Monday, December 19, 2011

What to offer for Christmas

Christmas is around the corner, but if you step into my apartment, you will not sense that we are in Decembre: there is no Christmas tree, no advent calender, nor a nativity scene (crèche). I'm simply not motivated for these kind of things, and I have a very good excuse: these French / Christian related traditions are the responsible of hubby, not mine. :-) Ok, seriously, I don't want to buy advent calendar because I don't want Aelig to eat too much chocolates, but I think kids could have so much fun on this so I don't want to take it away from Aelig. So, next year I will buy a cloth one and put chocolates plus maybe homemade cookies inside.

Getting presents is fun but we also have to crack our head to think of things to offer to family members. Hubby is someone who loves surprises so he never has Christmas list. But I think he is losing the game. Year after year I have instilled the practical side to my in laws family (ok his brother too) so now they call to ask what we want for Christmas. I give my suggestion for whoever asked for, I prefer to do it this way so that I won't receive gifts that I would never used. Now, getting presents for grandmas and in laws are really hard as they seem to already have everything.

So, recently, I have discovered one of the gifts that will sure please my family here: photo album or calender using Aelig as the model.

In the photo, family members were looking at the custom-made calender during last Christmas. It was a huge success, everyone hangs it in their place.

During grandma's 90th birthday, I made a photobook that included all her family members. It took me a while to assemble photos from all the cousins, uncles, aunties...it was very time consuming, but the result was satisfying. She loved it so much that she called to thank me personally. She told me that she has hard time remembering birthday of everyone so this year I made her a calender that lists everyone's birthday by month.

As for my MIL, she would be happy with anything related to Aelig, so for her birthday, I made her an album, listing Aelig's photos and developments every month during her first year. She displays it in her living room.

Our CE gave us gift checks for Christmas. I want to spend it on Aelig's gifts, but I don't know what to buy her yet. Her toys are slowly invading our living spaces.

Louis Vuitton sent me a catalog. Too bad, I don't think I could afford one and I don't think I will ever get this from hubby.

Just a small advertising if you love French pastries and you read Chinese. My friend, a Taiwanese married to a French, wrote a book about French desserts. This could be a great gift to anyone who would like to venture into French pastries (such as Macaron). She can send it within France or you could order from this website. She just had an interview with OuestFrance, the article will be published on 19th Dec and 26th Dec.

Merry Christmas to everyone: eat well, party well and have plenty of presents.

3 comments:

  1. aelig is so cute!

    renaye
    http://renaye.nutang.com

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  2. merry christmas and happy new year :) i have enjoyed ur blog this year and hope to do the same in 2012 so jia you o!

    btw, it is dong zhi today, so 冬至快乐,岁岁平安。

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  3. you know what, whenever I go shopping, I will buy stuff or things that I might use as Christmas presents .. or I will take note of small details in everyday life,and if I see the thing like, I will keep them for Christmas presents too. So, I shop for Christmas presents all year around:)

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