I thought I’d bring the blog back to talk about our Advent Activity calendar so that I have a record of it and share it with others, in case it is helpful.  Each year growing up, we had an advent calendar.  I remember counting down the days to Christmas and being excited about it each day during the season.  I started doing an advent calendar when C1 (now six) was much younger.  At the time, I just did little trinkets each day, like stickers or small dollar store toys.  Last year, I started doing an activity calendar, inspired by Stacey and others around the internet.  This year, we got a great deal on the Star Wars Lego Advent calendar, so each day the boys will get that as well as the activity.  C1 will build them but C2 loves seeing what they become, so I think they will both enjoy it.

I’ve been collecting ideas for a while in Evernote – I’ve shared my list so you can see it.  Today, I took a printable calendar (I love her stuff, so cute!) and pencilled in all of the things that are date specific, like getting a Christmas tree because that has to happen on a day early in the month when we have lots of time.  Then, I filled it in with other activities, keeping the less time consuming ones on Tuesdays and Thursdays because those are the nights we get home later.  

I kept a few things in mind when making my list.  First of all, I wanted to include enough activities that C2 can participate in (he’s 2).  He’ll be able to help make Christmas cards, cookies, watch Christmas shows, and many of the other options, though his creations will look much different from his brother’s.  Secondly, C1 has gotten old enough now to begin to truly understand that there are other people who don’t have the things we have and the need to help others.  He is also hold enough to understand that people sacrifice for the things we have and to protect us (military, fire fighters, etc).  So, it was important to me to incorporate things that make the season more about that and less about us.  We are a family who really likes giving and making gifts, but I want to be sure that we don’t make it only about that.  

Once I penciled things in, I printed out the little cards that will go in the advent calendar.  I like these day tags and used them last year.  I cut them out and wrote in the activities on the back.  I wrote the activities in pencil, just in case I need to make some modifications along the way.  I then made myself a list of things I need to do & buy before we start this thing to make it all work.  I tried to choose activities that require minimal supplies that we don’t already have, other than the shopping that I’ll do with the kid as a part of some of the activities, but there are still a few things I need to pick up.  I’m hoping to do this ahead of time to make the season less hectic.  

I’ll be blogging here along the way when we start our calendar on December 1st.  I look forward to sharing and cataloging our fun season!