As July 25 approaches so too does the 5-month mark before Christmas. Why not dream of cooler times during the summer heat and celebrate Christmas in July? Not to worry, most Christmas in July celebrations are way less stressful and costly than Christmas in December. It can be as elaborately or as simply as you please.

SHE SAID:

I’ve been trying to think of cooler things to do lately during these 30-degree days of high humidity. While sitting in our unfinished basement with my feet in a bucket of ice has been tempting, I needed something a little more stimulating and a lot less insane.

While Christmas can often be used synonymously with insanity, the idea of celebrating twice in one year may sound, well, insane to you. Not to worry, though, only the idea is insane. In practice it’s actually quite lovely and how the real Christmas ought to be – simple.

As with the normal Christmas, food is the major focal point of this celebration. We tried taking the traditional Christmas foods and putting a summer twist on them. For instance, instead of roasting a turkey, we made mini turkey sliders on the BBQ. In place of cranberries, we had sparkling cranberry and pomegranate drinks. Instead of corn as a side dish, we had corn on the cob. Okay, that last one was a little lie. We didn’t have corn on the cob because Brad hates feeling like a greasy ape after eating it, so we fried it with pepper, butter and Parmesan instead. Anyway, you get the point.

The cooling off part of this celebration comes mainly with the dessert and activities you choose. Since we don’t have very many ways to cool off in our house, save shoving our head in the freezer from time to time, our cooling off often comes in the form of food like ice cream, popsicles, or even just straight up ice (we’re desperate people!). In lieu of heating up the oven up to bake anything, we bought cookies n’ cream ice cream as a play on the milk and cookies left out for Santa on Christmas Eve.

As for activities, we couldn’t do much more than lie low and watch a Christmas movie. We opted for The Holiday, but never made it through since that movie is ridiculously long. If you have the luxury of owning a pool you can really indulge. If you’re on a slightly lower budget, you might even opt to buy a kiddie pool and create your own little patio pool party. Better, yet, you could head to the beach, lake or indoor pool at your local sportsplex.

I enjoyed celebrating Christmas in July with Brad, but I think it could be even better with friends and/or family to celebrate with, since that’s a big part of what complete Christmas for me. If you’re looking for something to do this weekend as July 25th draws near, why not plan your own celebration? Remember to tell us how it went and don’t hold back!

HE SAID:

When someone mentions Christmas, what pops into your head? I would imagine your mind goes to one of two extremes. Either you conjure up images of joy and happiness, or of pain and misery, you love it or you hate it. The beauty of Christmas in July is that you have the opportunity to do all the things you love and none of the things you hate.

If I had ever heard of Christmas in July before I married Susan, it didn’t make much of an impression. When she told me about it, I couldn’t really wrap my brain around the idea of voluntarily putting myself through the rigamarole of the holidays in the middle of the summer. But once we set out to actually try it, I discovered that there are many ways to make it quite enjoyable.

There are three main pillars to the holidays that I wanted to incorporate into our summer festivities:

Gifts

We aren’t the type to go spending-crazy at Christmas time. We always set a very reasonable budget and we’re usually quite good at sticking to it. Regardless, I almost always come out of the holidays feeling like we went overboard. We are by no means wealthy, but we have a good life so it sometimes seems silly to spend even the relatively small amount we spend on Christmas.

With that said, we tried to keep things as minimal as possible for Christmas in July. We kept it to one gift each, and it was great. I feel like one gift means way more than the mountain of junk that can pile up in December.

The trick is to keep it low budget and low pressure. Spend whatever you think is appropriate, but don’t obsess over giving gifts of exactly equal monetary value.

Food

I won’t go into too much detail since Susan told you about the food already, but I really enjoyed our little twist on the turkey dinner and the milk and cookies dessert. Though it was a much lighter meal than the big feast on Christmas Day, we still felt the turkey coma hit us pretty hard.

Decorations

Again, we opted to keep it simple in the decorating department. Putting up and decorating the Christmas tree is a daunting task once a year, let alone a second time in the heat of July. So we grabbed Susan’s mini Christmas tree from the basement as well as our wooden Santa. It was simple, easy, and fun. Of course, if you feel so inclined, you can spare no expense and fully decorate your house as if it were December.

