Traditional Family Nativity Scene

 

The 'Reason for the Selfie' / The 'Reason for the Season'.
This may seem self explanatory, but more explanation will soon follow.
Merry Christmas!

Santa Claus Collection '09

Here are a few photos of the Santa Claus collection for Christmas 2009:

Summertime Santa

Ever wonder what Santa Claus does in the summer?

Well, I thought that might be a possible topic of interest for a Blog Post. After a search I found the following site which covers this very topic. These people in Finland seem to know not only how Santa Claus occupies his summer, but also every other season of the year. They also have a number of other topics and links of interest and value. Please check out this web site for Rovaniemi, Finland. Use the following link to go directly to Santa’s summer site.

Summertime Santa

Please let me know if you have any other information on how Santa spends his summer!

Click on the "Comments" at the bottom of this post to leave your comments.

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Enjoy the Blog and have a great summer!

Christmas Holiday Photo

Here is the correct Christmas Holiday photo! I knew I had a photo of the grand baby wearing a Santa hat. This is the picture I've been looking for. Here is our future Santa Claus trainee. This is Kira at Christmas 2007. This picture was taken during one of those marathon sessions of opening the presents. Traditionally we do this on Christmas Eve night at our house. All of the gifts are stacked under the tree and then distributed to each person who has presents. It always turns into a marathon session since there are so many people giving so many gifts to so many people. We have gone through several different attempts at downsizing, both in the number of gifts given and the size of each individual gift. We were running out of storage space under the tree and it just took too long to open all the gifts. We still have some room for improvement in the time issue. The problem of time elapsed for opening the presents is complicated by the tradition of each person opening one present at a time and the presents are opened in order beginning with the youngest and ending with the oldest. That means Kira goes first and I bring up the end. This whole process starts again and so goes the marathon gift opening until all gifts are opened. Then the marathon cleanup session begins. Oh well, so goes our Christmas holiday. We still enjoy it! I hope you enjoy the picture and this glimpse of one of our holiday traditions.

Oops! Wrong Holiday

Wait a minute! This isn't a Christmas picture. This is one of those Haloween pictures. This is a good picture of the Grand Baby though. I believe this is a little witch on her way out in search of the Great Pumpkin. . . or maybe she is just in search of a few treats on a Trick or Treat Quest.

Oh well. Enjoy the picture. I'll have to go in search of the Christmas pictures so I can get back to the business of Santa Claus and my favorite Christmas traditions.

These Guys Must Believe!

A few days ago I heard a brief news item about the 51st Annual World Santa Claus Congress. This is an international gathering of the representatives of Santa Claus from a number of countries around the world. They have been meeting annually for more than 50 years. Why that's almost as many years as I have seen! Why haven't I heard about this yet? It seems Santa Claus is gathering his representatives from around the world at an amusement park in Copenhagen, Denmark. This 3 day event attracts Santas from countries as far away from Denmark as Russia, the United States, and Japan. As this event seems to have grown from a local Summer Festival, most of these Santas have come from a number of the Scandinavian Countries. Most of the news stories covering this event were dated Monday, July 21, 2008 and the festival went through Wednesday. Santa took this opportunity to practice some of his Christmas Holiday skills such as belly shaking chuckles and Christmas tree decorating. The Santas were also able to discuss some of the more important issues facing Santa Claus today like “How do we get into people’s homes when there are no chimneys?" asks Fred Rootveld, a Dutch Sinterklaas. For more information about Santa Claus and this important news item you may follow some of the following links:

Reuters India

ABC News

Washington Post

USA Today

For more information about Scandinavia you may follow this link:

Scandinavian Tourist Boards

Now you know how Santa Claus spends his summer vacation! Please remember that Santa has given at least a portion of his summer vacation time to help prepare himself for making your Christmas Holiday a more cheerful and memorable occasion.

Milk and Cookies

Christmas Traditions are an important part of the family holiday season. One of the more popular traditions associated with Santa Claus is the practice of leaving a glass of milk and a few cookies out for Santa to snack on as he makes his rounds. Perhaps this is the reason for his jolly, fat appearance in most depictions. The snack is most certainly welcome while completing his traditional, timely task of delivering gifts to all who have made it to his list. You know, "making a list and checking it twice", after all Santa must keep an accurate accounting for all those toys and gifts to be delivered to all of the world's children. He must certainly appreciate the thoughtful nature of those children who have left him that snack. You may want to have Santa, as well as your family and friends, rest up for a few moments and enjoy a small snack at your home during the Christmas Holidays. May I suggest the following recipe for cookies:

.

ROLLED CHRISTMAS COOKIES*

4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 tsp.ground allspice

1 1/2 cups butter

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3 Tbsp. cold water

Sift the first 3 ingredients together. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse corn-meal. Stir in eggs and water. Mix well. (This dough is stiff, so do not add any more water.) Chill until the dough can be easily handled, about 1 hour. Roll to 1/8 inch thickness on a lightly floured board. Shape with assorted cookie cutters. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets in a preheated oven (400 degrees F.) 7 to 8 minutes or until lightly brown around the edges. decorate before baking with glazed fruit or colored sugar, or decorate with confectioners' sugar and water icing after baking. Yield: 9 dozen assorted sizes and shapes.

* This recipe is from

The Family Cookbook

by

Gertrude Wilkinson

formerly home editor

Liberty Magazine

1962 EDITION

Copywright MCMLIX by

WORLD SCOPE PUBLISHERS, INC.

New York, N. Y.