Christmas Is A-coming……….

Or as The Boy says " it's nearly happy Christmas Grandnanna"!

Most of the rush is over for my commitments, I have one more quilt to complete by the weekend,  and I need to purchase some gift certificates but otherwise most of my very simple Christmas prepping is done-except for the big dinner I make Christmas Day for family- that's a lot of work beginning with home made raised cinnamon buns with cream cheese frosting for the early arrivals!
Some years ago I began to trim down and cut back on Christmas preparation to reduce the stress and rush and needless buying and allow more time for focus on the "Reason for the season".
As a family we agreed to forgo exchanging adult gifts, agreeing that we each have all that we need. I make a couple of exceptions, as parents of this family we take advantage of the prerogative of age and position, LOL. We like to give the sons and DIL's something small they can use, the girls love  massages at the local chiropractor's office and the guys enjoy hot shaves and men's facials at the fancy barbershop! I also order a memorial ornament each year for them [and one for us] to keep their brother near, this is the one for 2014…….

this is the back. 

 And this is the little "Matt tree" I put up every year with all his ornaments and a few other significant things related to his life. Several years I have received one from his brothers too so there are more than the eight for the years he has been gone from us.

We find it a lovely way to keep him with us on one of those family occasions when there is that empty chair.
I did one other thing this year, I had a few of Matt's clothes in a drawer, most have been given away to his brothers, but I wanted to use the rest to make memory keepsakes for the family. They were not suitable or sufficient for quilts but I found a lady on the internet who makes teddy bears from your loved one's clothing so I sent her some jeans and T shirts. My family here do not watch my blog so I feel fairly confident it will stay a surprise!

I think the boys will really like them, the T shirts have special logos from Matt's life's activities like the triathlons he competed in. The scarves are made from one that Matt wore when he lived in Korea teaching English and working for his black belt in Tae Kwan Do and they are fastened with little angel pins. The maker also embroidered Matt's name and the appropriate dates of his life on earth.
We deposit money in the Grandsons' savings accounts but the little one also gets some small thing to unwrap.
This year I found a cute toy at Fry's electronics, a kids karaoke set-The Boy loves music and knows lots of songs so I thought it might help his speech to hear himself singing.

I hope that he likes it but if he does not it was not an expensive experiment.

How are your Christmas preparations proceeding, have you too decided that the commercial insanity is over the top?