Advent Calendar and more!

Well, things have calmed down since we have gotten back from Disney. I have been working hard to get the house back to normal while also decorating for Christmas. This weekend we will be putting ornaments and lights on the tree. Wes and I really need a pre-lit tree because we both hate putting lights on the tree. I joke that it was in my pre-nup that I will never have to put lights on a Christmas tree. Oh that and that if we stay married for 20 years, I will inherit 1 million dollars. Oh wait, I mean, I will get a candybar.......:)

Something new that we have been doing is an Advent Calendar. I have never done one of these so I didn't know much about it but we learned about them in my MOPS group at church. I really liked the concept of them. The purpose is to countdown the time before Christ came and readying your heart for that. Preston is still pretty young to do it, so I have modified it a bit. Each day, I put a coin in there and a fun Christmas activity that we can do together. Examples are watching a Christmas movie, put ornaments on the tree, decorate cookies, donate a toy to someone who is in need. learning a Christmas song together...etc.

There is a lot of room for creativity while doing this. The first activity we did was to decorate a "bank" for the money that he will be getting each day. He knows that on Christmas Eve, we will be giving this money to Jesus as an offering. It's been neat to see his excitement regarding this. One tip is to not throw away the days activity paper but put it back in the calendar so that next year you don't have to redo the whole calendar! Enjoy!