Love me some Christmas Flicks!

We love to watch movies especially classic movies with "real" actors. At Christmas time we pull out all the old Christmas flicks and sit down several times a week and watch a Christmas movie. Here's some of our favorite classic movies. 

Without saying really, one of the best, all-time Christmas movies ever made. James Stewart and Donna Reed, can't go wrong with them. Anyhow, it's great and if you haven't seen it you've really missed out!

My second favorite Christmas movie, The Bishop's Wife. David Niven, Loretta Young and last but not least Ol' Mr. Grant himself. This is a delightful tale of the misplaced values and a little help from above. Just seen this one this year and it's already one of my favorites!









Yet another new one to me; We're No Angels is hilarious and the sorta movie you start watching and never think about anything else till it's over.
The lead actor being Mr. Bogart with two wonderful actors along side. Peter Ostinov is the actor that played Black Beard in Disney's Black Beard's Ghost (hillarious). Anyhow, this one is great and totally worth the watch.









Another Jimmy Stewart Christmas, feel-good movie. Shop Around the Corner is just a very nice, feel-good movie. Worth the watch!












Lest I forget, Mr. Scrooge, This is my favorite rendition of A Christmas Carol. I love the actors and it's just very high quality. It's aweful hard to make a less than great Christmas Carol!














Can't ever get enough of Dr. Seuss! My kids love this movie and honestly I do too.














Oops, I almost forgot Charlie Brown. A Christmas classic forever. Poor Charlie makes us all feel better about ourselves no matter how pittiful we are. :0)






So here are some of my Christmas favorites, what are some of yours???
BTW, all these movies can be found used on Amazon for great prices.

reposted from 12/12/09

No Christmas at our House

This Christmas came and went so fast. I don't really mind though since we weren't all together. Our two oldest children are now living Stateside and we only have our 17 year old here with us. This is her last year and it was tougher than I thought it would be.

In general I'm not a very emotional person. I actually try very hard not to be a crier. I know it's all healthy and we should let emotions out but somewhere along the way I equated crying with weakness. I know it's not weakness and I never feel that way when others cry but when I cry I feel out of control and so I do my best not to if I can help it.

Anyhow, we were all busy getting ready for Christmas dinner and then while standing at the sink I realized this was my last year with my daughter. I hadn't thought that deeply into it until now and before I knew it I was crying. Are you kidding me! I hate crying! Here I was on Christmas, the happiest day of the year and I was whimpering an trying to figure out how to stop it. There I sit realizing I wasn't doing so well with this impending empty nest after all. Evidently, because of the spill of tears, my daughter's leaving was harder on me than I realized.

So the crying wasn't fun, but with all the consoling we came to a conclusion. This is our last Christmas here!! I mean, who wants to wake up to Christmas morning without children anyhow. What's Christmas morning without kids tearing up paper and squealing with delite over the hoped-for gift? The Christmas morning part of our American tradition of Christmas is for children. So what do you do if you're used to having children around and all of the sudden they leave? You travel!! We decided yesterday while drying tears that maybe things need to change now. Since all the other parts of our life are changing we might as well change the Christmas traditions around here too. So we're planning to save up and take a small trip for Christmas somewhere here in Europe. We're so close to everything and it will be nice to be away for Christmas next year. No cooking Christmas dinner for two or having to wake up Christmas morning to an empty house.

Don't get me wrong, we will celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of our dear Lord Jesus at Christmas and all year long. But, I'm super excited about our future trips. I love my husband way too much and enjoy every moment we spend together so the idea of traveling and experiencing Christmas together is amazing.

So here's my short list! It's actually a list of Christmas markets around Europe. We've seen the Vienna Christmas markets and they were amazing. So why not see more.

1. Paris, France

2. Cologne, Germany

 3. Prague, Czech Republic

If you loved these you can see a list of the top 10 Christmas markets around Europe here at Europe's Best Destinations.

Anyhow, how all that crying got me fantasy trips around Europe, I'm not sure but I'm glad it did. I'm still going to miss my kids like crazy but it'll be much more bearable while having a ball than it would be otherwise.

Bring on Christmas 2015!!! I'm ready!

Zagreb Christmas 2014

One of the things I love most about living in Europe is their Advent celebrations. They do such a wonderful job decorating and all the Christmas markets are amazing. We have been to the Vienna, Austria Christmas market and it was amazing but our own capital of Zagreb has outdone themselves this year. Johnny and I were already in the capital for Hannah's dentist appointment so we headed in town.   