I enjoyed Christmas in July quite a bit. Though it does feel odd doing Christmasy things in the summer, it’s still a fun time. If you enjoy the food, the gifts, and the fun, but hate the shopping, the crowds, and the busyness, give Christmas in July a try. You can make it as crazy or as simple as you like for a fun summer holiday.

SHE SAID:

For our first anniversary, we tried to give each other gifts in keeping with the traditional gift giving guide. Since your first year anniversary gift is supposed to be related to paper somehow, Brad made me a photo book from Apple of our first year together. It had pictures of our wedding, of course, but also different places we went and all of our “firsts” like Christmas, Valentine’s, etc.

Since everything is digital now, we’re less apt to take pictures off of the computer, get them printed and then put them in a photo album (seriously, when did people have time for that?). The great thing about photo books is their simplicity. All you basically have to do is upload your photos and wait for it to arrive in the mail.

As you know, we just came home from our winter escape from Florida. Coming home from trips can sometimes be a downer, especially when you go from bikini weather to parka weather. A fun way to relive all of the fun memories while you were away is to spend an evening together documenting it all. We put on a pot of tea we purchased from Disney World and created a timeline of our trip together. It was a nice way to transition from vacation euphoria to reality.

Photo books are a great gift to give and receive. You can have a lot of fun creating story lines to go along with your pictures and they look a whole lot better on a coffee table or shelf than those massive binders with plastic inserts.

HE SAID:

One of my favourite things to do when I visit my grandparents is to look through old photo albums. I like the ones that have pictures of things I remember as a kid, but I especially enjoy the really old black and white ones that give me a glimpse of my family’s history. After I’ve gone through a heavy pile of photo albums, I realize that it is far from a perfect system for storing pictures. The plastic pages stick together, the pictures are sometimes falling out of the slots, and all of the newspaper clippings and other random things being kept in the book make it quite difficult to browse the photos.

The best solution to the problem that I’ve found (unless you want to spend a small fortune on an iPad to look through your photos) is photo books where the pictures are actually printed on to the pages in the book. I used Apple’s service when I created one for Susan, but there are plenty of options out there. For Mac users, it’s as simple as opening iPhoto, selecting the photos you want included in your book, click on the book button in the menu at the bottom of iPhoto, then you just pick a template and fill it with photos. It’s very easy.

The prices for the books range from $5.00 to $50.00 depending on if you choose hard or soft cover, and the size of the book. The one I made Susan for our first anniversary was a large hard cover book, so it only cost about $30.00. The quality ended up being great. The hard cover was nice, and the photos (which were taken with our aging point and shoot camera) looked quite nice printed on the glossy paper.

Even if you don’t have a paper anniversary coming up, a photo book would make a great Valentine’s Day gift. It takes thought and effort to pick out all the photos and arrange them nicely. It’s a great way to share or relive fun memories.

For those of you who won’t be using iPhoto to make your photo book, don’t despair. There are plenty of options online to choose from. Check out these links and see which one works best for you. Black’s, Better Homes and Gardens, Costco, Carsand Mosher

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has read our blog since we started it in July. We have had lots of fun and can’t wait to see what the coming year has in store. Your support has been amazing and it pushes us to try to come up with bigger and better ideas.

We’ll be taking a little break to spend some time together with our friends and family, but we have some fun things planned for early January so make sure you come back and see what’s next. Thanks again and Merry Christmas to all of you!

This is date number six in our 12 Dates of Christmas series. Everybody has that thing that makes it “feel” like Christmas, whether it be Christmas goodies, Christmas movies, or being around friends and family. For us that thing is taking a drive around town and looking at all the houses decorated with lights for the holidays. This year we did it a little earlier than usual, but it might be worth doing twice.

SHE SAID:

Going for a drive to see Christmas lights was one of my favourite things to do when I was a kid. There was a subdivision the next community over from ours that used to have a Christmas lights competition that never let us down. We would all pile in the car and judge the houses and my dad would patiently drive as we screamed at him to slow down for certain houses.

There was one house in particular in Fall River that we always used to go to that was elaborately decorated with various cartoon characters and mountains of sparking lights. You could get out of your car and go into the “gingerbread house” (shed) to sign the guest book. Brad’s family used to take him there as well so we may very well have brushed shoulders as kids as we gazed upon the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mickey Mouse displays.

