Christmasing

We have been staying home a lot and once again I notice how much more time I feel like I have when we stay home a lot. Getting out of the house right now drains my energy and sucks quite a bit of time as well.

So while we've been home, I've done some fun and low-key Christmasy things. And, more than likely they were completed in stages - not all at once.

Some fun things we've done so far:

- dried oranges: mine are never completely dry in our climate, but they are as good as they are going to get! I love having a jar of them {with the lid off!} handy for tying on to gifts and such.

- we successfully made fudge! A couple of you sent recipes - thank you! And almost every recipe was the same, which actually I think is the same recipes I've tried before. What was different this time? Who knows - but it set and my girls were thrilled plus I felt pretty accomplished having it finally turn out. We used this recipe.

- cut snips of evergreen and holly from our yard.

- enjoyed looking at our Christmas tree!

- enjoyed this tasty cider on Sunday afternoon.

- made peppermint brownies - Rachel did this completely on her own, she used a box brownie mix and then just added peppermint extract into some homemade frosting.

- I always enjoy these Advent videos from Ann Voskamp: week one, week two, week three, week four.

- writing prompts for Advent from Ann Swindell: she emails a writing prompt each day to your inbox and I have really enjoyed this thoughtful time of reflecting and writing each day.

- making gifts for friends from only things we already have in the house: post coming on this later this week!

How about you? Tell me what fun Christmas things you've been doing! This week is Nutcracker week and Rachel is in it - she's been wanting to be in it for years, so I am thrilled for her to have this sweet opportunity!