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18 Days Until Christmas - Fun Family Games

This Week's Gift Theme: Gifts for Families

Gift idea: Family Friendly Games

Makes a good gift for: Families, adults and kids alike

I like to pass along the gift of games that I enjoy playing. Cranium is a great game for groups of all ages. I have played it with kids and with groups of all adults, and it never fails to result in a good time.

Cranium - $29.99

Another fun idea is a set of Table Topics cards, which range in topics from kid-friendly, to questions for couples and grandparents:

Uncommon Goods - Table Topics - $25.00

For an adults-only gift, Cards Against Humanity is a hilarious game that is great for parties. You can buy the card game for someone online as a gift, or you can print the cards out from the website for free and cut out the cards. This game is similar to Apples to Apples which is another great game that can be educational for kids, and just down right funny for adults to play together. Apples to Apples also has an adult version, but I have never played it.

I came across this game on one of my favorite shopping sites, uncommongoods.com, and this looks like a really awesome game that kids and adults alike could enjoy: http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/spectrix-game

Uncommon Goods - Spectrix Game - $15.00

Twelve Days on TV

KXII, a Dallas-area CBS station, recently did a show on educational Christmas gifts for kids. They featured our Twelve Days Gift Boxes -- and our Twelve Days of Classic Toys gift set, as one of their favorite items.

Watch the segment here:

Santa's Cohorts and Predecessors

Saint Nicholas

Santa Claus is not alone in Christmastime activities. In fact, today, December 6, is St. Nicholas Day. St. Nicholas is the patron saint and protector of children and of sailors (or voyagers). December 6 is St. Nicholas' Feast Day, and is the main gift-giving day in some parts of Europe. As was discussed earlier on the blog, St. Nicholas' day is also celebrated on the eve of the day, December 5. St. Nicholas' day is celebrated in various ways - by sharing candies or small gifts, and in the Netherlands, children leave carrots and hay in their shoes for the saint's horse, hoping the horse-food will be exchanged for a gift. This practice is quite similar to the American practice of leaving out cookies for Santa Claus, and perhaps some carrots for his reindeer. (Of course the line can be drawn between "Old St. Nick" and our modern day Santa Claus). In our family, we awake on December 6 to the magical present of new socks on the front porch filled with walnuts and small oranges.

Image: St. Nicholas by Susan Seals

If you would like to learn more about St. Nicholas, please go to the St. Nicholas Center website, which is full of great information about the Saint.

The Ladies of Winter: Frau Holle and Frau Berchta/Perchta

Frau Holle (meaning "kind lady") is a winter time character of Germanic heritage. Frau Holle dresses in glistening white and carries keys that unlock all doors. She makes her journey during the Twelve Nights to carry out her judgments and dispense gifts to the deserving. In days gone by, she was revered as the protector of children and the patron of spinning and other "women's work." The winter weather was equated with her daily activities: it rained on her washing day, thundered as she spun, and soft snow fell when she shook out her featherbed.

All spinning work had to be completed and the house spotlessly cleaned by Christmas Eve so that Frau Holle would not be displeased when she arrived on her rounds during the Twelve Nights. She would tangle the threads of any incomplete work but reward the industrious by filling empty spindles and leaving treats of her favorite apples and nuts for good children. Some might be especially fortunate and find a coin that dropped from her unfurled cape during her visit.

Frau Holle's counterpart in more southern alpine areas was Frau Berchta or Frau Perchta (meaning "bright, shining lady") who also roamed the countryside and entered homes during the Twelve Nights. She generally had the more frightening appearance of a witch and meted our harsher punishments to the lazy, but the old crone still had a soft spot for those who had been good during the year, leaving nuts and sugarplums or placing a small silver coin in the shoes before departing.

Image: Winter, 1896, by Alphonse Maria Mucha

Elves

In Nordic folklore, mischievous elves arrive before Christmas one by one and depart one by one each day beginning on December 25, with the last elf leaving on January 6. Although the elves may still try to play tricks on people, nowadays their main task is to leave a series of small gifts in children's shoes placed on the windowsill.

Image: from The Helpful Elves by August Kopisch

Odin

Over the centuries Odin changed from a fearsome war-lord to a charitable Santa Clause-esque fellow. Odin now might leave a loaf of bread at a poor family's home, based on information he gathered by eavesdropping from the shadows at the edge of the Yule fire (again, much like Santa, he knows what you are up to). Children began to look forward to Odin's visits during the Twelve Nights, leaving straw in their shoes for his magic eight-legged horse (perhaps a precursor to Santa's eight reindeer) in the hopes of finding small gifts and treats as rewards for their good behavior during the past year.

