It’s that time of year again, my favorite time of year! The time when we start to prepare for Christmas, get in to the holiday spirit and really focus on what it means to be a family. To do this in our house, we have countdown activities every day in December leading up to Christmas. In years past we have focused on crafts, but last year I felt we were a little too commercial for my taste, so this year our focus is just on spending quality time with one another and creating lasting memories. My biggest wish would be for this to become a tradition my children enjoy with their own kids someday.

Here’s a list of what we’ll be doing this year, I have not associated specific dates because I like spontaneity and because well, sometimes things change! Feel free to borrow any ideas and I will try to blog about as many as possible to show you how they went. If you do any of these activities with your family, I would love to hear how they turned out.

- Reindeer Thumbprint Ornament (C)
- Trim the Tree (T)
- Decorate the House & Yard for Christmas (T)
- Christmas Socks Day (T)
- Christmas Movie Marathon & Christmas Cookies (T)
- Snuggle up & Read Christmas Stories (T) My absolute favorite
- Paper Christmas Trees
- Popsicle Snowflake Ornaments (C)
- Dollar Store Shopping (O) *
- Kids Wrapping Party (C) New Technique*
- Christmas Movie Matinee (O)
- Tree & Snowman Shirts (C)
- Hill Country Holidays at Westin La Cantera (O)
- Make Gifts for our Neighbors & Y Friends (C)
- Go Visit Santa (O)
- Make Gingerbread Men & Gingerbread Girls (T)
- Afternoon at the Carnival w/ Kinder Class (O)
- Riverboat Ride (O)
- Christmas Light Spectacular Car Ride (T)
- Christmas Celebration at Sea World San Antonio (O)
- Snowman Sundaes for Happy’s Birthday (T)
- Christmas Pizza Night (T)
- Helping Hands Wreath (C) *
- Family in Jammies Party (Y)
- Jesus’ Birthday (T)

(*) Notes about a few of our traditions: (T = Together Time, O = Outing, C= Craft)

Dollar Store Shopping – each year we take the kids to the dollar store to let them shop for people on their list. We make a lot of gifts also, but shopping is part of the fun too. Here they can pick out anything they want and not worry about the price.

Kids Wrapping Party is another fun tradition we have. The kids make all their own paper and then wrap as many presents as possible on their own. Our wrapping has evolved over the years and now includes a 10 ft Christmas mural we work on a few days before the party.

Helping Hands Wreath: This is a great project and is very similar to the way we build our nativity manger for baby jesus. When the kids do something especially nice or helpful they get to cut a small piece of tan yarn to add to our manger for baby jesus. The more good deeds they do, the more comfortable he will be when he arrives. This year the kids will also get to cut out a hand from green construction paper when they help around the house. When we’re done, we’ll use these hands to create the wreath.

I hope you find some inspiration here and some new ideas for your family. If you’d like even more ideas, check out our ideas from 2010 & 2009.

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