Some Enchanted Things

Well after my little detour into the magical world of rocking horses, here I am back on track with my Christmas gift ideas. After a while you might begin to notice a certain style to the things I put up. I have this little theory that if children are exposed to simplicity and beauty at an early age it will help them as they go along in life to be able to discern what is real and authentic. I have noticed a definite, if subtle, coarsening of children's 'culture' since my eldest was born in that for example, children's TV presenters have become less gentle, less likely to talk in turn, more likely to shout over people, more brashly dressed. I don't really think it's just me as I have some old VCR tapes of 'stuff' I recorded about 15 years ago and I can see that difference.

Anyhooo...my thinking is that if there is exposure to beautiful and gentle music, simple images and toys that are not an assault to every sense, children will have the chance to process things more clearly. Beauty is attractive. Now I'm not talking here about a beautiful face, through what is more beautiful than the human face and body...which is why art students spend so much time and study in mastering their ability to capture the human form.

On the subject of human beauty, my father always considered himself very lucky as there have always been small children in his life. Firstly he was the eldest of a large family and clearly remembers his youngest siblings as babies. Then he had his own large family and no sooner were they half reared than grandchildren began to arrive and now he's dipping into generation number four with the arrival of his first great-grandchild this time last year. He said once that babies are a glimpse of Heaven and he's right you know. You never really get fed up of studying and loving the minutiae of a baby's face, from the tiny downy hairs to the little veins under the perfect skin and just gaze at the wonder of the child, whether he or she has been born with amazing 'perfection' or whether that extra (special) chromosome has inadvertently slipped in there, or whether there's maybe half a heart...each one their own little perfection.

So simplicity and beauty...quite often my criteria in choosing for children (or myself), though I fully admit to my children being exposed many's the time to the shouting ambiance of Saturday morning TV while I either catch up on sleep or nurse that first blissful cup of coffee in the kitchen away from them all.

With that in mind, here are today's offerings:

GIFT IDEA 4: FOLKMANIS PUPPETS

When I decided to begin getting puppets for our children, I searched high and low trying to track down some that weren't either downright ugly or scary. This was before the days of internet shopping and I have to tell you I never found any which I actually wanted to buy apart from some simple animal ones. Finally after years of looking and with the help of Google, I can tell you the nicest puppets in the world, in my opinion are the Folkmani Puppets.

These award winning puppets come in all types of animals and fantasy characters. They are not overpriced and come as finger, glove and larger sizes for stage or classroom. This advert gives just a tiny taste.

Check out their website http://www.folkmanis.com/ to see them all but here's a few photos to start you off...

In my experience, money spent on puppets is never wasted and I don't think I have ever thrown one out unless it's head fell off and was beyond repair. The Folkmanis ones are the sort I can imagine I will be keeping for my grandchildren.

GIFT IDEA 5: THE ENCHANTED DOLL'S HOUSE

For the right child or adult who is interested in the whole world of dollhouses or book collectors, this series of books would be the perfect gift. Santa Claus brought these two books on consecutive years and our daughter who was the recipient treasures them and takes them out from time to time to enter into the imaginary world of a time gone by. Just beautiful. The covers are made of a sort of embossed velvet which just feels luxurious and special before you even open the book and you can also purchase paper dolls to go with the books to make them even more complete.

I'll leave it at that for today so you can enjoy the Folkmanis website...

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I Don't Like To Say It, But Christmas Is Approaching.

One day last year around the end of November or the beginning of December I posted a little link on Facebook to something I thought would be a nice Christmas gift for someone to give. It got such a good reaction that I decided thereafter to post a gift idea every day of something I thought was either a good buy, something I, or one of the children, had received and loved or indeed, something I had bought for myself and loved. A lot of my facebook friends loved the ideas but said it was a bit too late for them as they (like me) had already completed all their shopping.

Personally I'd like to have most things organised, bought, baked or cleaned by the start of Advent.

