It's Advent Time!!!
You see that simple, pretty, little, advent tree. So perfectly strung. Those lite as air paper bags...that fell like bricks not 2 minutes after I painstakingly hung them. was. not. happy. So...plan B was born.
It'll do. It's simple and inexpensive. Yay for simple these days. And Jordan gives two cheers for inexpensive. (simple white paper bags with punched paper circles and dates written with metallic pens)
So Jude is crazy excited about the idea of opening up anything every day. And this is our first year doing an advent calendar. (last year my sister in law sent us a 12 days of xmas that was so much fun)
I took a good month of reflecting on some good ideas for us to do as a family and kept them safely in my iphone on one of my many ongoing notes. (that app saves me a ton of paper) I'm sure a lot of ours are much of the same out there. But I think there's a few that are pretty tailored to our little likes. Here's our list. Maybe you'll find some you like.
- crank xmas music and boogie
- enjoy a cup of hot cocoa with homemade snowflake marshmallows
- color xmas pictures (xmas coloring books or print outs)
- drive around town to look at xmas lights
- homemade kettle corn and xmas movie night
- dress up in our fanciest threads and dine with candles and pinkies out
- make xmas cookies
- deliver cookies to friends and/or neighbors
- write our letters to santa
- make paper snowflakes
- one on one xmas shopping for family
- wrap presents with lots of secrecy and giggling (you're gonna looove what we got you daddy)
- make gingerbread house
- make gingerbread men
- make xmas cards and mail them to loved ones
- have a picnic in the den with the fireplace ablaze
- build a fort with xmas lights
- play a board game with treats and silly hats/glasses
- go to the movies as a family (this is a real treat in our house)
- go sledding
- make xmas crowns to wear at our xmas dinner (inspired by the movie "about a boy")
- go to dollar store and pick out one item just for funsies
- go see the zoolights!
- go see santa at the mall and take a cheesy photo that will make your mother tear up for years to come
Trinkets & Sugar
- temporary tattoos
- fake mustaches
- chapstick
- stickers
- candy (of course)
- stamps
- pop rocks
- card games
- soap/lotion/cologne
- silly putty
- washi tape
- pez dispenser
- bubbles
- books
- coloring books
- mini play dough
- bookmark
- money (a dollar is big time to this kid)
- colored pencils
- sushi erasers
- laser pointer
- glow sticks
- slinky
- puzzle
- pj's
- silly glasses
I decided to wait till the night before to put each event/present in each bag. Plans change with moods(and naps. and coffee.). So whatever I'm feeling like is a reasonable event for the day ahead, I will stuff the bag accordingly.
I think the doing fun things as a family is the stuff that'll stick. Like oatmeal to your ribs.
*Also, December 1st is the day our "family elf" named Simon comes back from the North Pole Folks! We've got some fun things planned for that little santa monkey! December sure is gonna keep me busy.
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