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November 30, 2007
Advent Calendar
Last year I wrote about creating more family traditions on the website 43things.com. I documented our advent calendar adventures there.
Unfortunately there's no love coming from the robots at the co-op this year and the "post to blog" feature is still broken.
So I'll just write about it here, on my own blog and ditch the whole community effort part.
Time to plan out the month of December on little scraps of paper again. I've seen some amazing advent calendars out there this year. Mine is one I bought at a Christmas market in Germany so it is cool in its own way for me.
The best thing I've found about doing an activities based advent calendar is that it forces me to get organized. We have the "visit Santa" day all figured out so I don't freak out on Dec. 24th that I've forgotten about it. The activities are generally pretty simple but the little bit out of the ordinary is what makes the whole season special for the kids. It makes me focus on them instead of my usual panic shopping.
Now what to write?
Posted by jana at November 30, 2007 4:01 PM
Comments
I love the activities advent calendar idea, especially the one with the boxes. I'm going to work on this for next year (okay, get real...probably the year after that).
Posted by: becca at December 1, 2007 5:21 AM
Wow, you still have that calendar you bought in Düsseldorf? Cool! Btw.: We have an advent-calendar with a mix of chocolate and an audio-book: first Lars is to pick the first CD of the book, second Anne is to pick a piece of chocolate, third Lars picks chocolate, fourth Anne picks the second CD... (there are 8 CDs in total). Works well...
Posted by: Andrea at December 3, 2007 7:33 AM
This is my first year doing an advent calendar. I found a lovely Christmas tree shaped one at http://www.tealaden.com. This is a tea shop, but they had these lovely traditional wooden advent calendars. I am not putting gifts or candy in it. Instead I am putting slips of paper with family activities for us to do together. For example, decorate a gingerbread house, make decorations from bird food to hang outside, go for a nature walk with a cup of cocoa. So far all of our activities have been a hit and I hope the kids will have wonderful Christmas memories.
Posted by: Rita at December 5, 2007 11:28 AM
Hi Jana! Haven't checked in for awhile & wanted to add a couple of ideas when I saw this post- what a great idea & I love that you're such a caring mom to go the extra effort to create memories for the kids with this project. Try the snowshow at Pacific Place, kids love it & it appears every night at 6pm if I remember correctly. Also the Teddy Bear suite on the 3rd floor at the Fairmount Olympic Hotel and the gingerbread model of the Pike Place Market in the lobby. These activities are free. Swanson's nursery is fun with the live reindeer and then warm up with cocoa next to the koi pond! Another idea could be a visit to my house for a holiday suprise :)
Posted by: Ursula at December 6, 2007 10:28 AM