25 Days of Christmas

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by Sara

This year I'm participating in 25 Days of Christmas.  Thanks to Andrea, from a peek inside the fishbowl, our family has 25 holiday activities planned for the month of December:

"The month of December is a busy time of year for just about everyone. And no matter how much I tried, I found myself struggling to find a way to balance the fun of the holidays with my growing list of things that needed to be done. I knew I needed to get organized, but more importantly, I needed Christmas to be joyful again, not just for myself, but for my family.

A few years ago I hit upon a solution that helped me stay on top of the chaos and enjoy the season; I replaced our traditional drugstore brand chocolate-filled advent calendar with 25 small paper envelopes of my own design. I fill each one with a fun task, seasonal event, or family activity. No chocolate, no shopping, and no cheap gifts — just family time."

I chose to use my childhood advent calendar to store the slips of paper with our fun-filled activities but Andrea gives instructions on her blog for how to make your own calendar and advent envelopes.  My felt advent calendar has a special place in my heart.  It has been glued and taped back together countless and is nearing retirement.  Slips of paper are far more forgiving than little fingers pulling ornaments on/off velcro over and over again :)

Want to join in the fun?  Visit Andrea's post about 25 Days of Christmas for the 'how to'.  I'm keeping our list of activities pretty flexible: we've already had ot make some adjustments!

  1. Make paper snowflakes: My 2.5 year old monkey was happy to cut slits into paper and my 4.5 year old firefighter insisted that my snowflakes were actually trees.  He decided to make a winter scene of our house and van, a Christmas tree (with lights), and a Christmas tree outside.  We ended up with 0 paper snowflakes but we had a lot of fun!
  2. Listen to holiday music: No kids songs here, just old-fashioned Christmas tunes.  We played them all afternoon and the monkey pretended to play along on his guitar.
  3. Read Christmas stories: The boys chose "Olive: The Other Reindeer" to take with them to their Grandparents. 
  4. Santa Claus Parade: Perth Santa Claus Parade!
  5. Family movie night: Switched out for #11 (Decorate the house) - we couldn't wait any longer to put the tree up :)
  6. Christmas tree craft: I traced Christmas trees on construction paper, the firefighter cut them out and then covered them with glitter glue and holiday stickers.  I'd forgotten that even glitter glue leaves glitter everywhere...
  7. Colour a Christmas picture
  8. Write a letter to Santa
  9. Snowman craft
  10. Buy food for the Food Bank
  11. Decorate the house
  12. Lights on Taffy Lane
  13. Make reindeer food
  14. Visit Santa
  15. Make Christmas cards
  16. Make teacher Christmas cards
  17. Wrap presents
  18. Build a gingerbread house
  19. Bake sugar cookies
  20. Buy a toy for Toy Mountain
  21. Play in the snow
  22. Family swim
  23. Lights on Parliament Hill
  24. The pajama elf comes!
  25. Family photo in front of the tree

What are your favourite holiday activities?

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 4.5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.