Christmas Happenings - Advent Activities

For the past few years,

we have done

*some* sort of Advent calendar.

We have done 

the candy kind

and 

the Lego kind.

But I really wanted something different,

something more pronounced

that would allow us to add

Advent activities as well as candy

to the daily "containers".

So I hit pinterest 

and the web to see what I could come up with.

There were a TON of cute and chic

ideas...

but I was one a limited budget

and we are renting

so I didn' want anything big

and bulky

or that might not fit in a different house.

Here is what I came up with:

I found the garland at Michael's which was 40% off.

Then I hunted for a some CHEAP stockings.

I found these at Wal-Mart, they were 4 for $0.96.

So for around $20 I had my advent calendar!

I was trying to come up with some chic way

to label them,

but eventually hit the craft bin 

and came back with glitter glue.

It worked!

The plan was to put a couple of things in each stocking

for each day:

Advent scripture verse

Advent activity

1 small piece of candy per person

I started off ok,

but life happened 

and the candy was the ONLY thing

that actually made it in each stocking.

The problem was trying to plan, in advance,

what was going to fit into each day.

So I wound up with a list

of things I wanted to do 

for Advent activities

and we just worked our way 

through them

as we had time.

The Advent scripture verse

didn't happen this year,

maybe next year I can get my act 

together 

BEFORE Advent

and get them printed up for the stockings.

Here are a couple of the Advent activites we did:

1) Gingerbread houses

2) The boys made holiday

and winter figures out of clay.

 3)  We roasted marshmallows!

Daddy got this firepit for his birthday LAST year

and this was the first time we actually used it.

But we really enjoyed it!

 4) We mixed up school a little bit

and decided to measure the gifts.

They were excited to see who had the biggest present.

But as the norm, they each had one that was the "biggest".

5) We went to the "Las Posados" event at church.

This is a loose reinactment of 

when Mary & Joseph were searching for a place to stay

as she was about to deliver this precious

Savior child.

6) We also introduced an Advent wreath on 

our kitchen table

and lit it every night for dinner.

The kids LOVED this

and were thrilled that they each got to 

take turns blowing out the candle(s)

after dinner!

7) Another Christmas tradition in this house is:

rolling

cutting

and

decorating

Christmas cookies!

Daddy actually surprised us and came home

a couple of hours early the day we were decorating

and he jumped right in and helped us decorate!

Then the amazing dad that he is,

he decided to indulge the kids (um, birds?)

in icing straight from the bag...

8) We gave back!

Our scout group voluteered at the local food bank.

We definitely signed up to help!

Our job was to label some unlabelled cans

and restack them so they were easier to distribute...

R really got into the job!  ;)

Mr. T was exhausted from watching us work

and PASSED out!

10) We made a birthday cake for Jesus!

This was another first for us this year.

The kids helped bake the cake,

and they

decorated it!

(with the slightest help from mom)

These are just some of the highlights of our 

Advent activities this year.

I am looking forward to doing more next year!!