So far this year I have yet to be really impressed by anyone’s Christmas lights. In fact, I’m a little disappointed. I don’t think the problem is in the neighbourhoods we’ve picked or the time of night we go. I think the disappointment lies in the lights themselves. I think the switch over to LED Christmas lights is more pronounced now and there’s no ignoring the hideous blue glow anymore.

I get that LED lights burn less electricity and they’ll somehow stop the ocean waters from rising, but couldn’t the global warming geniuses have come up with something that has a bit of a warmer glow? There, I said it. Call me environmentally irresponsible, but I will never own or adorn anything with LED Christmas lights. If the dim bluish glow isn’t enough to whip you into a depression, the manner in which they bug your eyes out surely will.

That being said, there are a few homes that still hang the so called “old fashioned” lights up and even though half the paint is chipping off the lights they’re still my favourite houses to visit.

Even though the lighting fashions have changed, I still enjoy grabbing a cup of hot cocoa (the peppermint hot chocolate with whipped topping from Second Cup is the best!), putting on some Christmas tunes in the car and driving lazily around town to see the sparkling lights.

HE SAID:

A few years ago my family and I went to Florida for Christmas. We all had visions of basking in the hot sun on Christmas day while all our friends and relatives froze back home. Instead we got rain, rain, and more rain. We made the best of it though and it is now a Christmas I will never forget.

One of the best memories of that trip was from Christmas Eve. Our tradition when we’re home is to jump in the car on Christmas Eve and go look at all the homes that have been decorated. It’s sort of like the final thing that makes it “feel” like Christmas. We didn’t want to lose the tradition just because we were in Florida that year, so we jumped in the car and drove around looking at Christmas lights. We were staying at my grandmother’s place where there are a lot of seniors in the area. Let’s just say they put us Canadians to shame when it comes to lights. They go all out.

We actually tried this date twice since the first time didn’t really work out. We thought it would be fun to drive to a really nice part of town where all the super rich people live. My assumption was since they have all kinds of money, they would go all out with the festive decorations. Not so my friends, not so. Maybe in these tough economic times they thought they would be rubbing their wealth in the faces of the rest of us if they got carried away, I don’t know. If that is the reason, I think it’s a poor one since their huge mansions do a nice enough job of exhibiting their wealth. Regardless, there was hardly a light to be seen.

Our second attempt was a little closer to home and it was much nicer. It’s fun to see the new trends every year that people try out. A few years ago everybody bought those reindeer made of lights, and another year it was the icicle lights hanging from every surface on the houses. This year it seemed like a lot of people used the same company, Christmas Decor, where you buy the decorations and you pay them to do all the work. It’s easy to tell which houses used them because the roof lines were all perfectly outlined in white lights.

Although it wasn’t Christmas Eve, I still had a lot of fun looking at Christmas lights this year. I actually saw a neighborhood I had no idea existed, even though I lived five minutes away for most of my life. It’s a great way to explore the town you live in, get in the Christmas spirit, and spend time with someone you love. Truth be told, we enjoy it so much we’ll probably do it again on Christmas Eve.

This is date number five in our 12 Dates of Christmas series. One of the best things about the holidays is all the great food that seems to be everywhere you look. The smell of delicious, freshly baked cookies makes a cold winter night a little more pleasant. So we decided to do some Christmas baking and decorating.

SHE SAID:

Every year I plan on cutting down on the Christmas baking, and every year it seems I add one more baked good to my list. This year I really wanted to enter John Mayer’s Interfaith Holiday Baking Competition, and I still might, but I have yet to find the time or inspiration that John deserves. Sorry, John.

I like to bake, but I rarely take the time to do it. When Christmas rolls around, I usually make the mistake of trying to fit it all into one day. This year was no different.

Unless you have the energy level of the energizer bunny, I would not recommend attempting more than one baked good on your date. In fact, I might spread out the baking and the decorating over two days.

Baking can be pretty fun, but my favourite part in the process is the decorating. I think Brad would agree. This year during my baking supplies shopping at Michael’s I found these cute little sugar pearls that I think take your decorating from okay to semi-impressive. I also bought some new snowflake cookie cutters. It’s nice if you can have a variety of cookie cutters so that boredom doesn’t set in. That being said, sometimes it’s nice to stick to one shape and alternate designs.

If baking is not your thing but you’d still like to give decorating a try, buy some undecorated cookies from the grocery store, pre-made icing and sprinkles and you’ll be good to go.

