This Weekend...

I made Lucia buns Friday night (I had meant to make them last Monday to have for breakfast the 13th, but we were out of butter. I ended up mixing lost of raisins right in the dough and skipping the S-shape) and ate them on our holiday place mats and table runner (which are happily acquiring a patina of pomegranate spatters and orange juice splashes).

M and I made sugar cookies,

and Z helped us make peppermint bark,

 (this time I used four bars of Green & Black white chocolate instead of a bag of white chips, because all the chips are made with palm oil and I recently read an article---M makes fun of me every time I say something he goes, "Let me guess, you read an article?"---about palm oil bringing about the destruction of the last of the rain forests).

And we made paper heart ornaments.

We read a lot of Jan Brett books around here, and I've always admired--and wanted to make--the woven stars that appear on the Christmas trees in many of her books. We used the template from the activity section of the Jan Brett web site, enlarged to 175% and traced onto heavy red and white paper from the scrapbook aisle of the craft store. The directions included with the template were rather vague, and I couldn't wrap my brain around how to weave the paper so it makes a kind of basket in the end, so I googled something like "Swedish paper heart ornament" and found some directions that were a bit more helpful.

M was able to make one all himself and E and Z got through the first three rows of weaving before it became too tricky (or they got bored), so it turned out to be surprisingly more kid-friendly than I'd expected. I glued a little loop of ribbon to them and hung them in the tree. They're meant to be filled with candy, in which case I think 175% enlargement was a bit too much.

The whole time we were making them, I was thinking about all the other things I *should* be doing--packing for our trip, reading for school, cleaning the house--but at the time, weaving hearts just seemed more important, and fun. I did eventually pack some stuff and clean. And some other things I had hoped to do before we left didn't happen, but they can wait.

Just before bed, we did light a couple of candles on our tree, which we normally do on Christmas Eve, and sang some carols.

 This is the thing I'm discovering about traditions--it doesn't really matter what day or date you do them. And it's OK to skip one here and there and add in new ones. It's not about doing the exact same thing the exact same way year after year. Traditions can grow and change with you and your family. As long as you're having fun, who cares?

The winner of the Christmas in Scandinavia book giveaway is Aunt Kirstie. Congratulations and enjoy!