I love December and the whole month of getting ready for Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year! It is very busy of course, as I am sure it is for everyone, but a lot of the "busy-ness" at our house is of our own design. Three years ago we started doing an advent calendar and countdown to Christmas with the boys. This is something that Mark grew up doing and I love it! Each day the boys pull out a paper from our calendar and we do whatever activity is says.
Each week we have one day of the advent wreath where we do a lesson about Jesus and all the other days we do something different.
One day we had breakfast with Santa (along with all the other police department families) and he had a special present for each child.
Before the children could have their present, Santa made them hang a candy cane from their finger. If the candy cane fell, it was a signal to Santa that the child had been naughty, but if the candy cane hung there then they had been nice.
One day the boys and I spent it doing fun Christmas activies around town. We went to the Convention Center and played games, listened to music, watched a performance of The Nutcracker and created Christmas art projects. Then we went downtown and watched the Carriage Parade. These are a few of our favorites from this year:
One night we watched Caleb in his Christmas concert (Caleb and Owen from the audience and me from behind the scenes as I was also working that night by helping with the students during the program).
Here are some of the other things that we do:
1. Celebrate Pappa's birthday (it falls on December 1st)
2. Cut down our tree
3. Look at lights
4. Go Christmas shopping for each other
5. Act out the Nativity Scene
6. Advent wreath (4 times so we start the Sunday after Thanksgiving)
7. Make Christmas cards
8. Make ornaments
9. Decorate the tree
10. Go sledding
11. Make Christmas cookies and candy
12. Deliver goodies to Friends (Each of the boys gets a plate and they choose who they want to deliver it to - Caleb chose his good friend Andy and Owen chose to deliver his to the Police Department.)
13. Make a snowman
14. Do a Christmas puzzle
15. Watch a Christmas movie
16. Play flashlight tag (this is a huge favorite of the boys)
17. Hvae breakfast with Santa
18. Sing songs
19. Create a twinkie train (our version of a gingerbread house but more edible)
20. Decorate the house
21. Play a family game
22. Make hot chocolate and watch the Polar Express in our pajamas
23. Go Christmas shopping for needy families
24. Celebrate Christmas Eve with the whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents)
We don't get a chance to do all of these things each year and there are days where we did two things at once because we were too busy on another day to get something done, but the main thing is that we try to keep the focus on family and Christ's birth. Jesus is the reason for this holiday season and we hope that each of you are having a wonderful week and we wish you a very Merry Christmas!
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