HE SAID:

One of our favorite TV shows is Cake Boss on TLC. We both love watching Buddy create the most elaborate, beautiful, and not to mention edible creations. Though I now know what fondant and modeling chocolate are thanks to Cake Boss, watching a show does not an expert make.

Susan mercifully spared me from the actual baking portion of the evening, probably for her own sanity more than kindness towards me. Whatever the reason, I’m glad she let me sit on the sidelines. She turns into a machine when she gets baking. There’s screaming and shouting coming from the kitchen, a cloud of flour dust in the air, and a few panic attacks, but in the end she always walks away with a Costco sized amount of baked goods.

When it was time to sit down and decorate, I felt pretty confident. How hard could it be to put icing on cookies and make them look nice?

I started easy with a star shaped gingerbread cookie. I just outlined it with icing and then put a sugar pearl in the center. As soon as I tried to get a little fancy by adding another outline of icing it all went bad. I then moved on to the stocking shaped ginger bread cookies. They were nice and easy. My favorite part of the night, my crowning achievement, is my little Himmery (our cat) gingerbread cookie. I’m not sure what the cookie was supposed to be shaped like, but it looked like a good candidate for a cat to me.

Let’s face it, I’ll never be on Cake Boss. My cookie decorating skills leave much to be desired. That said, it was actually more fun than I expected. There was one minor issue though. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m really not a fan of getting my hands dirty. So when I got icing all over my hands while decorating, I was not pleased. In fact, I may have panicked a little inside. Thankfully there was a glass of water near by, so I dowsed my hands and kept going.

If you’re with someone who is really easy going, and you’re pretty easy going yourself, go ahead and try the actual baking part of this date together. Otherwise, do what we did and let the more experienced (and particular) of the two of you do the baking and then decorate together. Remember to just have fun with it. When things go bad, just go with it and see what happens. We would love to hear your Christmas baking stories. What is your favorite holiday treat?

This is date number four of the 12 Dates of Christmas. Watching Christmas movies is one of our favorite holiday traditions. There’s nothing better than settling in on a cold winter night and watching a movie that reminds you of all the good times that come with Christmas. This year we decided to watch Elf. Though it wasn’t an easy decision to make, the night turned out just fine in the end.

SHE SAID:

Every year since we’ve been married we’ve had the tradition of adding a new Christmas movie (or two) to our collection. I’m sure we’ll eventually run out of good ones, but so far in our collection we have Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Holiday and the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie.

This year was a bit of a battle of the sexes as I wanted to buy The Santa Clause and Brad wanted to purchase Elf. Since I weaseled my way into getting The Holiday last year, I graciously agreed to his choice.

Elf is one of those movies that I originally hated and now like more and more every time I watch it. I’m not sure where my initial hatred stemmed from, but I think it had something to do with having no prior Will Ferrell appreciation. Brad, on the other hand, has loved Elf since day one, when Zooey Deschanel first appeared to him on screen and changed his life forever.

Elf is actually a pretty funny movie and I’ll watch it any day over A Christmas Carol. That movie is a glorified Christmas horror film that will NEVER make it’s way into my collection…unless maybe if it’s the Muppet’s version.

One movie that I have been trying to get my hands on is a cartoon that aired on CBC back in the 80’s called Bluetoes: The Christmas Elf. I know you can get it on YouTube, but if anyone out there knows of where you can buy it on DVD please let me know!

Our movie date started out pretty well, but ended as many of our mid-week movie dates do – me asleep within the first half hour. I made the mistake of lying down and not eating to keep my brain awake and turned into a limp, unconscious figure. Clearly, I was not a very good date. Learn from my mistakes.

HE SAID:

One of the traditions that my family started during the last few years I lived at home was to watch a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve just before we went to bed. We didn’t just watch any Christmas movie, no no. We watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I love that movie. Sure, I don’t laugh as hard as the first time I saw it, but it still gets me every time.

Susan and I don’t have a specific day that we like to watch Christmas movies on, but instead our tradition is just to buy and watch a new Christmas movie until we run out of ones we’re interested in. I won the battle this year and got Elf. I would imagine this is a love it or hate it kind of movie. I think Will Ferrell’s silliness is perfect in this movie as he plays a human who was raised as an elf. Of course the best part of the movie is Zooey Deschanel, who lights up the screen (and my heart) with every scene she is in.

