It's looking a lot like Christmas!
I have never been big on Christmas countdowns. I've seen some of the cutest and most ornate advent calendars and always thought it would be fun to do something like that, but it's just not in me to try. A few years ago, my mother-in-law gave us a very cute advent calendar which she had made. (Sorry no pictures, a description will have to do.) It's a 24 cup mini muffin tin with cute little round covers that go over each opening and are held in place with magnets. Sandy spent some quality time making this and it really is cute, so we've used that each year since but haven't really done well in filling each cup. Mostly I don't like the idea of putting in candy that the kids then are obliged to eat before bed each night. Somehow that doesn't speak to me of calm and restful nights!
I started looking around online and found a lot of families will do an advent calendar of activities and scriptures instead of food/candy or presents. I liked that idea. So I set out to have a list of 24 activities that we could do each night throughout the month of December up to Christmas. About a year ago I told John that I wanted to start doing more with the holiday's. Actually participating and doing things so our kids would have fun and fond memories of doing things together as a family instead of the half done jobs or last minute plans. Well, since I made that goal we've tried harder, but not done much more than we usually did. It's just felt more stressful. I think it's just not in me to be that cute and especially that organized for holidays when getting my kids showered more than once a week is already a struggle! But, this Christmas was going to be different I decided.... We were going to play and have fun and be busy all month long and really enjoy the season!
Here was my list:
1. Christmas concert at the Church
2. Dinner at the Kreiners house, set up tree and garland decorations around house
3. Set up advent calendar, explain the plan for activities and get kids excited
4. Watch nativity video and start a chain (let the kids make a chain link of any act of service or kindness they do for each other - then we can see how long we can make the chain and wrap around the tree)
5. Go to "Where the Wild things are" performance at Library
6. Christmas movie night with popcorn and hot chocolate (Elayna had a gingerbread activity with friends)
7. Go to library program with Polar Express reading and Train ride
8. Church General Authority Christmas Broadcast
9. Get Christmas presents ready and packed to ship to cousins
10. Paint windows with indoor snow and paint
11. Make homemade snow globes
12. Red, White and Green pizza night
13. Ward Christmas Dinner
14. Community activity - Festival of the Trees
15. Movie night - write letters of appreciation for each other and friends
16. Snowflakes... snowflake quesadillas for dinner, cut snowflakes to hang as activity
17. Scouts pack mtg - caroling
18. Make food gifts for neighbors
19. Deliver neighbor gifts
20. Drive around town, and Park to see Christmas lights
21. Christmas party for Visiting & Home teaching families (crepes and ornament making)
22. Decorate cookies and make gum drop pops. Dinner with Missionaries
23. Kids get to sleep under the tree. (possible movie)
24. Hang Twinkle lights in rooms, open First present (jammies and new Christmas book).
25. Christmas!!!
Awesome list, don't you agree. A month of fun activities that would make for amazing memories and pictures. Well, as for pictures, I didn't get many at all. Not even of the cool window art which is one activity we actually did do! I think we averaged about 1 activity a week. Instead of setting up the Christmas tree the first Monday (Family home evening) of December, it took a week to get it sort of decorated. By the end I had hung the lights (which took 2 days) and Elayna did most of the rest which meant that everything was generally located in the bottom right portion of the tree. Every time I saw it I was slightly bothered, but not enough to fix it apparently. John took an evening to redistribute ornaments but it still had some issues throughout the month. Taking it down was another story... (I usually take the tree and decorations down the week the kids go back to school, but with the weather condition the kids were home so we had decorations up or piled here and there for most of January!)
(Tyler helping decorate the tree, probably a lot of why it took a whole week to set is up!!)
(Elayna's gingerbread house)
We did make it to the library programs, Where the wild things are and the polar express.. They were just what you would expect from a local library program but not exactly the grand and picturesque activities I was envisioning when I made the plans! The play took all of 10 minutes and was done as a theatre class project. Driving to the library took 15 and waiting for it to start and end/clear out took about 30 min!
The polar Express activity was awesome for 3-6 year olds. Elayna was on the older side, but enjoyed it for what it was. Tyler is just happy and goes with the flow for most things, Weston on the other hand - he skipped out on the story reading (realized the movie is better than the book on this one), to read his own book. Then when we took the "Train ride" (trolly) around the block to end up at the bldg. across from the library, aka. Santa's Workshop he kept on reading. At Santa's workshop you got to sit on Santa's lap, get a picture taken then make a frame to hold that picture. Everyone had been given a little bag with a bell (size of a tiny pom pom) and a coin which they could then use to 'buy' a toy from the workshop. Weston wanted the toy, but didn't want to participate in anything else. So we bribed him to sit on Santa's lap and talk to him to get his coin. He did it, we gave him is coin, and all three kids ended up with a rather cheap toy! Then we left and decided we probably wont do that next year!
The toys worth being bribed for!
We did go to the Christmas concert at the church which was nice, watched the broadcast (most of it) and went to the Ward Activity. We missed making treats for neighbors, didn't all go caroling because Elayna needed to go to bed early. Missed the Christmas tree festival because weather was so bad. Never made cookies - opted for baked caramel corn for all the class parties and gifts. Had the Home/Visiting teaching party at our house, but did soup instead and never got to the ornaments! We tried to do something right and let the kids sleep under the tree, but after getting situated and ready Weston and Elayna decided they didn't want to do that. Tyler stayed, not sure why, and then John went down the next morning and laid down on the couch about 1 minute before Tyler woke up so Tyler thought John had slept there all night. We did get pajamas for Christmas Eve and little lego set, but no new book. We decided to make our pajamas this year (next post), well the shirt at least, so we could be super heroes... though Tyler got a substitute shirt because our local Target didn't have the long sleeve shirt I was looking for all month. I finally have the long sleeve shirt now, but haven't made a new badge to iron on to it.
All in all, a disaster of a plan and month!!! Next year we are planning to set the tree up 2 weeks before Christmas. I'll probably try and do it while the kids are at school, or do most of it and let them finish as a family activity. We will be more realistic and plan 1 activity a week to do as a family instead of every night and movie parties will count. AND I've decided I'm okay using an advent calendar for decoration instead of actual counting down for anything!
December really did take its toll, so by the time Christmas rolled around I really was ready to just be done with it all. It was just last week (last week of January) that Elayna started playing Christmas music and I realized I was enjoying it. I love Christmas music usually, but this year every time I heard it I felt stressed and anxious. I'm not ready to start listening to it now, but that one night of feeling peaceful and calm while it was on was really nice! Here's hoping that next year we can be more settled and be able to enjoy December a little more than we did this year! I think that by then since we'll finally be in our own home with our own space/pictures/decorations/and such - it will feel better even if everything else is still as crazy as it was this year. At least I hope so!
Weston made an igloo for his mini-figs which he then left outside on the little table and was burried with snow for a good part of the month.
