Christmas Countdown Continued

I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked, but that's how things seem to go around here.  One week I'll have 50 pictures, and the next I'll have 2.  Here's our projects so far:

Day 6: Make Christmas Trees for Great-Grandparents

This was somewhat successful - I had gotten everything ready ahead of time, and Henry just needed to decorate.  I forget what came up, but we did this a day late and had to hurry after his nap to have them ready to go for the Great-Grandpas.  We got the two done that we needed to, but nowhere near as many as I planned. Before we glued the tree on the tube, I put some waxed paper around the bottom with a rubberband and we filled the trunks with pieces of candy.

Day 7: Visit Great-Grandpas

This went okay, considering that active little boys go haywire as soon as they're in a small confined room.  But the great-grandpas enjoyed seeing him (and us) and I know they don't mind the sudden goofiness as much as his mom does. ;)

Day 8: Buy a Gift to Give Away

I happened to be going shopping with my mom and Rachel on this day, so I thought it was perfect timing.  But I picked out the stuff for our Angel Tree gift (clothes for a girl), and I don't enjoy shopping and forgot (and then didn't put in the extra effort when I remembered) to have him pick something out to drop off at ATLAS.

Day 9: Have Grandparents Over for Supper

This was a huge hit, and I meant to take a picture of everyone together but forgot once we were all sitting by the table.  Henry thought it was just awesome to have ALL of his grandparents together and to himself.  We all had a good time.

Day 10: Make Salt-Dough Ornaments

Basically we played with play dough.  Sticky play dough.   It would have been better if it weren't so sticky, because playing with play dough is fun.  We rolled the dough into balls and then squished them to make snowmen.  Mine was 3 high with the circles getting smaller.  Henry's was 6 high with random sizes.  I liked his better, because no rules = more fun.  No pictures because my hands were too sticky. :)

Day 11: Visit Great-Grandma H

We were snowed in and definitely not driving out of town.  We played outside in the snow and then trekked up the street in the wagon to our cookie exchange.  I had finally bought a saucer this year, but a sled meant for pulling would have been better since the wagon doesn't work that great in the snow.

Day 12: Make and Decorate Cut-out Cookies

This was fun because Dad did it with us, but all we did was cut-out and bake the cookies.  I got out all the Christmas cookie cutter, and then the "boys" came.  Both thought the truck should be a Christmas shape, and I think we had more trucks than anything, and I had to work on both of them to share. ;)

The dough was sticky which I could handle, but the cookies didn't even taste that good.  So I need a new recipe.  And even if I had everything ready to go, Henry wouldn't have had the attention to cut-out the cookies and decorate them in one afternoon/evening anyway.

Day 13: Visit the Nursing Home and Hand out Extra Trees

This hasn't happened yet.  His Christmas party at daycare was that afternoon, and we brought away some cookie platters before that.  Plus we didn't have any extra Christmas trees.

Day 14: Make a Gingerbread House

We did this for family night this week, and it was fun but will hopefully get better over the years!  I had tried to get the house cut out and baked and assembled so it was ready to be decorated without falling apart.  I made the royal icing and put it together right before we had supper, and one of my support cans tipped a little too far and dented our roof.

When we sat down to decorate, Henry sat there with the bowl of Mike & Ikes in front of him eating for about 5 minutes.  Dad decorated his side of the roof perfectly, and Henry & I just did whatever.  It was hard enough convincing him to put the candy on the roof instead of in his mouth!  And we had to vacuum up the sprinkles that I kept hearing fall on the floor anytime Henry moved.

As I was finishing cleaning up, I could hear pieces falling off, and when we got up the next morning Henry saw the totally collapsed house and said, "Uh oh!  I broke it!"  He still claims he broke it even though I told him it fell apart while we were sleeping.

Day 15: Visit Great-Grandma VM

Henry had fun looking at her toolbox she got out to show him, and got to play with some of his (2nd?) cousins that Grandma was watching and lots of fun toys.

Day 16: Make Treats for Friends

My plans for the treats for his friends changed from candy trains to monster magnets.  He helped me "write" his friends names on the tags, but other than that there wasn't much he could do.  Thankfully I have a cool glue gun, or my fingers would be blistered!

More to come next week!

Advent Fun and My Giving Update

I can't say I was a complete success with the 30 Day Giving Challenge.  I had fun trying to come up with new ways to give and it pushed me to do some things I may have normally claimed were "too much work."

I managed a "Ring and Run" (actually a Ding and Drive) with an anonymous gift; I made cards for Operation Write Home and proceeded to use the cards to give to others; I left a treat for our mailman which he must not have realized was for him and left it there; and other miscellaneous things to help out neighbors and family that had more or less success.

About halfway through the month I slacked off.  "Recording" my giving started to feel pointless as I realized a lot of what I was doing was stuff that I would normally be doing anyway.  But what I took from it was not the benefit of "giving" for 30 days straight, but some encouragement to occasionally go above and beyond what I normally do, even if it's out of my comfort zone.  (I must say it's kind of uncomfortable ringing a doorbell and rushing to your car, trying not to look suspicious, but not knowing what you'll do if they come to the door before you can get away.)

On to Christmas!

I've been wanting a Christmas tradition that would add some fun, but couldn't quite describe what I wanted.  Stockings on Christmas Eve; Christmas breakfast and presents together as a family before church and the busyness of the day; it's some nice time together as a family but it still wasn't quite what I was hoping for.  But I didn't know what I was hoping for.

And then I discovered/thought of/combined from a million sources a form of an advent calendar combined with a Christmas countdown.  But I didn't want candy or trinkets.

So we have 25 days of activities for our family to do.  And it fits perfectly with what I was hoping to accomplish.  A tradition that makes this a season of fun and giving and not just a whole lot of commercial hoopla over one day of "gimme gimme" gift receiving.

I made bottle cap magnets with the numbers 1-25, cut out squares of Christmas paper (that I had to print from my digital supplies), and wrote our activities on the back.  My original plan was to use a cookie sheet since our fridge isn't magnetic.  Unfortunately my pans are airbake and also not magnetic, there weren't any at the second hand store when I looked, and I didn't feel like buying a magnetic board right now.  So I used my mini muffin tin, flipped it over and stuck them to the back.  Although I may need to clear if off or change one of my baking items I had planned for Christmas...


I explained the calendar to Henry yesterday and he went, "Oh, yaay!" and clapped.  I'm not sure he completely understands what we're doing as he's responded this way to random things throughout the past few weeks, but I know he'll enjoy it.  And I'm excited too, especially since I usually put our tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving and this year I've had to wait!

Anyway, check back as I'm excited about this and will be posting regular updates on our activities.  Not sure I'll post each day, but I'll do at least a summary each week.