Anyway, I love watching Christmas movies. For me it’s one of the best ways to get into the Christmas spirit. I remember as a kid being incredibly excited when we would catch a Christmas special on TV.

I think some of my favorite Christmas specials are ones that I can’t find anymore, except on YouTube. Last night I came across the Sesame Street Christmas Eve special. I used to have the audio of it on cassette when I was a kid and I remember listening to it when I went to bed. I also remember enjoying Raggedy Ann & Andy Great Santa Caper, A Muppet Family Christmas, and Babar and Father Christmas.

Watching a Christmas movie is a great date idea. There’s no better way to bring two people together than through a classic movie you both enjoy. It might be a good idea to have a festive treat to eat and to make sure it’s not too late at night if you’re like us and tend to fall asleep easily.

Since our collection includes two copies of Home Alone on DVD, we thought it would be fun to give one copy away to you. Here’s how to win:

The Prize: 1 copy of Home Alone on DVD

How to Enter: Leave a comment on this post about your favorite Christmas movie. Make sure to include your email address so that we can contact you if you win.

Fine Print: Contest closes Friday, December 11th at 2pm ADT (that’s tomorrow, so be quick!) and is open to Canadian and U.S. readers. If you are chosen as a winner we will message you to find out your shipping address. You then have 72 hours to respond to our message.

Winner: We have a winner! The winner of the Home Alone DVD is Cali. I’ll be contacting you shortly. Thanks to everyone who entered.

This is date number three of the 12 Dates of Christmas. Decorating the Christmas tree is a great tradition. It brings everyone together to have fun and remember years gone by. It also brings on uncontrollable rage and tears of frustration when two people from very different tree decorating backgrounds try to come together to create their own masterpiece.

SHE SAID:

One thing that really gets my goat about Christmas is all of the false images associated with most traditions. Everywhere are images of perfect families happily decorating perfect Christmas trees and drinking perfect hot cocoa while sitting by perfect fires. For once I wish someone would show the flipside of things – cranky families decorating crooked trees and burning their tongues on hot cocoa while sitting next to their TV’s “Faux Fire.” Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so frustrated when my attempts at a perfect tree don’t work out.

I know creating the perfect tree is an impossible task, but my childhood compels me to try. When I was growing up, my parents always seemed to effortlessly create the perfect Christmas tree. My dad would spend at least two nights running rows of lights in and around every branch to create the perfectly balanced glow of lights, while my mom would patiently string silver beads expertly from branch to branch, creating perfectly spaced loops. By the time we were done, the ornaments all hung freely and an angel sat perfectly erect at the top.

Things weren’t quite the same for Brad growing up, so it’s no wonder that when we first decorated a tree together there were a few misunderstandings.

It happens to us every year. Every year I get excited about dragging out all of the ornaments and putting up the tree, and every year, at some point, I get cranky at the tree and want to set a match to it.

The rage usually begins to present itself during the lights stage. Nothing makes my inner Christmas tree burn more than unevenly distributed lights. Next are the beads. Beads are usually what do me in, so this year we skipped them, and I don’t think I will ever bead a tree again!

Though I had to re-hang a few ornaments behind Brad’s back that weren’t hanging freely, I think I did really well this year at just relaxing and enjoying the time spent together.

HE SAID:

Decorating the Christmas tree was always a fun time in my house growing up. We’d put some Christmas music on really loud and talk about all our favorite ornaments as we took them out of their boxes. There wasn’t a whole lot of attention to detail. We just kind of put the ornaments wherever felt right (although mom probably fixed things up a little after we were done and gone to bed).

I still enjoy decorating the tree, however I’ve learned that not everyone shares my feelings about not needing perfection. To me it’s the fun of remembering the old decorations that have been around for years, and about spending time with family. If the lights are a little bare in some spots, who cares, just mask it with extra bulbs!

Our first two Christmas’s together we opted for a real tree. We liked going out into the cold and choosing the right tree, then bringing it home and having the smell drift through the whole house. The problem is that the second year our tree was crooked and thin and didn’t even have a smell. So after cleaning up 10 lbs. of needles, we finally caved and went fake. We found a really nice fake tree though that looks quite full.

