Favorite Holiday Moments 2012 {Part II}

Advance Merry Christmas! Here is 2nd half of the list of my favorite Christmas moments last year. Here is the part one in case you haven’t read it.

We bought two new books for our Christmas book collection.  If you like Little Mouse, The Red RipeStrawberry and the Big Hungry Bear, you will definitely like the twist in this follow up story.

The other book was one of the best steals that I ever bought from Booksale. For only 120 bucks, I got the anniversary collector’s edition of Polar Express. Not only is it autographed by the author himself, it also comes with an audio book recorded by our favorite actor, Liam Neeson. It became a traditon for us to listen to the CD while browsing thru the pages on the weekends before Christmas

I finally finally finally got myself a copy of the Martha Stewart’s Holiday bookazine. This is the magazine that I had been looking for. I remember when I first saw a copy in Booksale. It was already in the hands of another customer. I stalked the girl, hoping she won’t buy that magazine but she did. The wait was so worth it! I got so many doable ideas from this magazine

Speaking of traditions, we added a new one – watching Christmas movies. Franco and I searched high and low to find movies related to the holidays but only got two. Arthur’s Christmas and Home Alone I. I know I should stop being scared of downloading from the net but I just can’t. I also know we’re the baddest of all bad parents for letting Aki watch a violent slapstick movie like Home Alone. I love that movie. Franco feels the same way. And Aki seems to have inherited his parent’s lack of taste in movies.

Meeting Santa in person is also part of the holiday tradition list. As soon as it was our turn to take pictures with Santa, here is way Aki said: Hey Santa, where’s my Beyblade?! hahaha. Santa was lost for words.

Aki’s first school presentation! Yey! But it was another bad parent moment for me! I was worried if people would notice that Aki was wearing a pair of light brown shorts instead of white, which was the instructions in the memo given weeks before. Good news, no one seemed to notice. Bad news: Aki’s class was supposed to wear a green top and Aki was wearing a blue one. Naman! Aki looked so cute though. That performance confirmed that he got his non-talent in dancing from me. Hahaha

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We went to Ayala Triangle to watch the light show and have dinner with my mommy blogger friends, Sha, Maggie and Aimee.  These are the only decent pictures that I have.

Nevertheless, it was a fun evening filled with lights, laughter, failed exchange gifts, cakepops and friendship. Sha, who is talkative online and offline, blogged about it here

Love, Peace and Light

Wishing you all love, peace and light! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

– Franky,  Maqui and Aki

DIY Paper Ornaments

Hi!  I am Maqui and I make ornaments when I bored.

Last November, hubby made me wait for 2 hours in the office. Instead of getting bored to death, I made these..

Aki’s Little Christmas Tree

Thank you so much for appreciating my popcorn wreath. Aside from making a wreath, popcorns can also be made into a Christmas tree garland. It is quite unheard of here in the Philippines but popcorn garlands seem to be a tradition for many American families according to my craft books.

The white popcorn garland looks invisible against my white Christmas tree so I gave the garland to Aki.  It looks so much better on the apple green tree. This year, Aki’s been decorating his tree using his toys. This week’s motif is red. Last week, he liked purple.

The tree looks sad

I am dreaming of a White Christmas….Tree!

oh wait, I am not dreaming anymore. I have one already! Actually, what I wanted was a cream Christmas tree. I saw one in SM a few years back but have yet to see another one recently. The traditional green trees are nice but I think a light colored tree would showcase colorful ornaments better.

Even without ornaments, I am already head over heels with my tree.  Our very first tree!

Now with my curtains…..

Christmas Casualties

Twenty eleven will not be written in our family history books as the year when we got our first proper Christmas tree. I have been wanting to have  one since last year but having a curious and notorious toddler always makes me rethink of what decors to put in our home.

Let me show you  the casualties so far.

I carefully filled this plastic Santa shoe with big and small blue baubles from last year’s decors. I spent at least 15 minutes because I want less spaces between the balls. Silly me, I forgot that Aki is obsessed with playing football and will get his hands err his feet on any ball he can find. As soon as he saw the plastic shoe, Aki emptied it and kicked the balls all over the house. Now, I can’t find the rest of the balls.

Some more casualties.

Aki Versus the Christmas Tree

This is not the year, not the year when we’d pour hot chocolate on our Christmas mugs, play Jose Mari Chan’s Christmas album, turn on the Chrismas lights, sit back and enjoy and admire our Christmas tree.

I have always wanted a magazine-feature-worthy Christmas tree. One that is filled with ornaments that tell a story. When we look back many years from now at the pictures of our Christmas decors this year, the story will be short and simple, in December 2010, we had a toddler and he ruled the house.

This is how the Christmas tree corner looks like..

 

The Christmas book nook was not spared either