A Colonial Christmas: This week we started a mini-unit on Christmas in colonial times. I am using bits and pieces of this unit study: Celebrate Christmas in Colonial America (though it's not very well organized, nor is it overly helpful), as well as my own material.

• We read Alice Morse Earle's description of Colonial Christmases from Christmas: Its Origin, Celebration and Significance As Related In Prose and Verse by Robert Haven Schauffler.
• We also began working our way through "The History of Christmas" by Rumer Godden, from The Reader's Digest Book of Christmas.
• The kids filled out a Graphic Organizer: Christmas Then and Now from Colonial Williamsburg's website.
• We reviewed George Washington’s Christmas list for his stepchildren in 1759: “A bird on Bellows, A Cuckoo, A turnabout parrot, A Grocers Shop, An Aviary, A Prussian Dragoon, A Man Smoakg, , A Tunbridge Tea Sett, 3 Neat Tunbridge Toys, A Neat Book fash Tea Chest, A box best Household Stuff, A straw Patch box w. a Glass, A neat dress'd Wax Baby."
• We tried our hand at colonial-style Christmas decorations, using greenery, pine cones, and fresh fruit accents. However, I got frustrated with this pretty quickly, so we gave up (and now have LOTS of fresh fruit and greenery laying around!). We also learned about the significance of the pineapple in colonial times.
• We started a new read aloud, The Christmas Surprise by Ruth Nulton Moore. The book is set in the Moravian community of Bethlehem, PA during the French and Indian War (in 1755). While this is jumping ahead a bit in history, I chose the book for its Christmasy theme.
  
  Bethlehem was founded in 1457 by a small group of Moravians. They represented what is now recognized as the oldest organized Protestant denomination in the world, the Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of the Brethren, founded in 1457 by followers of John Hus, a Roman Catholic priest who had tried to reform the Catholic Church. Hus was burned at the stake for his beliefs a full 100 years before Martin Luther's Reformation. His followers called themselves Moravians because many of the original founders came from the provinces of Moravia and Bohemia in central Europe, in what is now the Czech Republic. (Source)
• Other projects included: Dried Apple Ring Garlands (we burnt them!), Dried Fruit Ornaments (um, also burnt) and Scented Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments. These largely have nothing to do with colonial times, they were just fun to make.
• I made Wassail and Moravian Christmas Cookies.
• If I'm feeling ambitious enough this weekend, we'll be making Moravian Stars (a not-so-simple paper craft) and Moravian Love Feast Buns.
• Music: Lost Music of Early America: Music of the Moravians, A Colonial Christmas by Early Music New York and Wassail! Wassail! Early American Christmas Music by the Revel Players. 

Science

We had no time for science this week, but I did hear something very cool on NPR today that I plan to try in the (near) future. Here is a video that shows you how to grow your own snow crystals and here is a video on the "secrets of snowflakes." These would be perfect to go along with the book Snowflake Bentley, which is based on the life of William Bentley (his official website is here).

Personal Notes

This past week, I became the proud owner of both a NookColor and a Kindle (Christmas presents from DH, who despairs that books have taken over our house!). On my Nook, I've read Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini, 1395-1436, which was interesting, though not all I'd hoped for. Also, the 1890 classic How the Other Half Lives (Studies Among the Tenements of New York) by Jacob Riis (very good!). I am currently reading Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots by Scott Hahn.

On my Kindle, I am nearly finished with the utterly fascinating, The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play (the chapters on the Victorian obsession with Scheele's Green were especially interesting!). Next, I hope to start on The Library at Night.   

Cookies

• Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
• Sante's Hermit Cookies
• Triple Ginger Cookies (OR, Sparkling Ginger Chip Cookies)
• Chocolate-Ginger Crinkle Cookies (OR, Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps)
• Coconut Kisses
• Kahlúa Truffle Triangles
• Pain d'Épice Cookies
• Toffee Cookies with Dark Chocolate Glaze
• Under Her Thumb(print) Cookies
• Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints
• Chocolate Thumbprints (Martha Stewart)
• Shira's Cranberry Thumbprints
• Brandied Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Pfeffernussen
• Iced Hermits
• Rum Balls (OR, Spiced Rum Balls)
• Cranberry Noels (very good!)
• Almond-Orange Shortbread
• Butterscotch Cookies
• Double-Chocolate Snowball Cookies

