Welcome to my version of PeBloPoDe (Personal Blogging Post December) which coincides nicely with what I intend to post about - the Advent. I happen to be an Atheist, and I don't mind telling you, because it seems about as valid as any other sets of beliefs to me. Despite this obvious roadblock, I love Christmas. I lustily sing along with the songs with only a twinge of hypocrisy and put up all the decorations and the colored lights. And I have always had an Advent calendar. But this year I have TWO Advent calendars:
First, a traditional chocolate style type, but the important thing to note is the word Kinder - I have a slavish devotion to the Kinder brand of chocolate and Kinder Surprise eggs specifically, which have little toys and puzzles inside to put together. They're from Germany and you can get them in Canada - but never, ever in the USA. I do not know why, but when I saw this Advent calendar on my trip home I snatched it up. Kinder every day! I am sort of glad my kid is too young to fight me for it.
But I'm REALLY excited about the second one - also via Germany, as my brother gave it to me when we met up in Canada. The empty bags seemed to have a lot of possibility and when I read this post from Cup of Jo, I knew what to do. We made a list of 24 Christmassy things to do - mixed them up and put them in the bags. It's crazy how excited I am to open the bags, like I'm a kid. Today was a gimme, because we already had plans to see a Christmas choir at the Duke chapel tonight, but I love the idea of making all my tasks and traditions into a daily surprise. And the plan is to share them with this blog.
In honor of the music we're going to hear tonight, here's a cut from one of my favourite Christmas records, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles's "The Season for Miracles" (1970):
(Advent Day One update: We made it to the third song before someone's small child started wailing and wanted the lights back on instead of those pesky candles and beautiful singing...sigh, maybe next year.)
There are many reasons having a kid rules (and a few why it, uh, doesn't) but the reinvigorating of holidays and traditions is a huge plus. This was the first year that Simone could even vaguely grasp the concept of Halloween and I had not one, but two, costumes to make. Double the fun! Somewhere along the way, it became really important to me to make the costumes. My Mom always did. We never had those store bought creepy masks and vinyl capes - I always felt sorry for those kids. But at a further point along the Costume Trail, it also became important that it encompass a few of my other favourite values - cheapness and reusing material. Here's how it shook down:
For her daycare party, I knew she would have to schlep around in it all day and that it would get covered in pizza and melted chocolate. The wings were the genesis of the costume, a gift from her cousin's wedding. The dress was an almost outgrown gift from Auntie Elena, on its last legs with zippers parting etc. So based on the wings and the colors, she became the hitherto unknown variety of fairy called The Autumn Fairy:
I found some dowling around the house and made her wand by winding it in ribbon and attaching jingle bells and fake mums. The same fake mums went on her shoes. Down at the Scrap Exchange, I got a grab bag of snippets of upholstery trim, piping and tassels and the like in autumnal colors for $3.00. I used these to make her crown (never worn, I might add) and to trim her dress. She was cute and jingly and most important, comfortable.
But the Fairy was just an easy-peasy costume warm up-event. For weeks I had been working feverishly on her Real Costume - sock monkey! This is where the idea of cheap and reusing materials really came to the fore, because I had found a sock monkey costume tutorial online, and it involved cutting up a pack of 6 pairs of Rockford Red Heel socks. I looked for them everywhere in town, finally gave up, and my finger was literally hovering over an internet order form for the socks and the $30 charge plus shipping - when my head cleared. I was not going to pay good money for perfectly good socks just to cut them up for a one night costume. No way.
So here's what I did instead:
I cut up some old grey sweatpants that were destined for the thrift store in a vaguely overall-ish pattern. I am no accomplished sewer and did it all by hand (as you can see!). I traced a pair of her overalls on paper and used that to make my rough pattern. I left a gap at the crotch so we could change her diaper easily - very important! Odd socks were the other backbone of this costume. I can't bear to dispose of odd socks, somehow thinking they'll reappear I guess, but in this case my stash came in handy. I cut the ribbed tops off to make the white wristlets and then knitted little red bands to sew on. The same red bands were attached to the foot socks (these I bought, for $1, as I needed extra long socks). The hat was sewn over an old baby cap and I used another odd sock for the face. The red lips came from an actual pair of red heel socks I found at Kohl's for $1.99 and the buttons from an old overcoat and I knit the cap. The tail was more sweatpant material stuffed with the sewing and knitting scraps, capped with a tiny solo baby sock sewn around with another knitted red band. I attached the tail by cutting up an old stained onesie for the snaps and sewing one side of the snaps to the inside of the overalls and the other to the tail. Voila - snap-on tail!
After all this work, I was worried that Simone wouldn't wear it. She hates wearing things on her head (see Fairy Crown above) and the hat was so important for the costume, that I was sure no one would get it if she didn't wear it. But on the day itself, Simone was a total trooper. Here she is on our front stoop:
And to see that tail in action, check out this little snippet of Simone motoring her way down to the costume parade. Man, it's cute.
So her costumes were crooked and harried and safety-pinned - but it was so much fun making them, sneaking time away from homework to make something for my kid. Even when people called her a kitten or a mouse or a sock puppet - sigh - I still felt mighty proud.
Total cost: For socks and trimmings for both costumes - $5.99
