DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

   Turn these sentences into christmas carols. How many can you figure out? The answers are at the bottom... don't peek if you want to try it for yourself. Approach everyone who is steadfast. Ecstasy toward the orb. Listen! The Foretelling spirits harmonize. Hey, Minuscule urban area southeast of Jerusalem. Quiescent Nocturnal period. The Autocrat troika originating near the ascent of Apollo. The primary carol. Embellish the corridors. I'm fantasizing concerning a blanched yuletide. I apprehended my maternal parent osculating with a corpulent unshaven male in crimson disguise. During the time ovine caretakers supervised their charges past midnight. The thing manifests itself at the onset of a transparent day. The coniferous nativity. What offspring abides thus? Removed in a bovine feeding trough. Creator, cool it, you kooky cats! Valentino, the roseate proboscises wapiti. The slight percussionist lad. Father Christmas approaches the metropolis. Seraphim we

This neat diy comes from www.brownpaper--packages.com .  Looks so good, bet you can't stop at one.  Also would make a great swizzle stick for a mocha latte or a steaming cup of hot chocolate. chocolate dipped candy canes Hot chocolate is just about one of my favorite things ever, and when you add a chocolate dipped candy cane, it's perfection! These are delicious eaten on their own too--you just can't go wrong. I thought these would be so fun for our Christmas morning hot chocolate, but I might need to make another batch--these are way too tempting to sit for 9 more days! Chocolate Dipped Candy Canes ITEMS YOU NEED: candy canes chocolate chips or melting chocolate--white & milk/dark floral foam tinfoil or wax paper DIRECTIONS : 1. Starting at the crook, unwrap the candy canes halfway. 2. Melt your milk or dark chocolate in a large glass bowl. If you're using chocolate chips, make sure to add a little shortening--it will make the chocola

    Imagine a white robed angel whose face is delicately hidden by a veil, held in place by a jeweled crown, walking into your families Christmas gift exchange. The glow of the candles on the tree enshroud his form with a beautiful orange glow, as he enters and hands out presents from the basket held by his child helpers. A bit different from a traditional American Santa stories, this Swiss traditional story of the Christkindli is a well-known tradition in Switzerland. Most Swiss children eagerly await the arrival of the Christ Child in his reindeer drawn sleigh to come bearing gifts for everyone.     For the week preceding Christmas, kids in Switzerland dress up and visit others bearing small gifts. Bell ringing competitions between villages to call people to midnight mass have become common traditions, as have the gathering after the service for families to share giant homemade donuts (ringli) and hot chocolate.     Because Switzerland's traditions stem mainly fro

  This comes from www.bigindoortrains.com .  Make a few or many, maybee enough for your very own Christmas village.  Enjoy! Building a Glitterhouse The house shown in the photo is a good starting product for learning to build "putz" houses. What You Will Need If you are going to build vintage-style cardboard houses, stop throwing away used, clean cardboard yesterday. Save cereal boxes, the backs of writing tablets, anything flat, firm and clean, that you can save. Please keep some corrogated cardboard on hand, too - it makes the best bases. In addition, for this project you'll need: A sharp mat knife or Xacto knife (or both) A stiff metal ruler Elmer's white Glue-All. A glue stick would also come in handy. Clear glitter. I use the “Sulyn” brand. Several sheets of acid-free white bond paper Flat white paint (flat latex interior wall paint is good) to prime the building (and give it the chalky feel of the original) Acrylic paint in the

   Christmas is one of the most celebrated holidays in the world. Both Hong Kong and Macau designate Christmas as a public holiday on December 25. Both are former colonies of Western powers with (nominal) Christian cultural heritage. But in China, December 25 is not a legal holiday. The one percent of Chinese citizens who consider themselves Christians unofficially, and usually privately, observe Christmas. But with the world becoming a global village , Christmas has now become a festive occasion for an increasing number of Chinese as well. It is worth noting how commercial Christmas decorations , signs, and other symbolic items have become increasingly prevalent during the month of December in large urban centers of mainland China, reflecting a cultural interest in this Western phenomenon, and, sometimes, as part of retail marketing schemes

   This comes form www.celebrationsathomeblog.com .  A cool idea to add a little decor to that holiday buffet and to add some color to your holiday table. This icey bottle cooler as seen on my Holiday Bar Design , is a stylish way to present vodka or white wine on the bar while keeping it cold at the same time. It’s a simple project but you need to give yourself a couple of days to freeze the layers. This works well for vodka because it can go in the freezer without turning solid, and is best served very cold anyway. Here’s how it works… What you’ll need: A 3-liter empty soda container that you will cut the top off of distilled water for more clarity in your end result fruit such as lemons, limes, star fruit, or cranberries duct tape – only in case your bottle floats up in the water Place the bottle of vodka inside the 3-liter container and fill with an inch or two of the distilled water – freeze until solid. When the base is frozen you can begin addin

   This comes from www.bakersroyale.com .  These look so good you don't even want to eat them. But, if we have to snack on them, what's the harm.  Go ahead and make a batch or two. Snowflake Sugar Cookies – Dress up your holiday cookie tray with some fun and colorful snowflake sugar cookies. Snowflake Sugar Cookie I don’t make sugar cookies often, in fact I usually only make them for certain holidays and sometimes for birthday requests. I love the beauty and creativity of them, but they are massively labor intensive and I’m not the most patient person for baking projects like this. But to save myself a step, I skipped flooding the cookies for the simple design you see in the picture. The royal icing I used is from here . It’s easy to work with and has the perfect consistency for simple lines like the one you see on these snowflake cookies. The cookie recipe is one I have been working with and fine tuning over the years. Actually, the recipe started with me

   Everyone has heard of the Ugly Sweater parties and poking fun at fruit cake and white Chrsitmas trees certainly never gets old. There’s something FABULOUSLY tacky about the holidays; the lights, the glitz, the ornaments and the ceramic figurines of holiday characters. The internet is a constant reminder that the holidays are upon us and these characters are the perfect representation of annoyingly endearing. Ho ho ho! 1. The Grinch  He’s green, he looks stinky- and he has a frown that could make a happy baby cry. The Grinch is endearing even before he decides to give Cindy Lu Hu her Christmas tree back, you can’t help but have a bleeding heart for such a sad soul. He’s the only “thing” with matted green body hair that looks, dare I say, huggable? 2. Jack Skellington     Generally, I wouldn’t say skeletor beings are loveable, Mary-Kate Olsen included. That however, is not the case with Jack Skellington of Nightmare Before Christmas. Just as Johnny Depp is adorably