Candy

• Candy Cane Marshmallows
• Peppermint Icicles (OR, Peppermint Sticks)
• Marbled Almond Roca
• Foolproof Holiday Fudge
• Irish Cream Truffle Fudge (OR, Ina Garten's Irish Cream Truffles)
• Chocolate-Orange Hazlenut Bark
• Gingerbread Caramels
• Grand Marnier Truffles
• Easy Chocolate Truffles
• Chocolate-Mint Truffle Cups (SO good!)
• Dark Chocolate Mint Rockie Road Squares
• Raspberry-Chocolate Toffee Bites
• Kentucky Bourbon Balls

Baking Day is a Christmas tradition in our household ~ the one tradition I've faithfully maintained since the children were wee babes. Unfortunately this year, as with virtually everything else I've tried to plan lately, it did not go quite right.

Our first recipe was for salt caramels. Elon took over this recipe at the last minute, neglected to watch the temperature carefully, and we ended up with hard butterscotch candy. Fortunately, the kids *love* butterscotch so this wasn't a total loss!

The next few recipes we attempted were all from Martha Stewart Cookies: Cocoa Shortbread Diamonds, Cranberry Noels and Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies. All three resulted in extremely dry crumbly dough - so crumbly that it was virtually unworkable. This is a problem that I've never experienced before and I'm still puzzled by it! I added a bit of milk to each and stuck them in the fridge to chill, though I'm nervous to see what will happen when I try to roll them out and/or bake them.

Next, we mixed up some Nice 'n Soft Sugar Cookie dough and had the same stupidly dry dough issue. At this point I was feeling pretty frustrated, but luckily we had some success with another recipe: Cranberry and White Chocolate cookies. We also mixed up some gingerbread dough, which is currently chilling.

So...our baking day evolved into two days of very little actual baking. I still have a counter piled high with cookie and candy making supplies, so I'll have to find some additional recipes to try after work today, hopefully with better luck. We still have truffles to make and, of course, a fridge full of dough that I'll need to deal with sooner or later.
We did take a break on Saturday afternoon to assemble the gingerbread house we'd purchased:

However, we never managed to get to any of the other Christmas craft projects I'd planned. I have a basket full of new craft supplies, just waiting for some attention. Sigh. I suppose there's always tomorrow...

This week went nothing like I'd planned! I realized halfway through the week that I'd forgotten to post our Week Three Advent plans (for this week). In the end, that's probably a good thing, because we didn't get much accomplished. The feasts of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Santa Lucia kept me very busy last weekend, so by Monday I was ready for a more relaxed schedule.

On Monday, we read Per and the Dala Horse and The Tomten. I had planned that we would make tomten ornaments, bake cookies in traditional Swedish shapes and paint Dala horses, but we only managed to start painting the Dalas because *I* got terribly sidetracked and had Elon cut out a bunch of little gnomes/tomtes with the scroll saw to paint.
On Wednesday, the kids studied their CLAA material and we read The Night of Los Posadas by Tomie dePaola. I had to finalize my Christmas Day menu, since we'll be having family at our house this year, and we also planned our Christmas baking.
On Thursday, the twins helped out at the Salvation Army toy distribution all day and had a blast (they're hoping to help out at a soup kitchen next week). An added bonus was that they made the evening news. :-)

And that brings us to today, which is our annual Christmas baking day. Honestly this week has gone by so quickly, I hardly feel prepared, but here's what we'll be making today (and probably tomorrow as well):

• Chocolate-Mint Truffle Cups
• Salted Caramels and Salted Chocolate Caramels
• Chocolate Thumbprints
• Buttery Pecan Rounds
• Cranberry Noels
• Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies
• Coffee Toffee
• Gingerbread Men
• Sugar Cookies

Suffice it to say, I think we're on Christmas break since very little school work got done this week! This weekend we've got tons of craft projects to get done as well, things that we didn't get to previously, so I'll be posting those as we get through them.
One last note ~ we ended up with two copies of Per and the Dala Horse by Rebecca Hickox, because I forgot that I'd ordered a used copy on Amazon, and purchased a copy while in Lindsborg. If anyone would like the extra (new) copy, please leave a comment & on Monday we'll randomly pick someone to send it to. It's really a very beautiful little book!

Another week has been completed and eagerly I continue to look ahead, still prayerfully hoping for 'smoother sailing' with our school work.

