Advent

I really love this time of year, especially with little ones with eyes full of wonder. I never realized how exciting a single strand of Christmas lights could be to a 2 year old. Mary-Michael gets SO excited to see lights on houses, and she asks me every day if we're "going" to Christmas yet. I love that she is old enough to begin to understand why we really celebrate Christmas and that she tells me baby Jesus is in her heart. Such sweet words to a Momma's ears.

 

I love the idea of family traditions, and coming from a split family where it can be hard to keep traditions alive, it's always been important to me to create meaningful traditions for our family. So, to enjoy Christmas and prepare our hearts for the season, we're doing the traditional advent calendar with an activity each day that Mary-Michael gets to discover each morning. Some of the activities are ones I want to make sure we do every year, and others are fun ones where the kids get a little treat. Here's our list (in no particular order, and actually, I move the slips of paper around if we can't do the original one I planned for that day!):

 

Wear new Christmas pajamas
Pick out our family Christmas tree
Decorate our family Christmas tree
Decorate Mary-Michael’s pink tree (for her room)
Make an ornament
Purchase a gift for a child in need for church
Unwrap a Christmas book to read
Have a family Christmas movie night
Unwrap a Christmas CD
Choose a special treat
Write a letter to Santa
Have a Christmas party
Make a birthday cake for Jesus
Make cookies for Santa
Go look at Christmas lights
Read the story about the birth of Jesus
Go to Christmas Eve service at church
Purchase food for the Pilgrim’s Pantry at church
Unwrap a special ornament and put it on the tree
Unwrap a Christmas book to read
Help momma make dinner and Christmas treats
Have hot cocoa
Visit Santa
Unwrap a Christmas book to read

 

And at dinner time, we are doing an advent Christmas paper chain with a lesson through Scripture each day.  

 

Here are the kids last night in front of the calendar and paper chain with day 1: Wear new Christmas pajamas (thank you, Nonnie!).

 

 

 

 

 

And on Friday night, we went to The Diamond (baseball park where our local AAA team plays - the Flying Squirrels). The Legendary Santa was there along with a band and Christmas crafts for the kids. The Legendary Santa is awesome and quite authentic (but he is normally pretty expensive to visit, so we've never been; he was free here!). Mary-Michael was pretty petrified as you can see below, but he kept telling her that Santa loves her, and she calmed down (though still no smile).

 

Tears as the Snow Queen looks on. 

 

A little calmer - this is a picture of the one they took for us.

 

Frazier was pretty neutral about the whole thing. I think he was more curious than anything.

 

May your celebration of Christmas be filled with joy and hope! What a wonderful time of year it is!