Saint Nick's Day

I stumbled upon this music video by Matthew West on Saint Nicholas Day and felt compelled to share.

24 Days 'til Christmas

Somehow, it's already the 1st of December! You know what this means? That there are only 31 short days left to enjoy 2010! This also means that the time has officially come to open the first window in your chocolate-calendar-countdown (or time to make an even better countdown of your own).

To help you get into the holiday spirit, I've complied a list of my Top-11 (couldn't narrow it down to an even 10) Christmas Movies: 1. It's a Wonderful Life (if you have time to watch only one movie this holiday season, you should make it this one); 2. Miracle on 34th Street (the original version); 3. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (he had a very shiny nose); 4. The Polar Express (beautiful animation); 5. Elf ("The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!"); 6. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown (you should also look into the soundtrack); 7. The Holiday (any chick flick enjoyed by both my fiance and I is automatically a good movie in my book); 8. I'll Be Home for Christmas (favorite scene: when one of characters is trying to serenade his wife in a diner and a cow outside starts mooing), 9. Frosty the Snowman (I never liked the sequel, but the first one is great); 10. The Family Stone (you may need a box of tissues for this one); and last but not least 11. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (to get the Cindy Lou-Who look, all you've got to do is place a plastic bottle on your head, wrap your hair around it, and fasten with a hair tie).


So there you have it, folks. My best list of Christmas movies to keep you occupied the whole holiday season long!

And the countdown begins....

The first day of Advent has arrived once again, meaning there are less than four weeks until Christmas! To mark the beginning of the holiday season, Dr. Lynch and Debbie bought a nativity scene for the dining room and Ed constructed a lovely Advent wreath from empty wine bottles (we've really caught on to the "Go Green" iniatives here at Le Prieure) and some natural foliage he found outside. Though I do miss the holiday jingles I'd be listening to on 97.1 fm if I were home right now, I've enjoyed recognizing the start of Advent without being surrounded by all the commericial ideas of Christmas.


Are you doing anything special to get ready for the holidays this year? I just love the idea of performing 24 acts of kindness every day through Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

When 10+ people in one place drink wine with their dinner on a nightly basis, it's not too difficult to build a nice collection of wine bottles. As such, I was inspired (by an online crafts blog) to build a Christmas tree out of wine bottles awhile back. Few people in the monastery believed that this would actually happen; I'm just here to show you the pictures:




It took Gabe and I about six hours to put the whole thing together today. Using only a picture for reference, I am so glad that our project ended successfully. Once we were able to figure out how to build a sturdy base (a broken chair, a square piece of metal, 2 screws, and some nails are all you need) the rest just seemed to fall into place. Now we'll have a tree when so many of our friends back home go to pick one out the weekend following Thanksgiving! But who needs to chop down a tree when you can just recycle one?

Cheers to the upcoming holiday season!