I stole your idea NightOwl!

[julecav]

I started talking to my girls with a brogue this morning.  You should hear them trying to copy the pitiful accent I'm using.  Oldest DD sounds like an Italian that lives in Minnesota and younger DD just keeps calling me lady.  I'm having a ball.  Thanks!!

[NightOwl]

I started talking to my girls with a brogue this morning.  You should hear them trying to copy the pitiful accent I'm using.  Oldest DD sounds like an Italian that lives in Minnesota and younger DD just keeps calling me lady.  I'm having a ball.  Thanks!!

OH, jule, :S  So glad your family is having fun with this!!  What a wonderful compliment for someone   with memories of dear bygone  days when I had  the chance to  make my girls laugh at their Mama's lighthearted antics.  Thank you so much!  Wish you could have seen my smile when I saw this delightful post.  

Perhaps you already know of, or already do some of the following: when my brother and I were young, our mother used to start a week or so before Easter leaving a jellybean or two or a small wrapped candy, or even a little wisp of Easter grass, under our pilliows or in some unexpected place in the house--telling us that the Easter Bunny  must SURELY be hiding somewhere in the house.  Of course, I continued this with my girls and in the same spirit  added a tiny sprinkle of candy corn here and there from "The Great PUmpkin" just before Hallowe'en.  My girls found something very special  about this kind of tradition.

The one I still treasure the most--also started by my mother--was "letters to the Smoke Fairies"  We did this at Christmas--little brother and I  had Mother act as secretary before we could write, and later wrote our own little  lists of things we'd like for Christmas, then gave them to Mama and she would carefully burn them in our woodstove or fireplace and tell us the SmokeFairies would deliver them to Santa for us.

(Our lists were never very long--times were simpler then--and we didnt always get what was on the list but my mother explained that Santa  had many children to visit and needed to make sure that none of them were forgotten, so we  had to "share" some of our gifts with others.  I dont remember us being upset about this, but our main Christmas emphasis was always on the magic and the  love rather than just on "what I can get.")
 

In my battered old recipe box, I still have some of my girls' letters to the fairies.   MY favorite is by my  7 year old Elisa writing for her 4 YO sister, giving a long list of things she hoped Santa would bring for Alice and then ending by saying, "...and for me anything you want to bring."     (Yes, I cheated and didnt really burn all their letters, they were too precious to send up the chimney  )  Sometimes when I am looking for an old recipes, I come across these letters and smile, and yes, get a tear in my eye--those  years passed so quickly.

[B-flat]

Why worry with jelly beans and candy stuff for Easter?  Just say that the Easter Bunny is going to come.  Every year down on the farrm, I would tell my small children to be watching for the Easter Bunny.  Usually he would appear sometime over in the afternoon either the day before Easter or on Easter Day.  My folks are still wondering how I was able to pull off that little brown bunny showing up in the yard around Easter.  One year we were at N. Myrtle Beach and the Easter Bunny came there, too.  My family still doubles over in laughter telling about that one!  There was a big mound of sand covered with a lot of shrubs and sea oats and other stuff just right for a bunny to live in and I had noticed the rabbit there, so I stuck by my story (even if I was skeptical) that the bunny would come at the beach too.  Sure enough, about the edge of dark, there was the bunny sitting there watching for any sign of movement.  The kids would stay very still to get to watch the bunny for as long as possible because they learned that any attempt to sneak up on that Easter Bunny would result in his running away very quickly.

[julecav]

Actually at our house that darn bunny leavs foorprints all over the house.  I can remember my mom complaining about the EB not wiping his feet.  It was one of my happiest mom memories the first year I got to leave bunny prints.  There was only one year that this was difficult because we had snow on Easter.  I had to dig in a house plant.  My oldest DD wrote to Santa for the first time this year and she didn't ask for a thing she just told him that she loves him and she hoped he had a safe trip and that she would leave a snack for him and the reindeer.  We have a very good friend who is DD#2's godmother and a unofficial grandma to all 3 kids who started a tradition abouth the elf who checks up on the kids for Santa.  A few weeks before Christmas they find a little tiny gift somewhere in the house from the elf.  She did this with her mom and passed the tradition on to my kids because she doesn't have any of her own.  I love the smoke fairies idea Nightowl!  We will be moving to a larger house at the end of April and the new house has a fireplace.  I'll definately try that at Christmas Time.  What lucky kids you have to grow up with such a creative fum Mom.

[NightOwl]

Oh, hey, jc, I meant to ask an important question--IS YOUR TONGUE UNTANGLED YET?  (Those darned leprachauns sometimes forgot to end my spell for a day or two  and my poor kids had to live for a few extra hours now and then with a mother who started all her remarks to them with  "begorrah")   :eek:  :J

It is so wondrful for me to read the great things others do to leave their kids with happy memories of a mom (grandmother or godmother:) ) who had fun making special days even more special.  My own mother has been gone now for amost 20 years but her many  loving extra  touches still warm my heart.

I LOVE the bunny prints and the elf  magic!!  Wish I still had kids at home to use them on--(big sigh here) but so happy to know I can pass your  elf and rabbit prints ideas on to friends and family and also  to know I might have contributed an idea or two to add to your family's sweet holiday rituals.)

You will have such fun making traditions and special memories in your new home.  Be sure to let us know how it all goes. :W   :S

[tlhdoc]

At Christmas Jingle the elf would hide in our house.  Every once in a while I would get a peek of Jingle running to hide.  Several years DS also saw Jingle and would came running to tell me where he saw him.  The other thing we would do is make magic reindeer dust.  We would take oatmeal and add just a pinch of glitter to it.  Shake it up and then sprinkle it on the front yard so that the reindeer would be able to find our house.  While we sprinkled the dust we would say

"Reindeer, reindeer, come this way.
I was a good boy so please stop on your way.
When you get here you will have some oats to eat.
Reindeer, reindeer please stop and play.