I said I'd LIKE to, not I DO!! :-)

The thinking behind this is so that by advent all toy catalogues, talk of get ,get, get and I want, I want, I want can be banished from the house and the children, and us, can actually spend Advent properly preparing for Christmas. Some year, that's what I hope will happen, though it almost happened a few years ago and it was the most relaxed Christmas we ever had.

So over the next few posts I'll be rehashing the ideas I posted last year and then after that I'll post some of the lovely things I have come across since then. I am fully aware of how tight budgets are and so most things will be either inexpensive or else worth the investment. I hope John reads this as I'm going to post at the end the pressie I want him to buy for ME!! :-)

So here's the first few items, I hope you can grab some ideas from them or at least set you off on the exciting path of finding the right pressie for the right person..

Oh and by the way, one thing you won't be seeing here is Christmas being called 'Holiday'.

GIFT IDEA 1: WORRY DOLLS

One of our girls is the world's greatest worrier, she has spent many's the hour pacing the floor in anticipation of the most bizarre things that MIGHT (though HIGHLY unlikely to) happen. The same girl is one of the best at kicking in and taking charge with efficiency when a real crisis occurs so her worries are generally all hypothetical. She got this little gift a few years ago of a beautifully boxed set of worry dolls. The dolls originate from Guatemala and are still made there as a cottage craft industry. The legend is that you tell each of the dolls one of your worries at night before sleeping and place her under your pillow...she takes your worry and that's the end of it. Now the placebo effect of this is pretty effective for a little child and even if it doesn't cure irrational fears, at least the child feels they've passed it on.
The little set is very pretty and though my little worrier has moved on, she still loves her little dolls and an odd time I find one or two under her pillow.

Her set was purchased at a craft fair but you can get them online (from Amazon and others) for prices from €2-€3 to about €12 depending on the quality and packaging. I can think of a few of my friends who would love these.

GIFT IDEA 2: THE BOOK OF VIRTUES

The Book of Virtues is an 800+ page collection of stories, poems, speeches and so on, each of which illustrates a moral virtue such as courage, compassion, loyalty, fortitude. They range from short pieces to quite long stories.

I bought this book as a gift to put away for all our children when we had about three tinies and in the dedication to them I wrote on the inside cover I always left a comma after the youngest child's name...just in case.

I had just about given up hope of adding another name after Peter's (our one and only boy) when dear Louise came along.

It really is a lovely book which would be a perfect present for a godchild, recently turned teenager, a student heading off to college or newlyweds...or anybody in fact.

I still dip into it from time to time and my favourite story is the tale of The Husband Who Was To Mind The House...every husband should be made to read it :-)

The Book of Virtues is aimed at older children and adults but for the little ones there is also a series of some of the stories adapted for 4-8 year olds beautifully illustrated by Michael Hague.

In fact any book illustrated by Michael Hague is worth buying...I have worked with books and children in a past life and he is in my opinion one of the nicest children's illustrators. He has illustrated such books as collectible versions of Tolkien, Aesop's Fables and The Velveteen Rabbit.

Check out www.michaelhague.com for a visual treat.

GIFT IDEA 3: APPLE PEELER

A very good friend of mine gave me this gift a few years ago. Even though it is marketed as an apple peeler for home brewers and preservers, it works equally well on potatoes. With eight in our family there are a lot of potatoes to peel and this reduces the time it takes to a fraction if that it takes to do it by hand. It has a lovely vintage look to it and looks well on display, also meaning that it is more likely to be actually used than many much more expensive kitchen gadgets and impulse buys.

(Which we can all immediately visualise and which are taking up huge amounts of our precious kitchen storage space...but that's a post for another day.)

Also, because it is so much fun it's much easier to convince the small plebs (or...even teenagers!!) to do it for you!! They (the teens) have even had the innovative idea of deep frying the lengthy skins afterwards as a yummy snack and reward for their exertion.

A word of warning- if you go to a specialist kitchen shop you will pay much more than if you shop around.
I have priced them from €12-€15 right up to €30-€40.
Have a look online for the best deal.

Well those are the first few of the many ideas I'll be posting over the next while. I hope they're helpful.

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