Countdown.

Okay. Yes. It's December. I suppose that means I should just accept that and move on. ;) Sigh. I had these grand plans to get myself ready for December just after Thanksgiving this year. Really. I did. But. Being sick over Thanksgiving and then prepping for the 3rd annual Ornament Afternoon with our homeschool group (I've organized this for the past couple years...we set up tables run by parents and the kids get to come make about 5 ornaments and go home happy...two sessions, 62 kids altogether) and having Nathan out of town most of this week for business (he got home late last night) and having boys who were each sick at varying points throughout (fortunately, they're all better now) and not being able to reach all the Christmas decorations in storage, lol...meant that I didn't get my "normal" December stuff out by December 1 as desired.

But. I think I'm caught up now. Here's what's started...

- December books. We started this in 2006 (I think) after reading about it somewhere. We take a bunch (at least 25) of holiday/winter themed books and wrap them up individually. We then put them under the tree and the boys take turns selecting and unwrapping one (sometimes more) each night leading up to Christmas for their bedtime story. It's been so wonderful. The boys (for the most part) stop asking to unwrap any other presents that may appear (as they're getting that unwrapping bug out of their system each night), and we don't have to read "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" twenty five times during December (nothing against Rudolph, of course). Plus, it's just a nice little reminder that time spent together is a gift all its own. In any case, I wrapped more than 50 books yesterday...will perhaps work on weeding out books as we go this year. ;)

- Advent calendar. Yes, we're going with the good ol' Lego Advent Calendar again this year. I believe this is year three of having one for us. If it ain't broke... ;) (I've had this on hand since October, I think, as I know they sell out...just been trying to figure out where to put it.)

- Elf on the Shelf. We've had this little guy out for a couple years now, and the boys love hunting for him each morning. We (ahem) didn't find him that first day of December but the boys remembered to start looking for him last night. (Fortunately, I also had found him earlier that afternoon, lol.)

- Candy for strangers. Okay, I need a new name for this. Ideas? (Please?) I started it last year as a way to remember my dad during the holidays and just loved how good it made us feel and how many smiles it brought during the month. Yesterday, my dad would have been 61. For his birthday, I started prepping the box of 3 Musketeers for this year...it's sitting here ready to go now. Here's the layout I did about it last year (click to make it larger):

- Countdown calendar. I finally finished this yesterday. I started it last April, honest. (Yes, Laura, this is what I was working on at that crop when I proudly announced that I'd cut out a deer, LOL!) I'm rather proud of myself for finally finishing. ;) It's the first scrapbooking I've really done since summer sadly. In any case, here's what it looks like:

 
The idea is to flip the page each day to tell the boys how many more days until Christmas. Each "page" is 4x6" and it hangs from my fun 7 Gypsies album stand:

 
Even though it took me forever to finally finish and even though I feel like I could/should have done more, I'm so happy with the results...and proud of myself for actually using up a bunch of my miscellaneous Christmas embellishments. ;)

Whew. And that's why I felt behind on the whole December thing. ;) I *think* (knock on wood) that we're good now...so now we're on to the rest of the decorations and getting a tree and all that...but that just has to happen by Christmas, not December 1, lol.

Comments

[slammie]

LOVE the candy for strangers and the advent calendar....