This week we have a unique take on the old Advent Calendar, our daughter's Holiday Dance recital performance, and some crafts that look good enough to eat!! Of course, our guest, "Little Elf" is up to even more tricks this week as well...
Holiday Countdown
In it's most basic form, an "Advent Calendar" is a way of counting down the days until Christmas. I remember a little tree we had with an ornament to hang for each day, a boxed calendar with little chocolates behind flaps for each day, and recently Lisa's mother had taken to sending little gifts for each day for us to open.
Last year, we started a new tradition, which we've continued this year. It's our "Holiday Countdown". The concept is simple. 25 envelopes, each with an activity written inside. On each day from December 1 until Christmas, you open the corresponding envelope to see what it has in store for you.
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We keep our Holiday Countdown envelopes in a festive Christmas bucket. One of the first things our daughter does each morning is pull out an envelope to see what activity she has to look forward to later in the day!
The hard part is deciding what to put in the envelopes. Lisa does a great job of coming up with original ideas to mix in with the old holiday standards. The activities are usually very simple, ranging from watching holiday specials, listening to holiday music, writing letters to Santa, or baking cookies or making a craft.
Today, for example, was a simple and fun craft: Making Christmas trees from ice cream cones. A quick trip to the grocery store for the ingredients, and we were ready to go.
They did a great job, right?
Ginger Bread Fun
Earlier in the week, our Holiday Countdown activity was to watch Bella perform her Gingerbread routine in her dance school's Holiday Recital. We paired that with making Gingerbread Houses later that night.
Our little Gingerbread on stage:
Bella was amazing! She had been nervous about the lights and all the people, but when she came out on stage she was absolutely glowing and so full of energy!
The Gingerbread Houses
The houses that we bought were kits from the Christmas Tree Shop. One was Cinderella Castle, and the other was Mickey's house.
Jackson and Lisa worked on Mickey's house, while Bella and I did our best with the more intricate Cinderella Castle. Here's how they came out:
Very tasty looking, aren't they?
Adventures of Little Elf
Thanks for letting us share another week of Family Fun with you! If you'd like to share any of your family fun with us, we'd love to hear about it!! You can leave comments here, or feel free to post pictures or stories to our facebook page!
Until next time, keep having fun!
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