Garden Holiday D'Lights

A holiday tradition for Holly and I, is to go view the amazing lights over at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. Each year they put on the "Holiday Garden D'Lights." It truly is a beautiful work of art. Well over 70K lights are painstakingly intertwined amongst the gardens, out buildings, grounds and lawns. So many animals and floral types are represented in light. We love this tradition.



Birdhouses all lit up.



Dear Santa, I would like a GINORMOUS bronze and brass bull frog for Christmas. I think this would go well in our garden courtyard...



Tick-Tock, the Alice in Wonderland crocodile...



The profile of "us," LOL! The flash had to be off, so we could capture the lights!



Garden flowers, amazingly beautiful.



Flowers...






A frog on a lilly pad in one of the garden ponds.






Palm Tree and other foliage renditions in light.



The grand lawn at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, I love the peacock!



All sorts of flowers are typically on display in various colors and fashions.






Poinsettia close-up.



Beautiful Wisteria on the trellis structures.

Gingerbread Houses For Charity

Each Christmas season, the Sheraton Hotel and/or City Centre Shopping Place puts on the annual Gingerbread House showcase. We went to see all of these, last Friday night, after work. Architectural firms in the city and region typically make elaborate gingerbread houses for display. These are donated to be auctioned off, with proceeds benefiting the Seattle Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. These gingerbread houses are always amazing.



Close up of "Charlie Brown" on the "Peanuts Gang" themed house.



"A Christmas Story"...amazing detail...photo does not do justice.



The "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" house, again...photos do not do justice.



Holly with Kermie...



Animal, my favorite details on "The Muppet's" house. All made out of jelly beans.



Miss Piggy details...



"The Muppet's house," full view.



I really loved this one. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" house WAS AMAZING! So many types of candy and sugar details. The house looked just like the opening scene from the movie.



The "Polar Express" house close up.



The "Polar Express" house has amazing detail on the inside of the mountain.



Another view of "The Peanuts" house. I wanted to squish/poke Snoopy's tummy!



The "It's a Wonderful Life" house, had interesting detail to mimic the silver screen. I loved how they incorporated candy "film."



Tongue on flag pole in "A Christmas Story" house...!

Homemade Holiday Bath Soak

There is the old saying, that gifts are nice, but "home made gifts are always nicer." Well, that has definitely become part of our Christmas tradition.



I was in the mood to make some orange-ginger bath soak. Who doesn't like tub-time? I mean, seriously...



I wanted to "kick it up" with the scent level, so I came up with this concoction. I added dried orange zest, cloves, allspice and dried ginger to the epsom salts, baking soda and citric acid.



Holly always makes amazingly beautiful labels to package our gifts up.



Such an easy project for a quick present, or hostess gift.

Craven Christmas Spiders

No Craven Christmas tree is complete, without a fancy silver spider. As a kid, we grew up with a book called "Cobweb Christmas." I loved reading this book, along side all the other Christmas books we read, to occupy our personal time waiting for Santa to arrive after we militaristically tidied up our bedrooms to be "Christmas Clean," so Dad could check them off our list of chores when he got home from work on Christmas Eve. This book was out of print for years up until 2006. When Mom died that year, she wanted all her kids to have a copy of this Children's book to share at each of our own homes with family. Mom and my oldest sister Shelly had located a bunch of these books and Mom made efforts to start making silver spiders for everyone that Christmas. She was not able to finish that project before she passed. That Christmas Shelly picked up where Mom left off and finished the silver spiders and wrote in each of these books for us younger siblings. In the few Christmas's since Mom has died, I've come to appreciate with much deeper understanding, the magic she and my Dad created at Christmas with little budget. Holly and I love putting this spider on our Christmas tree, recanting the "tale" of how tinsel on Christmas trees became to be. In the back depths of my mind, I can still see my Mom in her mu-mu dress and homemade apron, seeing to dinner cooking on the stove, and in between stirring this, or mixing that, she was throwing tinsel on the tree to ready it for the Christmas Season. I look forward to sharing these memories of "Grandma Craven at Christmas" with our daughter, and keeping the spirit of Mom alive in our minds and memories forever.

Bearing One Another's Burdens In Life

This time of year, I’m reminded how much I have to be grateful for. How much love exists with Holly and I, and our families. And other things we often take for granted. There are a lot of people around us really struggling, having an extremely hard time, and are living in dire circumstances and doing the best they can under such circumstances. I wish we could both do more, but all of us can do a little by being aware and doing our part to help bear up one another’s burdens in life.

