Liams traditional photo with the stocking he was given from the hospital when he was born on Christmas Eve. I love taking this picture every year! I am excited for when he’s grown, and we have 20 of these photos to look back on! 😍
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I am loving traditions more and more every year. Especially with kids that are growing older and more able to participate and create them with us! This year we are staying home for Christmas, and it’s ended up just being us. I’m a little sad about that, I love the family gathering aspect of Christmas, and have struggled this week with not having family close by. But we have so much to be grateful for this year, and we are making memories and traditions together, and I’m really thankful for that.
One of our favorite traditions is watching “Its a wonderful life” together on Christmas Eve. We love Jimmy Stewart’s performance, and the reminder of what is important in life!
We’ve also started driving around a couple nights in December to look at everyone’s beautiful Christmas lights, and it’s really fun! The kids enjoy it, and it’s amazing to see everyone’s displays.
We started reading a family advent book this year, it was very much too old for our kids, and we’ve missed days here and there, but it was nice to be a little more grounded in the reason for Christmas, and to help our kiddos start learning that.
I’d love to hear about your families favorite holiday traditions! ❤️🎄
I have been thinking about Christmas for several months, and about different traditions surrounding that time of year. Now that Liam is a little older, able to be involved and understand a lot more, I was looking for some traditions to start. Something that would be both fun and meaningful. I decided an Advent calander sounded fun, but the more I looked, I just couldn’t find one to buy that fit what I was thinking. There are lots of candy Advent boxes, but I didn’t want him to come to expect candy every single day. And I didn’t love the toy Advent calander, as we live in a very small space, and we tend to be very minimal, and intentional about what we being into it. (Clutter builds up so fast! )
So after looking at a ton of ideas online, I decided to try to make my own, that fit my toddlers personality, and the mix of fun, and “the reason for the season” that I was wanting!
I found all of the components for this at The Dollar store, and all together, it cost about $7 to make. Most of the activities on ours are free, and the couple that cost money are less than $10 each, making it exciting, but won’t break the bank, which is important to us!
What you need:
-tiny clothes pins
-pretty marker
-copy paper
-yarn
-thumbtacks
-decorations (I made the trees out of yarn, and found the tiny ornaments there too.)
1. Write out your list of activity’s on slips of paper, and make tiny envelopes (you could probably buy some!).
2. Label the envelopes 1-24, stuff them with your activity’s.
3. Tack 4 or 5 strands of yarn to the wall, (you’ll do 4 strands of six envelops across, or 5 with 5 envelopes on 4 strands, and 4 on the last one, I ended up liking this look better.)
4. Attach envelopes using the tiny clothes pins.
5. Then add any decorations you want, and enjoy a fun, inexpensive advent calander! (Plus most of these activities are free, and feel free to add your own activities that work best for your family!
1. Read Christmas books
2. Watch Rudolph the red nose reindeer
3. Bake cookies to take to the neighbors
4. Make a Christmasy craft
5. Go look at Christmas Lights
6. Decorate a gingerbread house
7. Read the Christmas Story and talk about all the characters
8. Make Christmas cards for grandparents
9. Decorate a Christmas ornament
10. Go out for Hot Chocolate
11. Mail a Letter
12. Decorate sugar cookies
13. Color a Christmas picture
14. Go shopping for a gift for Sibling
15. Have lunch with Daddy at work!
16. Watch a Charlie Brown Christmas
17. Watch The Snowy Day (Amazon)
18. Watch a Merry Pooh Year
19. Go to the Library and read Christmas books
20. Homemade hot chocolate night
21. Decorate the tree
22. Make a Christmas garland
23. Take pictures in Christmas pajamas
24. Go Look at Christmas displays in stores (Costco etc.)
Let me know if you end up making one! I can’t wait to start this with my son! His birthday is at the end of December, so it’s also a countdown to that, which makes it double fun!
We are also also planning to go through the book Waiting for Jesus, from The Daily Grace Co, and do readings out the the Jesus Story Bible.
Loving My Littles 