Advent 2013

Our family loves doing a meaningful advent activity every year. In years past we have enjoyed wrapping up all our Christmas books and then unwrapping one book each night and reading it by the Christmas tree.  We did that for several years and then needed to change things up due to our kids getting older. We've also enjoyed doing the traditional advent calendar with scripture reading and lighting candles. Then last year we had a lot of fun with this project, you can read about it on this blog post. We also enjoyed doing this. Elf on the Shelf was fun but something we won't be repeating this year, it would have been more fun to do this when the kids were younger. As for this year, my daughter and I looked on Pintrest to get some ideas for advent activities and found an idea we liked and then created our own version of it. We are so excited to start on December 1st. We are using our Christmas countdown calendar and instead of finding a piece of candy in each pocket, there will be a family activity to do for that day. Here are the activities we came up with:

Read The Polar Express

Share 3 reasons why each person in the family is special to you

Have a family game night

Dinner by candle light

Make tin can luminaries

Make a popcorn string

Go look at Christmas lights

Go on a family night walk

Make cookies

Make a fire in the fireplace and listen to Christmas music

Roast marshmallows 0utside

Cut snowflake decorations

Make gift tags

Read the birth of Jesus from the Bible

Face time with out of town relatives

Make hot chocolate with marshmallows and sprinkles

It’s breakfast for dinner tonight

Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn and root beer floats

Have an indoor picnic by the Christmas tree

Make homemade pizzas

Go out to dinner

Find a new recipe and make it as a family

Have a dance party

Make a Christmas ornament

We then printed them out, cut them up, and placed them in the pockets. I had my calendar beside me to make sure some of the activities that are more extensive happen on evenings that we are available. 

We are so excited to start this on December 1st! It's the most wonderful time of the year!