Advent Activities

Every year I see (or hear) about people who do advent calendars for their kids. I don't mean the $1 calendars you can buy that have a piece of chocolate in each door. I'm talking about those extravagant, beautiful cloth, wooden, or fancy paper calendars that many people make themselves. I'm not so crafty...and I procrastinate way too much. But I'd love to have one for the kids. So this year I did some research and found so many cute, cute calendar ideas. Of course this was all on the 1st of December, hardly time for me to get one together for this year.

So, I brainstormed and came up with an easy idea. We have a cloth calendar used to count down the days. It comes with a little candy cane that you slip into a pocket that has the correct date. I decided to write out activities and just slip them in the pockets. Nothing fancy, but practical. ;)

I wish I had saved the list of activities that I chose to use. I suppose I'll have to just summarize. We watched Polar Express, we read Christmas books, we baked cookies. We also went to Alpine Village (saw Santa), took our first trip through Starry Nights (a huge light display), drank hot chocolate. We read the Christmas Story to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.

We also decorated our own wrapping paper...

that we will have to save for next year.

By the time we got to this craft I was done with all the wrapping! Oops.

They loved doing it.

The final product.

They also made some snowman gift bags.

One year we attempted a gingerbread house. I think I'm the only person in existence that does not like that activity. They seem to be all the rage and I love how they look. However they stress me out. I considered doing one this year but happened upon what looked like an easier "house".

Rice Krispie houses

Ella's final product.

I helped her with none of it.

Elijah's final product.

Yes, I did help him with the icing part.

I just love his expressions!

Ella added this idea to our list. Paper snowflakes...we had an awesome time with this one.

Oh we did so much more and I just can't remember what!?!

They loved the idea and looked forward to it each day. I liked that I could easily change an activity if we were short on time. We will definitely do it again next year.

I guess I should start creating my crafty display. It will most definitely take me the entire year to complete it. ;-)

Hmm, or maybe I could convince Meme to make something...