Christmas Decor Part 1

Every year as I am unpacking all of my Christmas decorations I try to think of what I did the previous year. Unfortunately, my memory is not what it used to be and apparently I've never really taken any pictures of our Christmas decor. I thought this year I would actually take some, post them here on the blog and have them forever. 

We have this awesome little Christmas memories book where each year after the holidays I record what we did. It has a place for you to record who visited, what you did on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning and that evening. I love reading it each year. I always try to include our Christmas card or a favorite that we have received. And I also try to record the things we are especially thankful for. Last year I even wrote down a few things I wanted to remember to do this year during the holidays. 

One of the things I wanted to try and do was an advent calendar. 

I present you our advent calendar...

which is actually more of a countdown to Christmas calendar. I had really high hopes for this and while it isn't working exactly how I had envisioned it, I do like it and we have had fun with it. I took an old Coca-Cola crate that I had, which had exactly twenty-four openings, and I filled each one with a shatterproof ornament. Beside it I placed our chalkboard (to record just how many days we have left) and a glass jar to drop the ornaments in. 

I had initially envisioned that behind each ornament would be something to do or read or try or bake. We might read a special story about Baby Jesus. We might bake cookies or make reindeer cookies. We might watch a Christmas movie or ride to see lights. We might even do something nice for a neighbor or friend. Then I realized that that would require a great deal of thinking and pre-planning which is something that my brain was having a hard time with. Maybe next year. I gave up on the idea of having everything perfect and in place and all planned out. For goodness sake, we have a lot going on. And as you all know, you can only do some much pre-planning with a preschooler. 

 So, instead we've been moving a ball each morning and changing our calendar - which by the way, we are not only counting down the days left until Christmas, but also counting down the days left of work. Woo hoo! And while it's not necessarily pre-planned, we have been doing some pretty fun activities and I "pretend" that they are all part of the advent calendar. We've attended a Christmas party, painted, read stories, talked about Baby Jesus and attended a birthday party among other things. 

Now that I've gotten part of it worked out, maybe I'll record all the different things we do or participate in and next year I'll be more prepared. Or maybe I won't. Maybe this little version of the advent calendar will be the perfect version for my little family.