is:

How do you celebrate Christmas Eve?

Now, that all depends on whether hubby and I are working!  The first three years we were together he was working in the evening and I had the night off.  Then we had two years when neither of us were working on the night followed by three years when I worked during the day!  In the shop where I work the deal is that you either work Christmas Eve or Boxing Day but not both.  Last year and this year I'm down for the Boxing Day shift.

The daytime is like a normal Sunday with an extra air of excitement!  Then we have our usual tea and a quiet early evening.  We have a special plate you can write on and wipe clean so my older son writes a letter to Santa from both children.  We leave it beside the wood burner along with a mince pie and a carrot for Rudolph.  If we have reindeer food from the Primary School Fayre we will scatter that outside (it is basically muesli mixed with glitter by the Nursery class and sold for 20p a bag!).

We hang our stockings beside the beds for Santa to fill with smaller treats, he will leave all the presents under the tree in a pile for each person.  He also leaves a Santa Sack for mother-in-law who spends Christmas morning with us (dinner with one daughter and tea with the other son). 

When I put the Large Boy to bed we have a selection of books we always read together:

How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore

Another Night Before Christmas by Carol Ann Duffy

Pirate's Night Before Christmas by Philip Yates

The Traditional 12 Days of Christmas

12 Days of Christmas by John Julius Norwich

A Pirate's 12 Days of Christmas by Philip Yates

Christmas in Exeter Street by Diana Hendry

and finally the new Allan Plenderleith:

The Tiny Tree

(previous offerings were:

 The Bonkers Banana, The Silly Satsuma, The Smelly Sprout and The Christmas Banana)

Then it's time for the Small Boy to have his bath and snuggle down with Mummy.  Once he is asleep I get up again and make sure everything is ready for Santa to deliver the presents. 

So that's our Christmas Eve!  Let's see what everyone else does for their special evening.

Finally, one last Little Stitcher photo:

Day 1 Advent Calendar