A Hobbit Christmas Part One

Every year my family and I choose a theme for our Christmas. Sometimes we go all out, decorating and choosing gifts around that theme. Other years we'll just get an ornament to commemorate that year. This year we are having a hobbit Christmas. I think this is about the most fun I've had preparing for Christmas. From what I know of hobbits, they are simple folk, they love to stay close to home, they eat a lot, and the live in holes in the ground.

Decorations
We decorated with more natural things this year. We have a real tree which we strung with strings of cranberries and cinnamon sticks. We put pine cones everywhere. We hung garlands everywhere and the whole house smells like cedar. On the table, we put a white candle surrounded by a wreath of cranberries and of course more pine cones. We had two special visitors this year. A miniature Gandalf and Bilbo stand in respectful admiration by the nativity. We also put swords and plastic dragon miniatures on all the remaining surfaces.

Gift Wrap
We purchased wrapping paper in rustic neutral colors and interspersed them with packages wrapped in brown paper. I made bows for the gifts out of an old book. Then I made gift tags by tea staining printing paper. I then get the paper into pieces and stained the edges very 70's style. After burning, I rinsed each piece so that we wouldn't get ash on the gifts. Once they dried, I wrote a hobbit quote on each one in my best hobbit handwriting. Each member of the family took a which-lord-of-the-ring-character-are-you personality quiz, and we used those names to address the gifts.

Ornaments
I painted a ceramic ornament with a green hobbit door on one side and the following quote on the other side: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Advent Calendar
For the advent calendar, I didn't want to do gifts or candy. So for each day of December, I planned a riddle. Since there aren't enough riddles in the Hobbit to have one each day, I had to find a few extras from elsewhere. Then I found a 750 piece puzzle with a dragon on it. I divided the puzzle into 25 parts so we would open 30 pieces each day. On the back of the section of the puzzle I wrote the answer to that day's riddle.Each set of puzzle pieces and riddle went in a box wrapped in brown paper, commemorative of the gifts Gandalf brought. Then each package was marked with a date.

i don't want to reveal all the hobbit things I've planned for Christmas yet. So I will write a continue this later.

2008

Christmas, New Year, presents, programs, lit trees, Luke 2 readings, family, shopping, decorations, cookies, long lost relatives, laughter. It's been a good holiday. I can't wait till next year.

God"s Christmas

God's wrapping: She wrapped him in swaddling clothes
God's Christmas lights: The glory of the Lord shown round about them
God's birth announcement: For unto us a child is born
God's gift tag: For unto you...
God's Christmas carol: Glory to God in the highest
God's Christmas guests: Shepherds...came with haste
God's Christmas party: Wisemen brought gifts of gold, frankinscence, and myrrh
God's Christmas ornament: we have seen his star in the East
God's gift: The gift of God is eternal life
God's Christmas tree: the cross
God's wreath: and he made a crown of thorns

Christmas Time

Favorite Christmas Songs:
So This Is Christmas
All I want for Christmas is You
Baby It's Cold Outside
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy--Bing Crosby/David Bowie
O Holy Night
Carol of the Bells
Wizards in Winter

Favorite Christmas Tradition:
Serving breakfast in bed. Opening presents one at a time. String caroling.

Favorite Christmas Gift:
A box of stones. Mom and Dad couldn't afford much that year. They gave a each a box of stones. Each stone represented an aspect of the Christian life. It actually started the idea for the memorial stones that I keep now.

Favorite Part of the Christmas Story:
Luke 2:25-35
And behold there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon...and it was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ...and he took him up in his arms...and said...mine eyes have seen thy salvation...a light to lighten the Gentiles.

Most Unusual Christmas:
The Christmases spent in Africa where wishing for a white Christmas took on a whole new meaning, where "I'll be home for Christmas" was banned from every repertoire, where we planned to decorate palm trees, but never did, where we opened a canned ham as a special treat to celebrate, where we sat in church for six hours to watch the African's reenactment of the nativity, where we never hung lights because of a cultural association with the local bars, where our favorite gift was a candy bar.

Most Remembered Christmas:
The year we spent in France. We had an itty-bitty tree that Dad cut down. We made ornaments covering shapes cut from cereal boxes with tin foil. It was the only year we had real mistletoe-not the plastic substitute. It smelled horrible. We strung popcorn and when Christmas was over, we hung the popcorn from the balcony. All these birds came. We invited a Chinese friend to celebrate with us and ate Christmas dinner with chopsticks.

What are yours?