Presents.

So my husband and I have been so poor since we've been married.  We got married young, and we have expected and embraced poverty.  Every Christmas since we've been married, we bring cookies or jello to family gatherings and call that our gift.  We're young and poor, everyone understands.  But I love giving gifts.  I can honestly say that I love giving gifts more than I love receiving them.  I usually make stuff, because it's fun.  I enjoy so much, the trick of figuring out what is the perfect gift for each person, and then waiting to see them open it up and declare that it is actually awesome.  Love it!

So this year, thanks to our beautiful, perfect baby, we're even more poor than usual!  But also, this year I wanted so badly to give EVERYONE a gift.  So I started searching Pinterest for ideas.  I'd made salt dough before, for my Primary children at church, so when I saw blog after blog about baby hand and footprints, I knew this was something easy and inexpensive, that everyone would love!

Salt Dough Recipe

1 Cup Salt
1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Warm Water

Knead it until it is stretchy, so it won't break and crumble.  Super easy!

I didn't have cookie cutters the right size, so I used a glass to cut out the circles.  Juliet loved putting in her handprints.  4 1/2 months old, everything is fun to touch.  She was only mad she couldn't put it in her mouth.

After the handprints, I used small alphabet stamps to stamp in her name along the side.  Use a straw to punch out the hole.

Bake in the oven (preheated to 100 degrees F) for 3 hours.  We didn't hear the timer, and baked them for who knows how long, but they came out great!

We painted them red, used a fine point sharpie to fill in the name.

Then I got Juliet's Christmas portrait printed (making sure it would fit the ornaments).  I used a smaller glass to trace a circle, a hole punch, and then used modge podge to add the pictures.

I couldn't find my red ribbon, but I think it looks so classy with black!

Sorry about the cruddy photography.  Too sick to pull out the Canon = Cell phone pictures.

Christmas!

It's a photography day!

There are so many things that I love about this time of year, namely, Christmas, and every sub-category that follows.  I love the crisp air (because in Tucson it never gets cold, just crisp).  I love the lights (I ignore that we have to pay so much for them!).  I love Christmas trees, ornaments, and I stinking love an excuse to get glitter on every surface of my existence.  I love racking my brain to come up with the perfect gift for those I love.  That, I think, is my favorite part of the monetary side of Christmas.  It's like a game for me.  After Thanksgiving, I spend the majority of my free time pondering those I love, thinking about our conversations, thinking about recent events in their lives, their recent fashion statements and trends, their likes, and for the perfect gag gifts, their dislikes.   Then I get the perfect idea, rarely is it a purchasable gift.  Often, my brain comes up with those perfect one-of-a-kind gifts that literally has the receiver's name on it, in my handwriting.  I have an urge to share, but I also have a faulty hope that anyone in my family actually reads this blog.

Then there's the proper side of Christmas.  There's the root of Christmas, the entire purpose it was ever brought about.  The reason, tempting as it may be, I will never replace the star atop my tree with that stinking cute owl topper from Target.  Jesus Christ.  He is incredible.  He is perfect.  He is our Savior.  And what a perfect, beautiful time of year to commemorate his birth, than December.  Because in December we get to snuggle up warm, and drink hot cocoa, and read Christmas stories, always reminding us of why we give things to each other.  Because when Christ was born, He was God's greatest gift to us.  That is why it is the season of giving.  Nothing invites the spirit into our homes more, than choosing to serve others.

I have a current experience that is brimming my heart with joy.  Our ward (which we are brand new to, and know almost no one) does a giving tree.  There's a teensy Christmas tree in the church, covered with ornaments, that say something like, "Boy, 7, anything to do with Iron Man," and "Girl, 14, skirts."  As Juliet was unyielding that we continue to pace the halls during Sunday School, I stopped and began to view the ornaments, with a desire to give.  Of course, we have no money, and these were gift requests that it would be hard to make for free, but my heart yearned to participate.  So I continued to skim, every now and then a request from a child would make me laugh.  And then I held up one ornament, a teenage girl's request for art supplies, namely such for pencil drawing.  If there's one thing that inspires me, it's a youth who loves to imagine, and create.  My heart leapt, because, though I am completely poor, I have a stock pile of art supplies, for my own enjoyment, and the fact that my husband was forced against his will to study art for one semester.  His poor soul.  I'm not sure how he survived.  But it just so happened that I had a giant drawing pad I got for a penny, my husband's hardly touched sketch pad from his class, and an entire pack of pencils, with kneaded eraser, rubber eraser, pencil sharpener and nub all untouched!  I was so excited.  I found something I could give.  I have no idea who this girl is, but I pulled a color pencil sketch of a flower from my own sketch pad, and I wrote her a letter, because she inspired me by her request.  Then I wrapped all of the things together, tied it with red ribbon, and next week it will go to the clerk's office and await delivery.  What a beautiful feeling to give so much.  I could have chosen to see those items as the amount of money I spent on them, but the joy of giving fills my heart, and there is no room left for what my mind might choose to think.

I love Christmas!

And didn't I say it's a photo day!  We spent our Sabbath setting up my little in-home studio and creating props for this Christmas time baby photo shoot!  Juliet was amazed by the lights, and mesmerized by her glittering shoes.