Christmas Advent: Days 1-10

My kids are crazy about our Christmas Advent tradition. We do a holiday themed activity every night from December 1-24. I have simplified things quite a bit as the kids have gotten older and are more busy with school and extra curricular activities (I don't do nearly as many crafts as I used to) but they look forward to opening the day's event all month long.

December 1 - Open new Christmas Jammies

The tradition in my family is to open new PJs on Christmas eve but I changed this a couple years ago so my kids can wear their new jammies all month long. This was Addie's first nightgown ever and she is in absolute heaven. In fact, she didn't take it off for about the first three days she had it.

December 2 - Trim the Tree

We decorated our small tree that includes all the ornaments that we buy each year for each of the kids, an ornament representing our family/couple trips, etc. It's a total mishmash and I LOVE it - so nostalgic for us to pull them out every year and remember what the ornaments represent for our family and each person.

December 3 - Attend the Ward Christmas Party

Apparently Carter was too busy hanging with his friends to visit Santa this year. (Sigh. Why do they have to grow up so darn fast?!)

December 4- Make Peppermint Candy Cane Cookies

Recipe straight from Family Fun Magazine

December 5 - Watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional

December 6 - Drive around and look at Christmas lights/Make Peppermint Chocolate-Chip MilkshakesDecember 7 - Watch a Christmas special and have popcorn (aka Dad is at YMs and mom has had a busy day)

December 8 - Make Grandma B's eggnog and talk about family traditions

December 9- Watch a Christmas movie with just the tree lights on (aka mom has been up all night with the stomach flu and still feels sick)

December 10- Visit Santa and have your picture taken

We have a few other traditions we do during the month of December that the kids love. I always buy each of them an inexpensive chocolate advent calendar that they are able to eat each day during the month. They also love our tradition of opening up a Christmas book (or 2) each night and reading them together. I keep our Christmas books separated out and only pull them out for the month of December. Last year I started the tradition of wrapping them up for the kids to open each night.

(Our pile of Christmas books)

We have also really enjoyed this Scripture Ornaments activity in the Friend this year:

http://lds.org/friend/2010/12/scripture-ornaments?lang=eng