I can’t believe we are already at December 8th!!  This Christmas season seems to be flying by but this year, I can honestly say we are taking time out of our busy lives and enjoying important family moments, thanks to the #25daysofchristmas challenge set out by Andrea at a peek inside the fishbowl.

I will admit that our advent activities got off to a rocky start when our first activity – write a letter to Santa – fell on the 1st day.  Being a school day, the last thing my son wanted to do was “more work”.  Being almost 7 I think he is beginning to outgrow (sniff, sniff) Santa   But I do love how flexible the envelopes are.  Makes it easy to switch activities the night before so we end up doing something that everyone will enjoy.  So here is a recap of our first 7 days.

Day 1 – Write a letter to Santa.  Surprisingly this did not go over well.  Could be that we attempted to do this after homework and my son was just burnt out.  So I just substituted a Christmas story at bedtime and everyone was happy.

Day 2 – Hang outside lights and decorations. We took advantage of great weather to finally hang some outside lights and decorations.

Day 3 – Read a Christmas story. As December 3rd fell on a Beaver night, our activity had to be something simple and quick.  So a bedtime story about Christmas was perfect.  This time we read My Christmas Stocking which is a great little story about how Saint Nicholas started the tradition of presents in stockings.

Day 4 – Christmas craft. Since Friday was a PD Day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for a craft day.  So I found these great little kits at Michael’s to decorate your own Christmas tree.  Was easy enough for the 3 year old but not too boring for the 6 year old (hard to find the right combination sometimes!).  I think they turned out pretty good.

Day 5 – Pick out a tree. For me, Christmas is not Christmas without a real tree, a trait I seem to have passed onto my son who was very excited to pick out “the perfect” tree.  Felt a little weird picking out a tree without snow on the ground.  But I think we picked the right one.

Day 6 – Decorate the tree and house. The kids absolutely loved decorating the tree!! And this was the first year I didn’t worry about broken ornaments or the tree being knocked down.  It would seem I no longer have any babies in the house.  Didn’t they do a fabulous job?!

Day 7 – Make Paper Chains. Since the kids are older and less likely to knock over a Christmas tree, I have started a kids tree.  This is one they get to make or hang any kind of ornament they want on it and they had a great time making the paper chain for it.

We are all having so much fun with this and can’t wait to see what is coming next!