"Mom, have you ever heard of an advent calendar?"
"A what?"
"An advent calendar."
"An ad-what?"
"An ADVENT CAL EN DAR."
"Ad-what?"
"Never mind."
When I explained it to her, she thought it was a good idea. Of course I really don't know if I truly understand it, having only heard of it this year thanks to Pinterest. I kept seeing all these pics of advent calendars and so I did what any curious person knows what to do...I looked it up on our most reliable source; Wikipedia. And being a very busy mom I skimmed the article...sorry, but I usually only get to sit down and browse the web as I'm breastfeeding so skimming is just good time management.
Anyway, from my limited research, it seems that Advent is something about celebrating or anticipating the upcoming birth of Jesus...and basically you plan an activity for every day from Dec. 1 up until Christmas.
Wow, sounds good to me.
In my day, we just made red and green paper chains and tore off a link every night. This idea is better!
Of course, I'd like to make a cutsy, fun, creative, beautiful, Pinterest-worthy advent calendar.
Maybe next year. Seriously, I just decided to do advent activities and so it was added to my pages-long to-do Holiday list. So, this year I'm doing it with construction paper, crayons, and post-it notes. Don't judge...at least I'm DOING it, and that's the point.
What I love about this idea:
It focuses more on the real reason for the season, Jesus Christ. It also focuses on doing things for other AND doing things as a family.
It will help my husband and I to pause more during all the chaos...to breath a little, and to take time with the kids.
Since Samuel will be out of school for half the month, this will help him to see that there are still things to do.
This helps the kids anticipate every day, and whatever that activity will be.
Sounds win-win to me!
The post-it notes are because we may decide to switch some activities around, depending on how our schedules are going.
So here are my activities:
1. Put up our Christmas tree
2. Make the Christmas countdown paper chain (hey this is one of my fav childhood memories and it brings warm fuzzies)
3. Get family pics made
4. Read a Christmas book as a family and act it out
5. Go see Kapolei Christmas lights
6. Prepare a gift for a child from the Angel tree project
7. Color Christmas pages (printed from Pinterest probably) as a family. Display them.
8. Open a gift early! (will probably be new jammies for the kids)
9. Go see the Christmas drama at First Assembly of God in Red Hill
10. Eat out as a family and wear red/green. Maybe wear wigs.
11. Donate food to the Hawaii Foodbank
12. Prepare gifts for Samuel's classmates
13. Have friends over for dinner. Play a board game with all the kids.
14. Make Nativity scene with Mommy's craft supplies
15. Find a baby sitter and have a Daddy/Mommy only date night
16. Let the kids ride the Polar Express train at Pearlridge mall
17. Go to the beach
18. Watch "It's A Wonderful Life"
19. Make Gingerbread men/women
20. Do Christmas puzzles together
21. Take cookies to soldiers and say "thank you" for serving us.
22. Go ride the boat for the Pearl Harbor Christmas lights tour.
23. Take cookies to local fire station and say "thank you" for serving us
24. Buy a gift for our special friend and hide it at her house for her to find later
25. Read the Nativity story before opening gifts.
So there you go!
As my husband said last night; "This sounds like a lot of work."
Me, thinking 'Scrooge'; "Well you don't have to do everything, some of it is just for the kids. And it's to help us have fun and focus on Jesus. Maybe this will be a fun new family tradition."
Him; "Well if it's too much work then we don't have to do it again."
Me; "Yeah, true. But maybe it will be awesome and will become a new family tradition."
See, the wife should have the last word because we all know she's always right.
Have fun this HOLY DAY season and remember the Reason for the Season!