A friend of ours at church recently lost her mother. Losing a parent, particularly close to Christmas is really hard. I feel grateful she’s reached out to us, and allowed us to be there for her and help her though this devastating time as she heals and moves forward.

Also, a few days ago, there has been a serious automobile accident involving some elderly folks in our church congregation. The injuries are pretty bad, and the three of them will have a long convalescence ahead of them for full recovery, if regained. Again, my heart goes out to their families that will be helping them through the weeks and months ahead.

I'm learning the importance of not taking my religious community for granted. My congregation of fellow Latter-day Saints is an extension of my personal family unit. Dozens of people, locally that I truly care deeply for, and only want the absolute best in life for them. We might share the same religious beliefs, but we are all very unique in nature. We all have our own different set of challenges. Each can contribute something to helping someone else in some fashion. All we want is to help one another through lives many trials and challenges. Being there for people, when they need a shoulder to cry on is truly what Christ’s gospel in action is all about. Being there when they need to vent, or just want to have a good old laugh. I’m grateful for the amazing people, of all ages, full of faith that I get to associate with on a regular basis. The friendships forming, regardless of age or experience or means, will last with me through the eternities.

I’m grateful for church service, which is often times an inconvenience to one’s personal time commitment. But truly allows you to regularly reach out to someone in dire need. The Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching programs that we support in our church are truly inspired, for the both the giver and the receiver in need.

Craven Candies, A Christmas Tradition

I love the traditions at Christmas time that Holly and I are creating. I think my favorite tradition we do together, as Holly mentioned below, is the cards and candy. Holly has beautiful graphic design talent and always makes everything look so festive and nice.



We enjoy making candy each year to share with family and friends. A talent I learned from my mother, and a talent that Holly and I continue to learn and refine together with my siblings each year. We all have our twists we make on the basics we learned from Mom. I love the packaging labels that Holly made. She made them look beautiful in kraft paper boxes.

Merry Christmas

No pictures, no frills. I just have to say, I'm really excited for Christmas!!! Last night Dan and I finished packaging up candy boxes and writing out Christmas cards and prepping packages to mail out. It feels really good to have all of our projects out of the way so I can focus more on the spirit of Christmas instead of all the hustle and bustle.

Last night Dan and I spent a few minutes with nothing but the Christmas lights on. It was so nice to see the glow in the room which warmed my heart. Its not the pretty bobbles on the tree or any ornaments that I love when I look at the tree and smile, it is the warmth and memories I have of every Christmas past in my life of loving and laughing with my family.

I love that we are able to go home and spend time with family, the most important thing in my life is my family. Dan, my parents, my in-laws, all my siblings and sibling-in-laws, nieces and nephews, all those with us and those not. I felt a pang of guilt as I wrote out cards to friends I haven't talked to since last Christmas, and family I haven't seen in years. So I know it's a little early for resolutions, but I really want to make 2010 a better year at keeping in touch with my family and extended family.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and are able to spend it with the important people in your life.

Can't Have Too Many Christmas Trees

I think Cookie Monster feels right at home, at our home during the Christmas holiday. With the tree skirt finished, and the growing collection of Cookie Monster Christmas ornaments, we decided to re-establish a Craven family tradition of having small trees in the bedrooms. I grew up with a tree every year in my own bedroom. This is Holly's first Christmas tree in the bedroom. Fun!



Cookie Monster ornaments showing him sledding down the hill, climbing down chimneys and decorating trees...



Also, making cookies, baking gingerbread houses and making gingerbread toy trains. Cookie Monster likes Christmas time as much as we both do! :)

Brunch & The Mo-Tab...! :)

We had a great evening this past Sunday with a good friend of ours. I decided that brunch for dinner sounded yummy. We ate brunch fare on our Christmas China, then headed over to church to watch the Shoreline Stake's annual "Gifts of Christmas" with children, youth and adult choirs. The Gifts of Christmas choral concert also sync's up with the annual LDS First Presidency devotional. I loved the message from President Dieter Uchtdorf, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's rendition of 'O Holy Night," arranged by Mack Wilberg. I was all teary listening to that song.



Brunch for dinner. Winter fruit salad, savory bread pudding and roasted rosemary red potatoes.



