We did several things for Christmas that I wanted to share, but because of reasons beyond my control, December did not go as planned. However, we determined to make the best of it, and what we hadn't finished before Christmas we just enjoyed after the date!
We started two traditions this year that I think are keepers. First, we did a Christmas countdown during the month of December.
Each gingerbread man's gift had a Bible verse about the birth of Jesus and a song to sing. Our boys absolutely loved doing this every night, and I was surprised at how much I liked it too. (In the nature of keeping things real, I may note that we had to do several at a time some days because we didn't get to them every day, and when Christmas came we hadn't finished it.)
Our second tradition we started this year was a birthday party for Jesus. We had pizza and cake and gave birthday gifts to Jesus. We decided to choose his birthday gifts from the Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog. My oldest son chose to give a week's worth of milk for a child and a Jesus Loves Me Stuffed Lamb for a child in crisis. As a family we gave some other gifts also. These gifts and our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes were also our gifts to our family members -- we gave these gifts in honor of them instead of buying them something they didn't really need or want anyway.
During December they boys played in a Christmas themed sensory tub.
The tub included white beans, green split peas, red beads, bells, toy blocks, red jewels, and green pom poms (which my son had already scooped out before I took the picture).
We also made chocolate dipping spoons for hot chocolate. I originally planned to do the spoons with snowmen as I saw here, but since we didn't get them started until after Christmas we went with easy sprinkles and crushed candy canes.
We used plastic spoons for the ones we gave as gifts, but just grabbed the lesser used spoons from our drawer for treats for ourselves.
The Christmas season came and went fast this year, and now it is time to move on to other things. Does it seem to you that December lasted longer when we were the kids?
I love the photo of the spoons. The red background with the gingerbread men really make it stand out. It must have been a really great photographer that took it.:)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think my husband actually took that picture. :)
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