This year there was a living nativity. It was a mini city of Bethlehem. It was nice to see but knowing that they have no idea how much power was in that little city so long ago, it wasn't as nice. My heart breaks for all the beautiful people who still rest in their own goodness for salvation when Jesus already paid it all for them. Salvation is free for all those who will receive it. 

 I love that living in a Catholic country they still celebrate the baby Jesus at Christmas. There's no, "Happy Holidays" here. Instead it's, "Sretan Božić" which means Happy little God. 

 The decorations on town were amazing. I loved all the lights and Christmas music floated on the crisp night air. Hey, that was pretty poetical! 

There were lots of street performers, including this guy making money in a very unique way!

I fell in love with the red, white and blue lights this year. No, they're not honoring the USA instead those are the colors of their flag. I love 'em!

There were hundreds of little shops lining the roads. As usual, we didn't buy anything but there wasn't really anything we wanted. Until we got to the food shops!

 This year there was an amazing ice rink right in town. It was in the park by the theatre and it was amazing. There was a main rink like normal but off that rink there were several paths that went all the way around the park perimeter. It was pretty amazing. No we didn't skate!

I was so happy to spend this time with Hannah. This is her last Christmas here in Croatia with us and it was such a fun time. Doesn't she look adorable.

 

BTW, that's not snow behind us but little silver hearts blowing in the wind. They gave the nicest twinkling effect.

I'm not sure what Johnny said to get such crazy looks from us. I'm sure it was a hoot!

This photo is a freebie! Love him!

I'm so thankful to be spending my 24th Christmas with my honey baby.

  

We finally found what our hearts longed for; the food stands. Johnny and Hannah had fritule, little fried donut balls. They are delish but definitely not low carb or gluten free so I passed and headed to the sausage stand. 

What a fun time we had in Zagreb for the Advent celebration. The weather was perfect, about 49 and clear. We enjoyed ourselves and now we are all ready for Christmas. 

Okay I'm signing out for a few days to enjoy Christmas with my family. I pray you all have the nicest Christmas ever and remember Jesus really is the nicest gift and gift-giver ever! 

Cranberry-Orange Cake

I found this it in a Christmas with Country Living 1997 book I've been browsing through lately. It was so easy and turned out wonderful. Everyone especially loved the candied orange rind and cranberries. Oh yea and I found some tiny little cranberries here in Croatia and they worked wonderfully and I didn't have to chop them, just put them in whole.

Anyhow, since I'm super lazy and wasn't about to retype an entire page of text I copied it and made it into a PDF for easy printing.

Cranberry-Orange Cake PDF

This is a great holiday cake and went over super well with the Croats and they're a tough crowd to please.

reposted from 2009

Free Gift Tags Round Up!

I want to share something with you all, don't be shocked, it'll be okay, here goes....I'm cheap! I love to save money and that brings us to this post. I have all most some of my Christmas gifts purchased already and wrapping them is next on my agenda. So going along with my cheap theme, here are several links to some great printable Christmas gift tags. Remember the more we save the more Starbucks we can have! So here goes in no particular order.

Krampus

The other day while out shopping I noticed that some of the stores already had Christmas stuff on the shelves and I was surprised to find these two looking up at me. In the major part of Europe there is some sort of tradition surrounding Saint Nikolas day on December 6th and Croatia isn't any different. The first time my kids were in town and the devil came up to them, they all burst out in tears, not exactly child friendly. Even little kids know what evil is when they see it and it's nothing to be laughed about.

Beautiful Free Christmas Printables

I can't beieve that Christmas is just around the corner. We thought it was the next big holiday until Johnny informed us his birthday was the next big one and then Christmas. Anyhoo, it's time in the Leslie house to tear down the autumnal decor and replace it with the glitter of Christmas. I luper love this time of year and it's easier than ever to infuse Christmas Spirt in your home thanks to some brillant artists from around the web.

Here's my list of great Christmas printables from arond the www.

1. PeaBee Designs has this really nice printable available for download. Thanks Courtney!

2. Jeni, from the Small Seed has 4 beautiful printables available, they're amazing. 

3. I love the simplicity of this chalk graphic, it's so sweet and simple. You can find it at A Well-Feathered Nest.

5. Look at this lovely printable from Fotina over at Glamourous Affordable Life. 

6. I love this print from the life of a Crafty Wife.  It says it all!

7. Look at this great burlap printable that Shannon is offering from AKA Design + Life. 

8. I love the three above printables from Falala Designs. 

9. Erin is offering this great colorful printable from How to Nest for Less. 

10. Look at this beautiful chalkboard printable Shannon has made available from AKA Design+Life.

Anyhoo, it's about time to start Christmas-fying your home and I hope this helps!! Make sure to leave a comment for the talented artists that made thses available.