Holiday Countdown, 2011

For the holiday season each year, we do a countdown to Christmas. Instead of chocolate in a cardboard advent calendar, however, we do a little activity each day. The kids love it. I feel like a good mom. Everyone wins.

In years past, I made individual envelopes for each day. In 2009, I got really ambitious and made 30-some-odd paper cranes, each holding a little scroll with the day's activity. Last year, I'm not even sure we did the holiday countdown. I don't really remember what happened last year. It's all one big blur and a lot of not blogging about it, whatever it was.

This year, I again sort of have my stuff together. Emphasis on "sort of." While out shopping for holiday card-making items at the craft store, I happened upon the sweetest wooden Gingerbread house-looking advent calendar marked 50% off (because it was overpriced to begin with). I have a "teacher's" discount, however, which got me another 10% off and that seemed worth it. So now I never have to make another countdown envelope again.Except that when I started filling up all the little doors and windows today with two Hershey kisses and a little slip of paper with the designated activity on it, I discovered the conspicuous absence of Day 19. I stuck Day 19 in Day 20 and figured I need to buy more Hershey kisses anyway. Oh well.

Our activities for this year:
December 1 - Family Movie Night: Watch A Christmas Story with root beer floats.
December 2 - Decorate the tree.
December 3 - String popcorn and listen to Christmas music.
December 4 - Start borax snowflakes.
December 5 - Make presents for friends and family.
December 6 - Write letters to Santa.
December 7 - Make paper garlands.
December 8 - Go on a walk in the woods, gather bits for the nature tray.
December 9 - Have a fancy dinner with china, silver, candlelight, and guests.
December 10 - Have a Mad Hatter tea party with friends. Read aloud from Alice in Wonderland.
December 11 - Build a gingerbread house (or rice crispy tree house, as the case may be).
December 12 - Go to the Botanical Gardens to see the gingerbread houses.
December 13 - Make gummies (Aleks' idea).
December 14 - Make Lego snowmen (and maybe other types of snowmen as well). (Also Aleks' idea).
December 15 - Buy a gift for someone in need. We usually buy something from Heifer International.
December 16 - Family Game Night.
December 17 - Make or buy an ornament for each family member related to a significant experience from the past year.
December 18 - Drive around to look at Christmas lights.
December 19 - Go visit Santa Claus.
December 20 - Read Polar Express while drinking hot cocoa.
December 21 - Decorate winter table.
December 22 - Bake cookies. Leave some out for the Solstice fairies.
December 23 - Take a food-colored, candlelit bubble bath.
December 24 - It's Christmas Eve! Open one gift (of mom's choosing because she's mean).
December 25 - It's Christmas Day! Enjoy the company of friends and family. Be grateful for all we have.

Halloweenie

We're getting ready for Halloween.

Aleks Informs me of the Health Benefits of Chicken Soup and Talks About Jesus

Aleks is on his third bowl of chicken & dumpling soup. He started explaining to me that chicken soup is good for colds (though he doesn't have one right now) and that the vitamin A in the carrots is good for eyesight.

Then he started talking about Jesus getting killed. He asked if they shot him or stabbed him and I had to explain several times that there weren't explosives in Jesus' time. So I told him they nailed him to a cross. Then he asked about what he did to deserve that. He figured that Jesus was causing the government a lot of extra work with protests & riots & such (he said protests & riots, not I). I said that if he'd continued they wouldn't have been the government anymore.

Then he talked more about chicken soup, watched carefully as the broth spilled slowly into the spoon if he held it just at the surface, and finally wrapped up dinner with a comparison of the size of a megalodon to our house.

Bastian Draws

Bastian has never drawn on his own before. He's only ever drawn pictures with assistance. Tonight at bedtime, he asked to draw in bed like Aleks was. This is the face he drew. I'm very proud.

Sick Day

The boys both have a cold with an icky cough, so I've been making infinite cups of peach tea. At least I have plenty of time to knit now.

Bastian's Really Bug Eyebrows.

Uh-huh.

Summer's Ending

We finally got around to fixing up the summer table now that it will soon be time for fall. The wool playscape became a favorite perch of Oscar the cat, so the table fell into disrepair from lack of use. This glory will last briefly, I am sure. The kids actually find this activity boring - excepting picking marigolds and Bastian puts the animals in. Then when asked by Papa, who thought this disinterest made the practice futile, Bastian declared that he loves the seasons table. So there. Mainly it's cute and sparkly and paints images of our perfect life for television audiences, or, er, whoever.