Christmas: Activity Advent

It is THAT time of year. My favorite time of year! The countdown to Christmas! Actually I love the whole time from Halloween to the New Year, but this time is particularly exciting and especially this year, because we are welcoming a new baby boy in three short weeks. Ahhhhhhhhh. Well, I wanted to make this year special for my little girl since these last few weeks leading up to Christmas are also her last as an only child. So, I decided it would be best to do an activity advent. After all, I just read today on a friend's facebook post the sentiment, "Collect Moments, Not Things". So we are going to enjoy these last few weeks and make sure to collect lots of new memories and moments with this activity advent. 

There are a billion and one ways to do this, and obviously I catered our activities to the events leading up to, on and after the birth of baby #2. Not to mention the fact that some activities are specific to our local offerings (although I am confident that your area probably offers something similar to most). So, I will share what I did and you can fine tune it to work for your family and area of residence.

I had a blank Countdown Calendar just sitting around in my craft room begging to be used and it even came with a template so I could quickly and easily cut out some festive scrapbook papers to Mod Podge on to the front. It also came with stickers numbered 1-25, so that made it especially easy on me. I stuck the stickers on my cute Christmas papers I cut out, then Mod Podged the scrapbook papers to the box fronts and let them dry. Ta-dah! That was the extent of it, and I of course had to plan out each activity and I simply typed out my schedule in a cute font (Christmas On Crack is the font I used, available from scrapvillage.com for FREE), printed it and cut them into strips. I then tucked each folded paper strip in the coordinating box. It was easy, cute and I am excited for my little one to be able to open a new box each day and even more excited to share these special moments with her before our world is once again turned upside down with the arrival of a little one.

Here are the activities I chose for our family this year:  

Christmas Activity Advent 2012

1st: Festival of Trees

2nd: Hot Cocoa & Cookies

3rd: Decorate the Tree

4th: Write a Letter to Santa

5th: Open a Special Ornament to Put on the Tree

6th: Decorate Sugar Cookies

7th: Buy a Present to Donate to Someone in Need

8th: Family Christmas Party

9th: Temple Square to See the Lights

10th: Family Night on the Nativity

11th: Unwrap a Christmas Book to Read

12th: Make a Christmas Craft

13th: Neighbor Gifts in a Jar + Christmas Music

14th: Holiday Lights at Thanksgiving Point

15th: Santa's Lantern at City Creek

16th: Family Christmas Movie Night

17th: Special Day with Mommy

18th: Special Gift from Baby Brother

19th: Special Day with Nana & Papa

20th: Special Day with Grandma

21st: Special Day with Daddy

22nd: Drive Around to Look at Christmas Lights

23rd: Make Gingerbread Houses

24th: Bingo for Prizes + Open a Present

On a side note... If you have a Macy's Department Store in your area, I would encourage you to take your letters to Santa (make a copy, if you want to keep one for a scrap/memory book), and drop them off there. They are donating a dollar for every letter collected to the Make-a-Wish Foundation up to a million dollars. Currently they have received 323,271 letters. Their instructions are to have them stamped, addressed to Santa at the North Pole and they will count them, donate on your behalf and then take them to the post office to be sent up North. :) So while you are helping the kiddos, write a letter yourself and make an event out of it. (We've made it our activity for December 4th, see above.)

Happy advent planning and enjoy each moment leading up to Christmas! 
- Lizzy