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| Flat Thomas - a school project for my little brother that essentially required work from me, not him. ;) |
Way back when I hashed out some grand plans for this blog. I was going to do a Christmas gift guide, some Christmas related thoughts, a Christmas recipe.., well, I already talked about dropping the ball. Luckily, this is the internet and approximately one million other bloggers have done similar things. So enjoy this post filled with Christmas stories and ideas. Maybe I'll manage to get something up of my own, maybe not.
This is my current jam. It's what I put on every time I get into my car these days. Especially hopeful with all the horrible things going on right now.
Speaking of horrible things, if the Savior was born today, how would we treat him? I liked both of these images: Bansky's Christmas card, where Mary and Joseph are unable to get to Bethlehem due to a massive wall blocking their route and Jose y Maria by Everett Patterson.
This is old but I love it so much. It talks about the myth of Santa, and how that magic shouldn't be "ruined" once we learn Santa isn't real. The magic should last. (Think about how much you love the fantasy of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.)
This couple had a perfect winter wonderland wedding when it started to snow - in England!
If you're in the mood for crying, here's a video of children choosing to get a gift for their parents instead of getting their own dream gifts.
I really enjoyed this post about the tradition of putting candles in windows during Christmastime. While the Irish were being invaded and persecuted, it became damn near impossible to practice Catholicism. "With this in mind, we find the use of candles in the windows. During Christmas, every faithful Irish Catholic family hoped to have a priest visit their home so that they could receive the sacraments and in return offer him hospitality. So they would leave their doors unlocked and place candles in the windows to signal a priest that he was welcome and would be safe. Sometimes, a single candle would appear in several windows, or three candles in one window, one each representing Jesus, Mary and Joseph." Love Catholicism + love rebellion.
This post was sort of fun! It's a style guide for holiday dresses. I was particularly fond of some of the dresses in the girly girl and old Hollywood sections.
Did you see the Christmas picture that's gone viral? It's a family photo where the mom and two daughters are tied up with Christmas lights and have bright green tape over their mouths while the dad and son are standing behind them, dad with a sign that says "Peace on Earth" and the little boy with his thumbs up. It's problematic for a few reasons. I think the suggestion that it perpetuates violence against women is a slight exaggeration, though I understand where that's coming from, and tying them up was unnecessary. But really, the picture is problematic. It has potential to be funny - I'd see humor in it if the children were all tied up with lights and the parents were both standing behind them with the sign and thumbs up. I'd see humor if the parents had the lights wrapped around them with the kids standing victoriously around them. But the choice to silence the female members of the family missed the mark. Even though it's a joke, it reinforces the idea that women talk too much and are annoying, that they should just shut up. That's not a good message for the boy or for the girls. I've worked with kids and I do think there are some differences between boys and girls (though it's a spectrum, not a binary, and kids are gonna fall where they're gonna fall). The little girls tended to be more talkative than the little boys. So when, even as a joke, society tells them their speech is a problem or an annoyance, it's going to affect their views of themselves, regardless of whether it's conscious or not. Do I think this father or these parents are some awful people? No, absolutely not. I do think they're misguided, though.
I think it's a tad corny, but here's a list of some meaningful gifts you can give to yourself. (I'm reminded of this post, which lists 26 things we should all do for ourselves once a year. Some good ideas on there.)
Love, love, love this list of practical gifts for grown ass women. Ha. So many of these things are cute and fun but also terribly useful.
These monks have taken a vow of silence, but that doesn't stop them from singing about God.
I don't know if this makes me really cool or really lame, but I am absolutely digging this holiday skirt.
Have you read Design Mom at all? I actually love the sight, she has terrific ideas. This hot chocolate bar sounds like a ton of fun, and I liked her ideas for personalized gifts, as well. (And since we're talking about Design Mom anyway, let me bombard with some more of her stuff: this DIY stamped wrapping paper and these swoon-worthy brown packages tied up with string!)
Here's a list of books to gift all different kinds of people.
Speaking of books, I reviewed two Christmas-y books! Here's my review of A Christmas Carol (which I've linked to before so now I'm verging on obnoxious), and yesterday I reviewed 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas - it's not about Christmas, but it takes place on the eve of Christmas eve, and it snows so sometimes it feels like Christmas.
And in case babies are on the mind, here's a list of Christmas baby names. (A lot of ideas on there that I haven't heard before - especially for babies born during the last days of Advent.)
In case you love Christmas movies but can't watch ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas... here's a list of Christmas movies on Netflix.
I honestly can't narrow down the number of posts I'd like to share from Meg at His Pierced Hands, so I'm just going to link to her page. She's been sharing some great posts on Advent, refugees, Christmas. Everything! And check out her FB page, too, as she shares stuff from her archives over there.
I think that's all I've got for now! I'm going to hold off on regular link love posts until the new year (either January 2 or January 9 depending on how I feel) but I'm sure I'll stumble on a few more Christmas links to share, so I'll post those.
Now, go watch Elf.
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Charlotte
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