Now we are gearing up for the holiday season. We spent the weekend decorating for Christmas. We started doing Elf on the Shelf last year and Lucy made her return Sunday night (December 1st). The first night she came back with a few new Christmas books for us to read. This morning the girls found her on their doll's potty reading a book! They loved that. Who knows where they'll find her tomorrow morning.
This was our Thanksgiving tree with leaves that said what we all were thankful for. Now it's the girls Christmas tree that they are decorating with handmade ornaments.
The 25 mini stockings is the advent calender we are doing this year. I will talk about it more below. As you can see, I collect nutcrackers (see the new Mickey Mouse one I just got in Disney?!)
Every year I do some type of advent calender for the girls. Last year I wrapped 24 Christmas books and they opened a new one each night. This year we made (well Bob sewed them) mini stockings with little slips of paper in them that have activities, crafts, etc. on them.
Some of the ideas on them include:
Read a book in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate
Pick out a toy to donate to Toys for Tots (we do this every year)
Search the house for loose change to put in the Salvation Army bucket
Donate at least one toy each to the Goodwill
Drive around looking at Christmas lights
Bake and decorate cookies
Watch a Christmas movie
Decorate upside down sugar cookies to look like trees (found the idea from http://www.couponclippingcook.com/candy-cookie-cones/)
Sleep in front of the Christmas tree
Have an indoor snowball fight (we use large white pom poms)
Make something for your sister
Make gifts for the grandparents
Learn a new Christmas carol
Go to a Christmas event
Two other things I'm hoping to do this month I found on pinterest (of course).
I want to make the mistletoes from here: http://www.pinkieforpink.com/2012/11/kids-christmas-art-projects.html.
And I have already starting making an ornament memory book (http://www.iloveitallwithmonikawright.com/2010/12/ornaments-and-their-stories-mini-album.html) for each girl. I love this idea! Since I buy them each an ornament (or two, plus the ones they get from the grandmoms) every year that represents something they liked or we did that year this will be a great way to remember when they received each one and why. Then when they leave home they will already have a box full of ornaments for their first trees. This year Emma got a Rapunzel ornament (since we went to Disney and that is her favorite character) and Abby got a Minnie Mouse (also from Disney and that is who she was for Halloween).
This month I'm also planning to teach the girls how the holidays are celebrated in other countries. Maybe through food, music, and books. I'm still looking for ideas for this.
I will try very hard to blog more often this month with our families holiday traditions, Elf on the Shelf, educational activties, and more.
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