My Christmas Traditions - Blogmas Day 17

 Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Here we are at day 17! It doesn't feel like it is actually this close to Christmas yet. I am happy that I have most of my gifts, there are maybe a few more to buy, then I am done. As much as it is crazy and a bit stressful at times, I love this busy time of the year. Today I am sharing the Christmas traditions I love and look forward to all year round. These are the activities and moments that are so special to me and my family. I like that I also have some new traditions now with Liam that I enjoy and look forward to as well that we can go and do as a date night to enjoy time together during this time.

One of a Kind Show - Every year there is a craft show in Toronto called the One of a kind show from the end of November to the beginning of December. Last year it was cancelled due to Covid-19, this year they had it. We still didn't feel it was the right time to go this year. I hope that next year my mom, sister, and I can resume our tradition of walking around and browsing different booths and buying Christmas gifts.

Photo source

Distillery District Winter Village - We haven't gone in awhile, but going to the Distillery District in Toronto while their Winter village is running is so special. I used to go with my family every year and then it got so busy on weekends. It was also hard going at night after work. It would be nice to take a day off and go once things settle down with the pandemic and it is outdoors, so helps with social distancing.

Photo source

Decorating my parent's tree - Every year we would decorate the tree together and make it a celebration to start the Christmas season. My dad would go to the basement and bring up the Christmas tree and put the lights on. Then we would have dinner and then start decorating. Now that we are all in separate homes, my sister and I still like to go over to decorate our parent's tree. We have dinner together, then we listen to Christmas music and have treats while we decorate the tree. I look forward to this tradition in November to start off the holiday season. Look at their pretty tree below!

Moo sitting under the tree while we were decorating. 

Decorating my Christmas tree - I decorate my tree usually the week after I go to my parent's. This year was a bit different it was our first year with Millie here for Christmas so I put only the ornaments that weren't breakable. I have a lot of knitted ornaments now that worked well for this purpose. 

Here she is climbing up the tree a couple of days after we put it up. She hasn't been climbing as much as at first. She still sits under it and bats at ornaments. We keep an eye on her and sometimes she climbs down if we call out to her. She was climbing it a lot, so the lights get tangled and pulled down. But I try to adjust it and fix the tree so we can keep it in good shape.

Nights of Lights - We have a new tradition started last year which is Liam and I going to Nights of Lights in Vaughan. It is a light show set up outdoors and they have different fun displays to look at. Last year it was a drive thru and this year was a walk thru. It is so pretty looking at all the lights and walking through while they play music. This year there was a small market and food trucks. We got dinner there and I bought a couple of things from the market booths.

Christmas Eve  - Watching It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve. This started when I lived with my parents. We would go to church, then come home and open one gift of pajamas each. Then we would watch It's a Wonderful Life together until late usually until around 12. We would catch the end of the movie. This year I have a plan to start it in the afternoon once I am done work and get cozy on the couch and celebrate that I am done work for the holidays and that it is Christmas the next day. I am hoping to have all of my wrapping and tasks done by then to just relax. Then we can have dinner and open our pajamas later on and sit by the tree.

Photo source

Christmas day gift giving - Each year my family and I exchange gifts and we go around in a circle and each open the gift one by one. This used to last hours in the past when my sister and I lived at home and even now. I think we will be scaling back a lot more compared to what we usually did. It was so much fun to open so many gifts and also to see my family's reactions to the gift I gave them. It is something I look forward to most for Christmas.

I hope you enjoyed reading through my Christmas traditions and my memories. What is your favourite Christmas tradition? I hope to see you again tomorrow for blogmas day 18!

Have a great day!

Traditions at Christmas - Blogmas Day 23

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I love traditions. I think looking forward to traditions makes Christmas so fun and all the more special. Today I am sharing some of my favourite Christmas traditions that I take part in each year from events to what I eat and drink. There are so many traditions involved in Christmas and each family has their own special traditions that are unique to them.


Christmas crackers on Christmas Eve or Christmas day
Growing up, my parents would always have Christmas crackers for all of us to open on Christmas Eve. It was part of the fun we opened the crackers, then read out our jokes and got our small gifts and we'd put on our crowns.

My dad and I after opening our crackers a couple of years ago

Baileys in my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day coffee
On Christmas day, we like to put some baileys alcoholic beverage into our coffee to give our coffee that extra kick. It is so delicious. Liam bought some tonight and I was so happy because we were missing it for our tradition.

Hot drinks and warm knits

Opening and wearing new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve night
Every year we have to get those new comfy Christmas pajamas to wear to bed on Christmas Eve and then wear Christmas morning. It makes it feel so much more special having new pyjamas to wear. I bought Liam some this year and my mom gave me some to open Christmas eve as our tradition.

Liam and my pyjamas wrapped up last year Christmas 2018

Eating After Eight chocolates Christmas Eve
When I was young, we used to go to my grandparent's house on Christmas Eve and I have fond memories of eating After Eight chocolates whenever we went there. I like that I have this memory of my grandparents that I think of each year.

Cards first, then stockings, then gifts
Whenever I got to my parents for Christmas day, we each give out cards, then we can open our stockings, then we go to gifts last and we open the gifts one by one and watch each other open the gift.

Stockings hung and filled last year Christmas 2018

Santa Claus parade to kick off our Christmas celebrations
Every year my family and I like to go to the Christmas parade as a family and this is usually such a fun time watching the floats go by and dancing to the high school marching bands music. We always get our Starbucks festive drinks as well to keep us warm.