First, our new schedule was fairly successful. Ironically, *I* struggled with it more than anybody! Dominic and Jaymon began waking up at 5 AM each morning, and then waking me up. This meant that I didn't get enough sleep all week, and woke up sick yesterday. Hopefully next week will go a bit more easily.

We had another fairly light week of school, but I think I've come to terms with the fact that until the Advent and Christmas seasons are over, that's okay. Everyone started on a new concept in Math this week, which kept us fairly busy and stressed out. We began our study of the Church in the Early Middle Ages (briefly reviewing what we'd learned about the Desert Fathers), learning about the organization of the church and it's vital role in Medieval Europe. We discussed how worship of God and honor of the saints provided a framework for much of medieval life, the rhythms of the year being closely tied to the liturgical calendar. Some good information on the Medieval liturgical year can be found here and, more briefly, here. We continued reading An Introduction to the Liturgical Year by Inos Biffi (a preview can be found here).

We also started reading St. Benedict: Hero of the Hills by Mary Fabyann Windeatt and Life in a Medieval Abbey by Tony McAleavy (a wonderful and very thorough book!). We learned a little about the Liturgy of the Hours, which St. Benedict helped to organize, and the Rule of St. Benedict. The summation of his rule, and the motto of the Order of St. Benedict, is "Ora et Labora" - "Pray and Work." I particularly liked this explanation from the Monastery of the Holy Spirit:

"Benedict was following earlier monastic rules of life when he legislated a lifestyle balancing liturgical prayer, private prayer, study of Scripture, and manual labor, with equal time per day allotted to each activity. The insistence upon manual labor as an intrinsic part of the life had three main sources. First, work is an ascetical exercise: it expels idleness. Second, it recognizes an obligation toward neighbor: the monk should not be a burden on others, and he should also give alms to the needy. Finally, earning one's own living while in the service of the Lord follows the examples of the apostles. All three reasons are integral to the prime concern of seeking God. Ideally, while working, monks continue to pray, meditating upon the lectio and the Divine Office, thus exemplifying the goal of Ora et labora."

We will be learning more about the Rule of St. Benedict as we continue our study of the early Church and monasticism in the weeks to come.

This week the first few supplies for the kids' electives showed up. Elon received his Snap Circuits Extreme Version ~ SC-750 and Dominic received his Bamboo Pen & Touch tablet. Jaymon also received a demo CD of Rosetta Stone, which he and Dominic will be using (along with other resources) to study Japanese. In addition, I ordered the complete set of drawing books for them from Manga University, which I expect to arrive today or tomorrow. I've been allowing Dominic some time to experiment with his tablet and Photoshop, and Elon has already gone through numerous Snap Circuits projects - despite my repeated requests that he just hold on. Poor Maddie is still waiting for me to decide on a suitable drawing/fine arts program for her, though I'm finally closer to a decision. I received a new Seton catalog this past week and the Ginger Himes Art Series looks quite tempting (Atelier is another possibility).

I've made a few additional modifications to our curriculum for the year, to compensate for those things which simply have not worked for us. I'll be detailing these changes in a later post, but most notably, I've added online classes with the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. The kids will each be taking Classical Catechism I, Classical Grammar I (which includes Latin) and Classical Arithmetic (in fact, three of them are studying their arithmetic, with much enthusiasm, now!), while I will be taking a Praeceptor I training class. I've spent hours reading through every single article and post on the CLAA website and Online Family Forum and am both thrilled and honored to be a part of such a wonderful school. While I know the work will be a challenge, it is a challenge that I look forward to!

For Advent, we had a very nice Feast of St. Nicholas ~ the chocolate-dipped candy cane stir sticks were especially popular, though they were eaten as candy more often than they were used to stir cocoa!

For the Feast of St. Ambrose, the children enjoyed decorating candles:

I decided not to make any honey cake, since we still had *plenty* of baked goods left over from our St. Nicholas Day celebration.

On Tuesday, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. My lily cupcakes left a lot to be desired (I was exhausted when I baked them), but were quite delicious.

On Wednesday, we were supposed to read The Legend of the Candy Cane, and make our own candy canes. Instead, we read about the Star of Bethlehem and made window stars (which are tricky to photograph!). We'll be having our 'candy cane day' sometime next week.

Lastly, while we read and learned about Christmas oranges, the children *ate* their oranges before we had a chance to make pomanders. Sigh.

This weekend promises to be VERY busy with the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (+ National Poinsettia Day) and the Feast of St. Lucy. I just hope I'm feeling better so that I can manage everything!