Today is December 1st. It's official. The Christmas season has arrived.
My goal this year is to keep a healthy balance of fun things and have-to-do things without feeling stressed, overwhelmed and having to run here, there and everywhere. Our family has a bunch of little traditions and favourite things we like to do each year. I've also heard of lots of other fun ideas from friends and came across some things online. So I compiled a list and printed it off. We'll never get them all done. That's not the intent. But we'll have fun trying and it will hopefully give our home that warm and cozy Christmas Spirit Sparkle! The list is below.
*advent calendars. This year, I'm doing things a bit different. We have this cute little felt advent calendar. It has pockets for each day of the month in December. In years past, I've written fun activities/crafts on little slips of paper and tucked them into each of the pockets. Takes alot of pre-planning, time and thought. Didn't have it in me this year. Today I slipped over to the Bargain Shop here in town and bought a little 99cent chocolate calendar and had it waiting for Max when he got home from school. He was in heaven. The red and green colours so don't go with my colour scheme. HA! I so don't care. It's Easy Peasy Done.
This evening Max made a paper chain. (He made one of these in kindergarten last year. It was such a hit!) There are 25 loops. Each day, he will tear off one loop. And when he gets to the star....Christmas! We've taped the Paper Chain to our Christmas Craft Door. a.k.a. the garage door. It's magnetic. Perfect spot to display all the beautiful creations he comes up with over this holiday season.
*write letters to santa
*watch Christmas movies with popcorn
*play board games
*make cards for teachers
*read Christmas storybooks before bedtime
*make your own wrapping paper
*have a late night cookie & milk break
*sing Christmas songs before bedtime
*make candy cane milkshakes
*sleep under the Christmas tree
*go out somewhere special for dinner
*bake treats for friends & neighbours
*give experiences instead of material gifts
*have breakfast for dinner and eat in your pajamas
*go on a Christmas Lights drive - wear your pj's, take hot cocoa in travel mugs, listen to Christmas carols and look at all the beautiful lights in your neighbourhood
*cut out paper snowflakes
*adopt a new tradition...This year I'm going to try my hand at forcing paperwhites. I love the look of them. My mom has done this for years. I don't know if I've waited too long to do them...hopefully they'll be blooming by Christmas. I planted them this afternoon. We'll see how the experiment turns out. I'm not known for my green thumb. I pretty much kill everything that's green and grows.
*buy a new Christmas CD to play on Christmas morning - don't cheat and listen to it beforehand!
*act out the Christmas nativity (i remember doing this as a kid each Christmas eve. My little sisters did this for years. Max was their baby Jesus when he was 3 months old - he slept through the whole thing. Now they are coaching Max and his little cousins to take over. Something we always look forward to on Christmas eve!)
*make a popcorn string...add dried cranberries as well
*volunteer
*have a Christmas carol sing-a-long
*donate gifts to a needy family
*go caroling
*write a list of 100 things you are grateful for
*invite someone new to dinner
*enjoy a cup of hot chocolate with a friend...or tea or coffee!
*attend a Christmas concert
*make simple homemade ornaments
*donate mittens & other winter items to a shelter
*call 5 people you love and tell them why you love them
*dress up for a special holiday dinner at your own house (our little tradition is to make all kinds of fancy appetizers and use our good china/crystal. The three of us go shopping together for the goods ahead of time so we all have input into the menu. Yum!)
*get some blank pages and crayons - let your kids write and illustrate their own Christmas story
*take some festive photos of your family just for fun
*call your friends who live far away - even if it's just for a few minutes to wish them a Merry Christmas
*bake sugar cookies and decorate them with all kinds of fun sprinkles
*decorate a gingerbread house
*let the kids help decorate your house. This one is a bit out of my comfort zone. But I'm working on it. For example, we now have a huge red bow scotch taped to our fridge. Compliments of Max. Doesn't go with a thing in the house. But Max absolutely adores it. And it's growing on me because I see how much it means to him. And also, the window in our living room looks like this:
There's a million more things that could be added to the list. But I think it's a good start!
7 comments:
In my family we always picked names for the adult gift exchange, but my absolute favourite part was that we also wrote a poem to go along with the gift. Some were totally silly, some were serious, some were a complete literary work of art...but all were precious. I've kept them all over the years. We don't exchange gifts between the adults anymore, but I plan to "re-institute" the tradition for the children this year!
Donna B
A tradition we have in our family is to have a Birthday Cake for Jesus. We started this about 14-15yrs ago when mu first neices/nephews came on the scene. We've been doing it ever since. We take turns being in charge of the cake - the funniest/worst decorated one was when the baby in the manger looked more like a monkey than a baby (I won't say where we ordered that one)! =) The best tasting one is from DQ - you can't beat ice-cream cake!!!
~Janice
We have always worn our pajamas for opening Christmas presents. When we were kids, that was easy...we'd tear into presents as soon as everyone was awake. Why take time to get dressed?!? As we became adults Christmas would happen whenever the last person got there. Sometimes, that happened at 3 am! Eventually we got back to that tradition and we ALL change into our PJ's to open presents...whenever that is! In fact, right now I'm wearing a pair of Christmas pajamas that my mother-in-law gave me for an early Christmas!
As a kid we always opened one gift on Christmas Eve. I wanted to keep that tradition too, but with a twist. Now, each year on Christmas Eve they open their gift and it is a new pair of jammies. They wear those jammies to bed, (and quite amazingly it is easier to go to bed in new jammies than old jammies on Christmas Eve!) then when we open up gifts the next morning, everyone has new jammies on and they look great in pictures! We're going to add the adults into the tradition this year too!
Here is a Christmas tradition from a child's prespective...Isaiah had to write a detailed account of a family celebration for his Social Studies class. For Christmas he wrote, "Then when my Mom is done taking pictures we can open our gifts." I laughed and laughed when I read this because I know he does not like this tradition at all! :-)
~ Carrie
Where is the snow in your pic? We've had a light dusting, just enough to make a toboggan run out front and Pat officially flooded the ice rink in the yard last night!
My girls are excited with their advent calendar this year... we have the same felt like one and I put clues in every night as to where they can find a new Christmas book before bed.
Oh.. Have fun in North Van Mrs. December!
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