Winter Fruit Salad

3 oranges, supremed
1/2 C cranberries
I C grapes, halved
1 lime, zested and juiced
3 T mint, finely chopped
1 T honey

Supreme oranges into a bowl reserving juice. Add cranberries, halved grapes, zest and juice of lime and honey. Thoroughly mix. Add mint and serve. Next time I make this I'm going to add pomegranate seeds as well.



Roasted Potatoes.



The star of the Sunday brunch, my Mom's savory bread pudding [breakfast strata]. Our family makes this dish every year around Christmas. My mom, also used a donut maker to make the discs of bread for the top. I did the same thing with cookie cutters. It immediately took me back to my childhood preparing this in the kitchen of my parents home. It was a fantastic evening.

SAM

I finally made it to the Seattle Art Museum after the remodel. I think it's been 2 years now? Hopefully not that long, but pretty long. I don't really know what happened, I used to go all the time when I first moved here. I think it was a combination of life moving way too fast and, well, their exhibits felt stale to me. I like this new fresh SAM.



Today I saw some wonderful mobiles by Alexander Calder. I loved the variety in scale, shape and color, but I especially loved how gracefully they moved in the slight breeze. The image above is a miniature, which I didn't notice on my first trip through the exhibit. It is so cute to me.

I wandered around the rest of the floors on my way out of the museum and love that the last thing I saw was a Frankenthaler. One of her works was the first piece I ever fell in love with at the SAM and I'm happy that I ended today on the same note.

No Place Like Home For The Holidays!

The holidays at our home are in full swing. Holly and I, both love decorating our home right after Thanksgiving. In fact, the autumn decor comes down the day after Thanksgiving and we typically can get all our christmas decor up in one day. I love being surrounded by things that remind me of my childhood. Things that remind Holly of her childhood, and things that remind us both of the history we are making together.



You have to have jingle bells on the front door. Traditionally, jingle bells are typically on a black leather strap to represent Santa's belt. At least, that was the way it was in both our childhood homes. We found a modern spin on a wreath in pretty chartreuse and red.



Lots of silver, chartreuse and red make up our color scheme.



Our holiday home is not complete without some reminder of Colonial Williamsburg. Pineapples, the symbol of hospitality existed in colonial times, as well continuing in southern traditions and elsewhere. The crystal pineapple candle holders are a fun thing we picked up a few years ago to decorate with at Christmas time.



Making sure our console is decked for the holidays.



We like to put out candy jars, and were pretty excited to find these chocolate balls in chartreuse foil. The almost match perfectly all the chartreuse bobbles on our Christmas tree.



The reason we celebrate Christmas. The Holy Family with shepherds, sheep and other animals.



The Three Wise Men. I like the detail on the camel that accompanies them.



The holiday table.



Another Colonial Williamsburg tradition, setting out the Raleigh Tavern antique reproduction lantern. Also a few folk Santa's that I have carved, the two on the left. And a purchased Santa that has Amish quilt patterns on it. That Santa reminds Holly and I both of my Mom.



My family likes to do lots of craft projects. My Grandma on my Mom's side had a cookie jar that all us kids remember from years ago. My Mom had one in our house as well. Both painted to their own liking and home surroundings. When I was away on my LDS mission for two years, my oldest sister Shelly and my Mom found the same ceramic Santa Cookie Jar. All my sisters, and my sister-in-law got together and made Santa Cookie Jar's for their own homes. My sister had me that Christmas back in 1994 and made me my own cookie jar for my home someday. Holly and I have enjoyed putting this under our Christmas Trees every year since we've been married.



Shelly also made me a fun elf another year for Christmas. She found a fun pattern and sewed this with my other sisters again. Most of us all have one of these holiday elf's in our homes. He looks fun situated on our new Eames white rocking chair.



The Christmas Tree pattern from Spode China is another holiday tradition from both our childhoods. Growing up, we always ate off the Spode China for the Christmas Eve buffet, and for every Sunday dinner in December. Holly's family also had pieces of Spode China too. We both remember the candy box growing up. This piece of china was discontinued 10-11 years ago. They've been very hard to find. I've been on a waiting list with a china company for years, waiting for one to show up from a store that has gone out of business or an estate that was acquired. I was able to find one in October of this year. I gave it to Holly for her Birthday. It's been a fun addition to our holiday this year, to have the candy box that reminds us both of our childhoods.



No Christmas is complete without decorating the kitchen. In our home, lots of stuff gets made in the kitchen at Christmas time and all year round. We've had fun gathering a few fun holiday tins to put out in the kitchen. I like this one by my KitchenAid stand mixer...