As you may (or may not) have noticed, I have been a little AWOL for an entire week! That's because things are starting to get into full swing on the dance school front. The middle of August means summer intensives for the students (which also means teaching everyday from 9am til 5pm) and meetings and brain storming for the faculty. So that's where I've been. Starting September 1st my schedule will level out and I'll post more. For the next two weeks, though, I'll probably only be doing one post a week, more than likely on Sundays.
Anywho! Well, it's the 25 of the month and you know what that means!!!! Rudolph Day and 4 months, or 122 days, til Christmas!!! So with that comes a Christmas prep post!
Before I begin I want to share with you all some of the Christmas organizing websites I frequent. These will REALLY come in handy for those of you with little ones. I use them because we love to entertain at least once during the holiday season and these sites give you a helpful little timeline of when you have to get things done in order to keep your sanity during the holidays.
Christmas Organizing
Organized Christmas Holiday Grand Plan- I really like this one!!! It helps get your ENTIRE home clean for the holidays! Its like spring cleaning in the fall!
101 Days to Christmas
They all start the preps next month so that's proof that I'm NOT off my rocker and it really is time to start preparing!
Ok! On to the real reason for the post...
As I was researching recipes to include in this post, I kept coming across beautiful Christmas illustrations by Norman Rockwell. So needless to say, what started out as a recipe post became a vintage Christmas image board of sorts. Not a typical preparation post but one meant to prep your spirit instead.
How amazing are these December covers of the Saturday Evening Post? All from the 1940s and by Norman Rockwell. Images are from The Saturday Evening Post.
Then there are these from various time periods.
Don't these pictures evoke images of the perfect Christmas in your mind?
They have a sort of innocence and magic about them. Some of the pictures make you remember Christmas as it was in your childhood. When you knew that anything was possible and that OF COURSE a jolly old man could some how squeeze himself down your chimney (and find other routes if you had no chimney).
Others are a more realistic, adult view of Christmas. One that is exhausting but fulfilling at the same time. Even though at some point, most adults stop believing in Santa Claus, they still believe in the magical feeling that only Christmas can bring. That even when all is wrong with your world, a little Christmas spirit can do wonders.
Then there are us adults that have never given up on the child like idea of Christmas. There are those of us who still believe in Santa and who believe in keeping the spirit of Christmas the whole year long. Christmas, after all, is the time of year when everyone is just a tad nicer and just a bit more loving and giving. I think the world would be a much better place if EVERYONE were able to keep that Christmas feeling the year round. After all, at the end of the day, aren't we all looking to be more loving, more giving and kinder to our fellow man?
I guess that is the real reason I'm so in love with the holiday. Not because of gifts wrapped in red and green paper or decking the halls and shopping for the perfect gift, but because I live a life where I strive to be better to people than I was the day before. Where I want to look for the beauty in everything that life brings. Christmas represents that for me. So I celebrate year round!!! YES, even in August!!!!!
I'm still working on a recipe post with recipes from the 40s but that will have to wait until next month. I have a lot of goodies up my sleeves for the upcoming posts leading to December. I can't wait to share them with you!
"Christmas is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas."- Dale Evans
xoxo
I think that of all the months in the countdown to Christmas, this is the one where the juxtaposition between the seasons seems the strongest. We've just gotten through the bulk of the summer, are still contending with sweltering temps and wearing breezy warm weather threads, yet in just four short months, the world will be covered in snow and we'll be merrily hanging stockings again. I love this - that we can go from one to the other in just four short months - and am already thinking about Christmas, big time, myself as well.
ReplyDelete♥ Jessica