December is a busy time in the McIntosh house. We just love December and all the fun (and sometimes not so fun) times that go with it! The decorating, the wrapping, the shopping, the baking, the music, the singing of carols at church, the cards in the mail, the making of homemade gifts, the many sleepless nights because I love to procrastinate on all these things! But we especially love all the Christmas traditions we do as a family! One of my favorite traditions start today. The Christmas countdown! It began for me when I was growing up and my mom always made us candy advent strings where we tied on a yummy candy treat to a string and cut one off each day up to Christmas. When Don and I got married we always bought the chocolate advent calendars and continue that today because why shouldn’t you start the day with a yummy piece of chocolate before breakfast!
When Tanner was two we went to library craft time every week and one time we made a Christmas chain where you cut a link off every day. Tanner made the chain all by himself this year and we are still using the original bell at the top from three years ago. Next year I am thinking of writing messages on some links where Tanner and Brynn can turn that link in for trip to the swimming pool, ice skating rink, etc. and add some Christmas spirit ones like bringing food to a food bank, animal shelter, nursing home, etc. or leaving a surprise package for someone. Hum, I’ll have to plan this out for next year!
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Tanner got a very special treat this year. My mom made the three older grandkids the most beautiful advent calendars with pockets where surprises can be found everyday. Tanner LOVES his new calendar and can’t wait to see what surprises await!
And my most favorite Christmas Countdown tradition! Reading a Christmas book every night. I have a lot (I’m not kidding when I say A LOT!) of Christmas books and for the last 3 years I have picked out 24 of them and wrap each one individually then on the night of December 1st, I put the bucket of books on Tanner’s bed and each night he gets to pick one out, open it and we read that story that night. I just love all the wonderful Christmas stories and this year I left out the Dora Saves Christmas and Thomas the Train books because Tanner is old enough to listen and understand some of the more meaningful Christmas stories. This tradition is always my excuse to buy 4, or 5, or 6, okay 7 new Christmas books (Amazon is such a dangerous place!) Oh, I can’t wait! And I went green this year. I did feel guilty using all that wrapping paper so this year most of the books are wrapped in comics, newspaper ads or paper I saved from last year!
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So we are very aware of how many more days it is until Christmas around here! If you ever need to know, give us a call!!
Happy December!
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2 comments:
Okay, I totally love your wrap the books idea. Love it! I'm going to go wrap mine right now. And next year we're starting on December 1st with you. We did the chain thing this year and I had a similar idea, writing down things to do on each chain--sing a song, read a certain book, play dreidel, etc. It's pretty fun except for when we're too tired or out of time to do what's on the chain. Wish we were closer. We could probably have a lot of Christmas fun together.
Seriously....do you sleep?!
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