The boys and I have been watching the Nutcracker ballet on YouTube. It took us three sessions of watching for half an hour at a time. We all liked it. To be honest, this is the first time I've seen the Nutcracker ballet in its entirety myself, so I don't know how it compares with any other production.
My husband and I enjoyed listening to Dylan Thomas reading his own "A Child's Christmas in Wales" one evening last week. I love this for so many reasons...his voice! his sense of humour, his obvious pleasure in his own words.
We also discovered some more wonderful new-to-us books for our picture book advent calendar.
Stephen's Feast is a beautiful prose retelling of "Good King Wenceslas." We are also enjoying Ruth Bell Graham's One Wintry Night. This is a longer book with more chapters to be spread out over the advent season.
A friend gave us the gift of a Jacquie Lawson advent calendar this year, and the boys have been having so much fun with it! It's a computer download, and every day the children can open up something new to watch or do. There are puzzles to put together, snowflakes to decorate, places to explore, and many more things that are fun for people of all ages.
And lastly, we've been enjoying baking! I tried out the pannetone (Italian Christmas bread) recipe from Joy of Cooking last week. We also made several batches of cookies together: raspberry almond thumbprints, chocolate caramel thumbprints, speculaas, and mini lemon sandwiches.
Now, lest you think our Christmas season is going like a dream, I'm going to have to spend the next two days trying to get my house just a little bit neat before we leave to visit family on Christmas Eve...