Every year we try to buy a new tree ornament. Our first year together we got one with two penguins on it that says “Our 1st Christmas”, then the year after that we got one in New York. This year, we (or more specifically I) chose an ornament at the craft fair made to look like the Grinch. This is now one of my favorites and I think when we have kids they’ll get a kick out of it too.

Of course no task in the Murray household would be complete without being entertained by our cat Himmery. He was very curious about every decoration we brought out. His favorite new hiding spot is right underneath the tree in the back corner where he likes to sit and gnaw at the low branches. I think he secretly hopes to choke on a plastic needle so he can rid himself of this mortal coil. He somehow found a way to perch himself on the back of our couch and watch us decorate. I’m sure if he could speak English he would have been judging us harshly. That’s just how he rolls.

We had a great time decorating the tree this year. I think we’re both learning to bring our very different tree decorating backgrounds together in a way that isn’t quite as stress inducing as previous years. What are some of your favorite tree decorating traditions? Do you have any favorite old ornaments that you love seeing every year?

This is date number two of the 12 Dates of Christmas. Neither of us had ever assembled a gingerbread house before, and both of us had visions of it ending in a heaping pile of gingerbread and tears. Thankfully it didn’t turn out that bad, and we might even do it again next Christmas.

SHE SAID:

For years I have avoided making a gingerbread house. I would sidestep the displays in the grocery stores and scoff at the advertisements that promised family fun. Knowing how impatient I can get if something tedious and time consuming doesn’t work out (remember the model car post?) I figured I would do everyone involved a favour and steer clear of the little homes of sugary delights.

The thing I thought would send me over the edge was how to get the walls of the house to stay up. What I didn’t know was that some kits that you can buy (like ours) have little grooves that you fit the house into to help support it. Plus, I didn’t realize how thick the icing was. Problem solved!

Once the walls were up, it was time to get creative with the candies. I loved having the kit because everything we needed was included in the box. The only thing I was disappointed with was the fact that you couldn’t make it look as good as the gingerbread house on the box because it didn’t come with the fancy icing bag tips you can use to make nicer designs.

Now that I’m over my gingerbread house qualms, I’m thinking I might get a little crazy next year and maybe try to make one without a kit. I haven’t mentioned this to Brad yet, though, so don’t hold me to it. He may have a few reservations.

HE SAID:

Most parents buy their son some LEGO at some point in his life. This is usually met with excitement and happiness. These kids dream of building exactly what is shown on the box, and then taking it apart and building something totally different. The parents beam with pride when their child shows them what they’ve built with the LEGO, and all live happily ever after….this is not my story.

My parents did buy me LEGO at some point, but happiness on my part did not follow. I opened the box, emptied out all the pieces, read the instructions, and began to build. The first few pieces were always fun and easy to assemble. Then came that first vital piece that would make or break the construction. Emphasis on break. My LEGO dreams always ended in a pile of pieces while I contemplated throwing the whole box right across the room.

Now, 20 years later, I still fear activities that hinge on construction. So I was naturally terrified to put together a gingerbread house. It seemed like a slightly more delicious version of my LEGO nightmare all over again.

Thankfully my fears were totally unneeded. The gingerbread house came together relatively easily. We ran into some issues due to the frosting that holds everything together not drying fast enough, but there really were no major catastrophes to report. One of the biggest problems we encountered was one side of the roof kept sliding down. While trying to get it back in place, one of the walls of the house started to cave in. Luckily we got it all under control and nobody raged as a result.

This could be an interesting date depending on how long you’ve known the person you are with. It’s a good test to see how well you communicate and work together. More importantly, it’s a great way to expose the hidden rage that resides in you or your partner. Trust me, if there’s anything bubbling beneath the surface, it will show itself before the gingerbread house is complete. For us it would have been fine no matter how it turned out. If I had smashed the house like I did with my LEGO as a kid, it wouldn’t have shattered our relationship. However, if it was a first date, my luck might not be so good.

(Click here to see our Christmas Giveaway)

]]> http://thingstodofortwo.com/12-dates-of-christmas-gingerbread-house/feed/ 5 http://thingstodofortwo.com/12-dates-of-christmas/ http://thingstodofortwo.com/12-dates-of-christmas/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:30:23 +0000 Brad http://thingstodofortwo.com/?p=526

Back in 2008 Oprah featured a couple from Nova Scotia on her “Favourite Things” show. The couple had taken the idea of the 12 days of Christmas and created the 12 dates of Christmas instead. They wanted to promote spending time with loved ones rather than spending a lot of money on Christmas. Unfortunately, we are not the couple that was featured on Oprah, but we love the idea. In fact, we love it so much we decided to do our own version of the 12 Dates of Christmas.

