Christmas activities

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I made a paper chain advent calendar this year since I didn't have my beloved advent calendar that I made a couple of years ago. I liked the idea of doing activities every day to count down to Christmas rather than giving Claire a treat which is the LAST thing she really needed. Some of the activities included making a Christmas wreath and candy cane reindeer that I shared in the Christmas crafts. Others were fun activities to do that day. This is the list of advent activities we did this year, and we had a BLAST doing them!

1 – watch a Christmas movie

2 – make an advent wreath

3 – call Grammy and Oma

4 – Make a Christmas wreath

5 – write a letter to Santa

6 – Christmas tree lighting

7 – make popcorn garland

8 – bake cookies

9 – make handmade ornaments

10 – make hot chocolate

11 – buy toys for Toys for Tots

12 – make reindeer candy canes

13 – read a Christmas book

14 – hang paper snowflakes

15 – have a birthday party

16 – decorate a gingerbread train

17 – dance to Christmas music

18 – build a snowman

19 – color a Christmas picture

20 – wrap presents

21 – Camp around the Christmas tree

22 – visit Santa Claus

23 – sing Christmas songs together

24 – read the Christmas story

I got most of these ideas from pinterest, and they even had a print out for them. I cut them out, glued them on red and green construction paper, and put them in order to tape together. 

Then I put them up!

I'd like to share some of the highlights from these activities. 

So, all families handle Christmas differently. In our family, while I work hard to emphasize the real meaning of Christmas by doing advent Sundays, reading Christmas stories about Christ's birth, talking about Jesus a lot, and collecting nativities to display (though I didn't have them this year), we still believe in the magic of Santa. There is something very magical about Santa, and when done right, can help emphasize the spirit of giving and kindness. Chris still gets teary eyed over touching family movies involving the magic of Santa and Christmas. I hope that Claire and all of our children always carry that special feeling with them even as they get older. So, let me share the Santa fun we had this year.

Claire enjoyed writing her letter to Santa. I wrote the letter part with her dictating it. It reads: Dear Santa, May I please have a magnifying glass? May I please bring you cookies? Thank you for the toys you gave me last year. Love, Claire. Then she drew the cutest picture of Santa (the big man in red of course) with our little family. (I think she asked Chris to draw a self portrait on the right, but she drew the rest.) So sweet. 

Back in November, she actually dictated the same letter to me. She grabbed me by the hand one day and pulled me into Chris's office. She sat in the computer chair and started typing on the computer keyboard, saying what she just wrote above. It was the cutest thing ever. 

Later in the month, Santa wrote her a letter back. (They had little letters at the px with cute envelopes.) It was cute, and she liked it, but she didn't think it was as cool as I did. Haha.

We of course visited Santa too, though some of the visits were surprises to us. On the first Saturday in December, we happened to be at the px eating lunch before going grocery shopping, and Santa came! He walked around giving candy to the kids and then finally sat in his special chair for kids to come see him. Claire was really excited about Christmas and Santa, so I was really surprised that she suddenly got really shy and scared. I convinced her to go up for a piece of candy, but she didn't want to get too close, and didn't want to talk to him. It did give me my first opportunity to see how Maddie would react. I wasn't really surprised that it was this:

Later that week, we went to the tree lighting ceremony (which was really just lights in the shape of a tree.) The lights were festive though, and it always made me smile when we'd drive by this area of post. I missed seeing lots of Christmas lights this year. Here's a blurry cell phone picture of the festive lights.

At the ceremony, the army band played some Christmas music, they had hot chocolate, and children's groups performed. We didn't stay for it all though, because it was crazy cold outside. After the lights were lit (which they thankfully didn't wait until the end of the ceremony for) we ran inside the Gateway Club. We decided to get some pizza for dinner and realized that Santa was coming. After we ate and waited for the crazy parents to calm down, we waited our turn to see Santa. He had gift bags for everyone, and Claire even got a Sleeping Beauty dvd! She LOVES it. Again, Maddie is crying, but Claire looks cute!

They gave us framed pictures of the girls with Santa. 

At the beginning of the month, it didn't seem like there would be many opportunities to see Santa, so a friend of mine and I signed up our families to go to a Christmas dinner with Santa on the 22nd. There was a delicious Christmas dinner buffet that you had to make reservations for, live peaceful Christmas music, and then the kids could see Santa and got gifts from him. They were actually really nice gifts too, though not necessarily age appropriate. Claire got a really cute baby doll with a car seat and other accessories while Maddie got a craft kit that said for ages 12+. Oh well, Maddie didn't really need anything, though it was funny. We had a fun time. Again, they gave us a framed picture of the girls with Santa, where Maddie is of course crying. (Yes, we tortured her three times. Haha.)

One activity that was a hit was buying some toys for Toys for Tots. We gave Claire a budget and let her pick out toys for a child who wouldn't otherwise get toys for Christmas. She really liked the idea, and every time we went to the px after that, she wanted to buy more toys for other kids. It was a nice change from always asking for toys for herself. They also had a toy drive for kids in an orphanage in the area. After Claire got a gift at her birthday party that she already had, I gave her the choice of returning it and exchanging it for a different toy, or to donate it to kids in need. I was thrilled and very proud of her when she chose to give the toy to a child at the orphanage. Yea!

Paper snowflakes are always fun to make. I discovered that the four-sided ones I made as a kid apparently aren't technically accurate as snowflakes have six sides. Well, we did some four-sided ones anyway since it was easier (Claire cut one all by herself - the one on the right), and I did a couple of six-sided ones with patterns I found online. Here are our fun snowflakes!

Sorry, hard to see. The ones at the top are just the stick on window decorations. 

One of the six sided ones. 

A cool snowman one. :)

At the beginning of the month, after the first or second snow, we went outside to play in it. We made a little baby snowman then. Unfortunately, when I had scheduled to make a snowman for an advent activity, we didn't have any snow on the ground. I had a back up plan though. We made these in preschool that day. 

Made of marshmallows, M&Ms, chocolate chips, and twizzlers. I used frosting for glue, but it didn't work the greatest. One of the ear muffs fell off. We tried.

One of the biggest hits was when we camped out by the Christmas tree. I scheduled it for a Friday night. We watched a Christmas movie (one of the Santa Clause movies with Tim Allen) and then all slept on the floor by the Christmas tree together. (Well, Maddie slept in her crib.) While it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world (I ended up moving to the couch in the middle of the night), it was so cozy and special to sleep by the glow of the Christmas tree lights as a family. We'll definitely have to do that one again. Claire LOVED it!