Advent Calendar Activities, Part 1

People, it's hard waiting for Christmas. Especially when you're a kid. But luckily we can come up with things to keep us a little busy and to build up the excitement until then. Like activity advent calendars. Last year I did one for the first time. And now it looks like we'll be doing it every year because Logan sure doesn't forget fun things like that. :) I enjoy it too though. But I'm not gonna lie, there may be times when I'm not feeling too into the scheduled activity and maybe change it to something like, oh, read a Christmas book or something. :) Shoot, just realized that won't work when he learns to read. The way it's going now it looks like this might be my last year of doing that.... But the first thing Logan wants to do when he wakes up is see what is the activity for the day. He remembers exactly what number we need to get into. I love that he loves it so much. Lydia really enjoys it, too. ;)

December 1: Make a countdown chain

December 3: Go to the Holiday Lights at Thanksgiving Point. We'd had our first big snowfall of the year that day and I almost backed out because Jeremy was out of town and I didn't want to drive in it! But luckily we had invited the Bytheways so I couldn't let them, or Logan, down. Unfortunately it's too dark to take any good pictures.But here are some pictures of the kids packed in the van.
 



And here's a glimpse of what it looks like.

 You drive through a whole set up of Christmas lights with different themes, i.e. Candy Land, Elve's Village, etc. (Honestly, I don't really remember what they were.) My favorite though is that at the end you drive by some large, beautiful pictures that are accompanied with a poem that tells the story of Christ's birth. Thank goodness not every store/company is excluding that in their Christmas celebrations.

December 6: Wrap Presents (bought presents for friends on December 4)

December 7: Make a Christmas craft (we made a manger, courtesy of The Friend.)

Not pictured.....

December 2: Watch a Christmas movie. We watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original, not the Jim Carrey version.)
December 4: Buy presents for friends. I do this to help him realize that Christmas isn't just about getting presents but also giving them. I love doing this with Logan because he's so good at finding specific presents for specific friends and not asking to get toys for himself. This is definitely one of my favorite activities.
December 5: Color a Christmas picture.