Out of our list of twelve date ideas we chose eight of our favourites to write about. We both wish we could do all twelve, however due to the craziness of this time of year, and our desire to remain married, we were forced to choose only eight.

Without further ado, here is our list (in random order) of the 12 Dates of Christmas:

1. Relive our first date

2. Put up and decorate our Christmas Tree

3. Make home made Christmas ornaments

4. Play a Christmas board game

5. Bake some Christmas treats

6. Assemble a gingerbread house

7. Have a Christmas movie night

8. Make homemade Christmas gifts

9. Go for a Christmas lights drive

10. Go on a Food Crawl

11. Make a Snow Supper (winter theme)

12. Go see a Christmas show (such as The Nutcracker)

Look for our blog post about reliving our first date on Wednesday, December 2nd, and since it is the most wonderful time of year, our most wonderful giveaway yet is just around the corner. Hopefully this list looks interesting to you. We’re looking forward to lots of fun over the next few weeks and can’t wait to hear about all your favourite Christmas activities, traditions, and memories.

Cost – Free!

The annual Holiday Parade of Lights is the official start of the holiday season in Halifax. Every year thousands of people gather along the city streets to watch the floats go by. It’s a great chance to get outside and spend some time with each other.

SHE SAID:

Every year I plan on attending our local Holiday Parade of Lights and every year I swear I’ll never go again. This year I think I mean it. The parade this year was just plain weird. There were massive five-minute breaks in between floats and at least half the floats had nothing to do with the holidays. At some points it felt more like a Mardi Gras parade than Christmas parade.

That’s not to say every Christmas parade is a waste of time. If you don’t mind bundling up, fighting traffic and heading out into crowds of people, parades are for you. If you haven’t been to a parade since you believed in Santa Claus and want to give it another try, mind the following tips:

• Leave early enough so that you can park and walk before they close the streets off. We arrived 30 minutes before the parade started and that was cutting it close. To eliminate traffic stress, leave an hour and a half before the parade starts.
• Bring a chair and/or blanket. Cold sidewalk + lack of movement = parade anger.
• Bring or buy a hot drink to avoid the aforementioned parade anger.
• Plan to go out for appetizers or dessert afterward to avoid sitting in traffic as everyone tries to head home.

HE SAID:

When I was younger, I may or may not have watched a show called MAD TV (…don’t judge me!). On said show, there was a sketch called “Lowered Expectations” about a dating service for people who are REALLY having trouble finding love. I don’t remember if the sketches were actually funny or not, but the jingle has planted itself firmly inside my brain, only showing itself when I’m in a situation that calls for, you guessed it, lowered expectations.

A few years ago we had the opportunity to go to Disney during the holidays. One of the highlights of that trip was the parade/fireworks show in the Magic Kingdom. It was one of the most well done events I have ever seen. It oozed so much happiness and Christmas cheer that even the Grinch would have loved it.

When I go to a parade now I try to push aside those memories because there’s just no way our city will be able to put on such a spectacle. That said, I had fun at this year’s Holiday Parade of Lights. I dressed in so many layers I could barely move, got freezing cold regardless, grumbled about the huge empty spots in the parade, but I’ll probably bundle up and do the exact same thing next year.

I love seeing the huge crowds lining the streets as they await a glimpse of Santa. I love the floats with live bands playing Christmas songs. I love the kids in the parade who get distracted and fall behind their group. Most of all, I love hanging out with Susan and the friends we go along with. That’s really what it’s all about.

The best part of the night was when the parade was finished and we tried to get out of the parking garage. It was like we were in a demented disaster movie. We were shuffling along up a creepy staircase packed with people trying to escape impending doom, I mean, get to their cars. After realizing that none of the cars had moved an inch in a half hour, we ditched the car and went out for nachos.

Local holiday parades may not have the glitz and glamour of Disney, but they are still worth it. They bring everyone together, even just for a little while, and they kick off the Christmas season. I’ll definitely be going again next year.