Counting Down to Christmas

This year I was thrilled to get a new Advent Calendar to begin a yearly tradition with the boys.  I spent lots of time searching for the perfect one and I was so excited to show it to the boys when it came home.

Each day during December, Anderson would open the appropriate door and find a small paper with a bible verse portion of the Christmas Story and then another piece of paper with either a special Christmas  activity or treat listed.  Some activites included: making snowflakes, building a gingerbread house, shopping for Angel Tree gifts, watching Rudolph with hot cocoa, making ornaments, and many more fun events.  A few days there were special surprises like candy canes or chocolate Santas inside for the boys to share.  Anderson became enamored with the Advent Calendar and he knew the date immediately upon waking each day. I appreciated that it gave us an extra opportunity to focus on the scriptural part of Christmas as we explained and talked about each day's verse.  I used these printable advent cards and they were perfect.  I sat down with our family calendar and some small slips of paper and filled out/coordinated the activities/treats the best that I could with what I knew was going to be happening during the month of December.  Since I knew ahead of time we were going to see Santa on a particular date, I put that as as activity on that the corresponding day, etc.  It worked out really well.  I can't wait to use our wonderful advent calendar again for many years to come.  I know Anderson will be SO excited to see it next year.  Everett was a little indifferent about it this year.  :)

We also welcomed back with happy smiles our Elf from the North Pole.  He came to us last year, but Anderson was a bit too young to fully grasp the concept.  

This year, he was very much on board with finding Elf (the name that Anderson picked) each morning, his magical powers of visiting Santa each night/flying, but not so much with really believing that Elf would relay bad behavior to Santa, therefore resulting in placement on the naughty list.  See...Anderson is a strong believer that Santa brings presents for everyone, no matter what.  He presented some strong arguments too, considering he's only three.  I always thought that I would just tell my kids that they "better be good for goodness sake".  Then they would want that Lightning McQueen bike bad enough that they would be perfect angels for the whole month of December.  ;) 


We had fun with Elf nonetheless.  Anderson really enjoyed hunting for him everyday and seeing the funny places he'd end up or the funny mischief he had caused around our house.  I'm actually disappointed in myself because I didn't take pictures of all of the really fun things Reese and I did with Elf.  The funniest one had Reese and I cracking up at ourselves late one night.  We took a dry-erase marker and drew all over the faces of the boys' most recent picture that's framed and hanging on the wall.  We gave them the works: beards, glasses, horns, antennae, holding flowers, etc.  Then we attached Elf to the top of the frame holding the pen.  We had so much fun setting it up and Anderson thought it was hilariously funny. Since Elf had to be moved each night, I kept running out of time to take pictures!  :(  Oh well... I did get a couple. 

Elf brought donuts from the North Pole 

Elf left a special message for the boys

Elf TP'd our formal living room!

Anderson was sad for him to go back to the North Pole for good, so I know he'll be excited to see him next year.  I just hope that Elf inspires a little more angelic Christmas behavior next year.  :)

I also happened upon this book in November and we all ended up LOVING it.

Countdown to Christmas  

This is the cutest little devotional for kids.  Each daily, two-page spread has a simple devotional following the Christmas Story, a prayer, a suggested activity or simple project (think make a paper-chain). Sometimes it discusses Christmas traditions like trees, baking cookies, etc. and provides open-ended questions and prayers for the kids to complete.   I highly recommend this book if you have little ones!