Santa passing through

Decorating my parent's Christmas tree
Every year my sister and I go over to my parent's house and we help to decorate our parent's Christmas tree. This is on the same day as the Santa Claus parade in the middle of the month of November. We have fun listening to music, drinking eggnog, and eating treats.

Moo checking out the tree

Going to the One of a Kind show in Toronto
At the end of November there is a One of a Kind craft show in Toronto and my mom, my sister, and I like to go and browse the stalls. Once and awhile we will find something to take home. It is so fun spending the time together and getting ideas for gifts.

One of a kind show 2018

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What are your favourite Christmas traditions? I can't believe Christmas Eve is tomorrow! I worked today and work half the day tomorrow, so I think I will get more into the Christmas spirit once I am done work for the holidays. Blogmas has been so fun, I am kind of sad it will be over Christmas day. I will continue posting blog entries more often after Christmas though. I also enjoy talking about New Year's resolutions and plans, so that will be fun. I hope to see you again tomorrow for my Christmas Eve plans Blogmas post!

Have a good day!

Family time, Knitting, and Reading On

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I have been busy with work, I trained on a new task to take over for my coworker in a different role while they are away. I have been doing the task for a couple of weeks now and maybe next week for a third. It was good learning something new and challenging myself.
I went to the Santa Claus parade last weekend with my family and we had a wonderful time I love this tradition we share every year. My sister and I used to go just the two of us, then once I moved out and life got more busy, my parents also joined in and we all started going every November. We also have the tradition of decorating my parent's Christmas tree the same day and it was fun to look at all the decorations that we put up every year and they bring back fond memories. We drink eggnog and eat chocolate and cookies and listen to Christmas music. My sister and I made up funny dance moves to some Christmas songs and we laughed at ourselves. It is a wonderful time of year. I love the family time spent together most of all. As I get older, especially this year I am thinking how I don't really need gifts I just love the traditions and the time spent with my family and Liam's family and it makes it so special. As you can see our cats were also interested in the Christmas tree and Moo enjoyed going under the tree.

Moo investigating the new tree

Roo just likes to be with my dad

Santa! I know him!

I have been knitting more of the candy cane scarf the pattern is found on Ravelry. I really wanted it to be done in time to wear to the parade, but I didn't knit it up in time. I will have it ready for the rest of the year's festivities and next Christmas I can wear it to the parade. It is a fun pattern and I love how the stripes are looking and are on an angle.

I got the needles I was waiting for in the mail last week and shared it on my Instagram story as some of you might have seen. I was so excited to get them. I ordered them off of Etsy, they are ChiaoGoo brand needles and are apparently make of surgical-grade stainless steel, they sounds pretty durable and good quality to me. I started using them to knit some of the shawl again and really liked using them they are flexible and lightweight and I like the feel of them. I will really enjoy using these. I am looking forward to knitting more of the shawl now that I have the needles. I got them from the FibreArtStudio shop on Etsy. They shipped from Vancouver, British Columbia. I ordered the 40 inch, size US 6, 4mm circular needles as the pattern calls for this size, but a shorter length. I went for longer needles to accommodate bigger projects as well in the future.

ChiaoGoo needles

I am currently reading Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin and really like it so far. I like how she describes the different types of people when it comes to habits: the upholder, questioner, obliger, and rebel and how people fit into these four categories. So far I think I am an obliger and I am looking forward to reading more.


Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On and As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday

Thanks for joining me this week and hope you have a good day!

Blogmas Day 24: Merry Christmas Eve and a DIY project

Hello Friends,

I hope you are enjoying the holidays. It is Christmas Eve today and it is another exciting day of the year. I worked this morning from home and then finished work at 1:30 pm which was nice. I then did some last minute Christmas shopping and then started wrapping some gifts. We just finished dinner and then we will start our celebrations soon.  My family have traditions that we have done each year. This year I spent Christmas Eve at our apartment with Liam and we are still going to be exchanging one gift later tonight which is something I did with my parents that I loved each year. Then watching my favourite movie "Its a Wonderful Life" later on with Liam.


Today I finished a very quick and easy DIY project to share with you. I made mason jar winter scenes.

 To make this DIY project you will need craft glue, some small trees, mason jars or plastic jars like I have, and some white plastic snow flakes.You can also add whatever else you would like such as glitter for the snow, figures, animal figures and more.

 I started by gluing the trees down onto the lids of the plastic containers. Then once those were dry I then added more glue onto the base and also onto the tree to add some snow onto the tree. Let it dry then screw the lids back onto the jars and then the project is finished.

Today I was wrapping some of my gifts for Liam and my family. Here are some of them and some that Liam wrapped for me. I still have some to wrap, I might be up a bit late tonight wrapping and preparing! 

 These are the two gifts Liam and I will be opening tonight. The blue bag is mine and the red wrapped box is Liam's. My mom gave me the blue bag because we have a tradition of opening pajamas on Christmas Eve and my mom got me some that I could wear tonight for Christmas.

 I have filled Liam's stocking up with a bunch of things so you can see how weighed down the stocking gets when it is full! Good thing it is not for too long or the stocking might stretch.

Thank you for seeing what I am up to this Christmas Eve! What are you doing on Christmas Eve? I love these traditions as well and look forward to the night before Christmas as well. I will be posting again tomorrow for the final day of blogmas for this year. I know many of  you will be busy as will I, so I wanted to say in case you don't see tomorrow's post in time...

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you enjoy the day with family and friends and enjoy the spirit of giving and sharing wonderful memories together. I have really enjoyed blogmas this year sharing with all of you and reading your comments. Have the best day tomorrow!

Have a great night!