Friday, November 23, 2012

Our Favorite Christmas Tradition

We love our Advent book tradition.  Every year I wrap up 24 Christmas books and we open one each day.  I try to match the books up with an activity or event that we are doing.  It is a fun way to count down to Christmas and share a great story time together. We are having a Victorian Christmas this year so all of the books are wrapped in brown paper, as will be all of our gifts. Here are our books and activites for this year. 
  1. Christmas Farm ~ Cut down tree and decorate it
  2. Amazing Peace ~ Set up Nativity
  3. The Last Straw  ~ Make shoe boxes for Meals on Wheels
  4. The Cricket on the Hearth ~ Make Victorian crafts
  5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas ~ Make Christmas cards at the library
  6. The Legend of St. Nicholas ~ The kids will get new socks and candy in their shoes
  7. The Christmas We Moved to the Barn ~ Go to the live nativity, Return to Bethlehem
  8. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree ~ Christmas at Carl Sandburg's home
  9. The Chanukkah Guest ~ Make Latkes
  10. The Legend of Papa Noel ~ Deliver books to kids in need (got names from the library tree)
  11. The Other Wise Man ~ View window decorations and give coins to street musicians
  12. The Baker's Dozen ~ Make and take bread to neighbors
  13. Gingerbread Baby ~ Visit the national gingerbread house competition at the Grove Park Inn
  14. Winter's Gift ~ Make snowflakes
  15. The Crippled Lamb ~ Attend the hospital children's Christmas party
  16. An Irish Night Before Christmas ~ Take a ride to look at Christmas lighting
  17. Grandfather's Christmas Tree ~ Take food to the foodbank Christmas tree at the mall
  18. The Dog Who Found Christmas ~ Take dog toys to the Humane Society
  19. The Legend of the Poinsettia ~ Sibling shopping and gift wrapping
  20. Night Tree ~ Clean the house for Christmas
  21. The Steadfast Tin Soldier ~ Host a Victorian nutting party
  22. Woodland Christmas ~ Decorate a tree with food for the wild animals
  23. Grandfather's Christmas ~ Drink hot chocolate under the stars
  24. The Legend of the Stocking ~ Set out stockings and attend church

Blessings, Dawn
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8 comments:

  1. MichelleNovember 23, 2012 at 7:05 PM

    What a fantastic idea!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. lahbluebonnetNovember 24, 2012 at 9:08 PM

    Great list! Here's more:
    The Pine Tree Parable
    Nick and Holly's Christmas
    Laurie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Soul and SeasonNovember 25, 2012 at 7:43 PM

      I love this... and something I could do with most of my kids grown and only one left young -- although as always you leave me missing the day when there was a pile of little people under my feet!

      Delete
  3. melismamaNovember 28, 2012 at 3:37 AM

    Dawn thanks for stopping by my blog and telling me your list was up. I certainly would not want to miss this! I LOVE YOUR IDEA and might just borrow a few of them! Great great great! Be blessed!

    ReplyDelete
  4. KidcrazeNovember 28, 2012 at 7:07 PM

    I just stopped by to check on Tim. Our family prayed for him again tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Soul and SeasonNovember 29, 2012 at 11:21 AM

    I posted a link to this blog post on the Facebook CM Book Discussion Group.

    ReplyDelete
  6. HweeDecember 1, 2012 at 3:16 PM

    What a good idea to have the children unwrap one book each day! I'll have to borrow this idea for next year! My son would absolutely love to unwrap something each day for the month of December.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LeslieDecember 9, 2012 at 8:32 AM

    Love this idea! I don't know that I could keep up or preplan all the activities though. We are on round 3 of a stomach bug (thankfully not the same people.) Not sure what is going on here. Just hanging out and keeping our activities low I guess. Maybe I could do 10 days of Christmas with what we have left. :-)

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