we have never done any kind of advent activities and i'm not sure why. i think we're always too busy to sit back and enjoy the season. so this year i wanted to implement more and start new traditions.
we always put the tree up and decorate it together. that was important to me growing up and i wanted to carry on that tradition with my own family.
we keep our tree simple for many reason. the main one is because of the little fingers that linger around it each day. our ornaments are shatter-proof and we have no tinsel. simple. but i really like it that way.
other than our tree, i wanted to always have a box of Christmas books close by our tree. we had a few, but i wanted more. snow books. snowman books. Christmas books. night before Christmas books. books about the birth of Jesus. i want a good variety of them all to keep out every year. this is how i implemented that into our traditions ...
this is our "advent" calendar for this year. our countdown to Christmas. my sweet mom found a bookstore going out of business and snatched up 24 Christmas books. i wrapped them, numbered them, and sat them on our mantel. the girls didn't notice it all day, so we waited until we normally read books at night to even show them and explain to the girls what we were doing. tonight we opened our first book. of course they wanted to open all of them, but i think they finally got the point.
i absolutely love this idea. next year, we'll do more Christmas activities to countdown to the birth of Jesus.