There is more information on Odin available on Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Mythica, and Ancientmythology.com.

For more on Odin's role as a pre-cursor to Santa Claus, check out this Wikipedia page, this article from Examiner.com, and this article on helium.com.

Image: Odin the Wanderer, 1896, by George von Rosen

The Three Kings

On the night of January 5, the Twelfth Night of Christmas and the eve of Epiphany, the Three Kings astride their camel, horse and elephant, leave presents in the straw-filled shoes of children and adults across Spain, Mexico, Latin America and other parts of the spanish-speaking world.

Image: The Adoration of the Magi, 1674, by Jan de Bray

La Befana

On the same night that the Three Kings are visiting spanish-speaking children, Italian children are visited by La Befana, a benevolent old woman with magical powers. Legend says she helped the Wise Men during their journey but only belatedly decided to follow them after she finished her sweeping. She flies with a straw broom, enters homes through the chimney, and leaves gifts of candied fruit, sweets, and toys in children's socks even if they are not the one holy child she seeks.

More information on La Befana on Wikipedia and about.com.

Babushka

A similar story is told about the grandmotherly Russian Babushka, who delays accompanying the Three Kings until the tidies her house. She sets off with her gifts but also never catches up, tenderly leaving a gift for each sleeping child she finds, ever hopeful.

Apparently there is an award winning children's book on Babushka (or Baboushka) by Ruth Robbins. Its available on Amazon.

19 Days Until Christmas - Extraordinary RC Toys

Gift idea: Wi-Fi/RC Toys

Makes a good gift for: Kids and kids at heart, techies

RC cars have come a long way since I was a kid! Two of these fancy toys are controlled by an app on your iphone or ipad! I would be pretty stoked to get any of these toys, and I might even be convinced to share some time behind the wheel with any actual kids who might want to try. Point being, anyone who is not dead inside would have a good time behind the wheel of one of these bad boys:

App-controlled Wi-Fi race car:

App-Controlled WiFi Racer - $49.99

RC Helicopter:

Remote Control Cloud Force Helicopter - $39.99

App-controlled tank:

App-Controlled Wireless Spy Tank - $149.99

Twelve Days of Christmas-Themed Gifts

Over here at Twelve Days, we are clearly Twelve Days nerds. That being said, we are also rather picky about Twelve Days of Christmas-Themed gifts. The Twelve Days of Christmas song and its imagery are a beloved part of Christmas, but as with any Christmas motif, it can be overdone.

One of my favorite things to unpack from the Christmas decoration boxes every year is this Twelve Days of Christmas pop-up book by Robert Sabuda:

here are some images of the pop-ups inside:

The pictures really do not do it justice. I am 29 years old and I love flipping through this book multiple times every Christmas season, and I can only imagine the delight it would bring to kids of all other ages! You can buy it on Amazon for $17.79, but I bet lots of book stores will have it in stock this Christmas too.

Last year Pottery Barn did this Partridge in a Pear Tree Salt and Pepper Shaker set, which sold out way before Christmas, but its back this year:

Pottery Barn Partridge in a Pear Tree Salt and Pepper Shaker Set - $35.50

In fact, Pottery Barn has a whole set of serving ware based on the song.

Other pieces that I think are particularly cute are these Five Golden Rings Napkin Rings:

Pottery Barn Five Golden Rings Napkin Rings - $24.50 for a set of four

and these Ten Lords a Leaping Place Card Holders:

Pottery Barn Ten Lords a Leaping Place Card Holders -$45.50 for a set of ten

Another great Twelve Days themed gift I came across was this set of hand-carved rubber stamps with all of the characters from the song:

Paperfruithair on Etsy - set of twelve stamps $74.89 (individual stamps range in price from about $7 to $9).

If you keep your eye out I am sure you can find other tastefully dont Twelve Days of Christmas-themed gifts in stores and boutiques near you!

I hope that Saint Nicholas leaves goodies for you in your shoes tonight, as he does for good boys and girls in parts of Europe on the night before Saint Nicholas Day - December 6. For more information on Saint Nicholas and some other less known Christmas time "characters" check back tomorrow!

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