This year I was hanging up our Advent socks for our countdown to Christmas when I heard one of the kids (I think it was Makayla) exclaim, "Not the socks again, are we going to do the 'thankful thing' again? It's kinda boring?"
Heaven forbid that a mother should subject her children to the boring 'thankful thing' year after year. I admit, I too wanted to do something new, so I stayed up all night with a December calendar and came up with a 'new' stocking advent idea. The next morning, instead of a sock containing a thankful phrase, each sock now contained an activity to do the day of its choosing. I plugged in school, church and our regular December hustle and bustle fun to the list of activities.
Before anyone thinks that I am an amazing mother - here is my disclaimer.....there were days that an activity just did not happen. Once we had to pack three stocking events into one day. Each night I peeked in a stocking just to make sure I was up to doing what was in there the next day. Twice I had to rewrite an activity for the sake of my sanity. Some occurred around the dinner table while eating to insure that it got done before anyone left for the evening. In the end, it was GREAT! All of my precious kiddies looked forward to taking a stocking down and spending time together.
Here is a list of our December events...
*Have a hot chocolate bar.
*Drive around the neighborhoods and see the Christmas lights.
*Watch 'Joy to the World' DVD.
*Make sugar cookies.
*Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn.
*Game night
*Sing Christmas carols.
*Read a Christmas story.
*Have a round robin story telling night.
*Make name attributes.
*Have breakfast for dinner.
*Eat at Red Robin - our favorite.
*Sledding
More events with pictures.....
25 days of stocking activities
*Deck the house with joys of Christmas.
*Make snowflakes
*Christmas party with the Packs
*Aunt Kylee left me a little surprise in the microwave -this smelly tradition has been going around since I was little.
*Spaghetti dinner with no plates or utensils.
*Decorate 1 Gingerbread House
I opted for Costco's famous gingerbread house kit instead of five small individual houses.
Thank you Costco!
*Ward Christmas Breakfast
Wrapped up with a yummy breakfast, children singing, The Nativity presentation (Jarin is the blue Shepard) and a treat from the Three Wisemen.
*School Christmas Sing
-Rebekah-
This is the first year that I did not have restless little ones or a bulky stroller or crying toddlers to maneuver around the school gym. Instead I sat and enjoyed every single minute without looking at the clock. I even joined the hundreds of crazy parents hunched over running back and forth with their camera taking pictures of their children - it was great.
Kerri is smack dab in the middle.
-Trevor-
-Jarin-
*School Christmas Class Parties
I helped Jarin's class this year - we made Sock Snowmen.
So cute!
*Sleeping under the tree the night before Christmas Eve.
Everyone hid in their sleeping bags when they saw me pull out the camera.
Oreo (in the middle of everyone) loved having extra sleeping buddies.
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