Getting Ready for Christmas

We actually decorated for Christmas last weekend, but I am just now getting the pictures up on the blog. There were a few fights, and Lily took sooooo long to put up the decorations that are only hers that she missed out on helping put up the "family" ones. So, she went down the basement stairs and pouted. So dramatic.... That lasted until she realized we still had candy canes to put up, so she was OK after that and helped out. So, overall, not too bad. :0)

I'm trying out a new idea this year for Christmas. I always have all of these ideas I want to do/make with the kids, but half of the time, I get to the 20th & I try to cram everything in and it is more stressful than fun (for me). So, this year, I decided to try to be more intentional with our time. I made a calendar and put at least one thing I wanted to do each day until Christmas. I used our regular calendar as a guide so I knew when to put small stuff. For example, on Sunday, we were in KC, so I just put read Christmas stories together. But later this week we are going to make sugar cookies and decorate them when I know we will have more time in the evening. Some of the other things we have listed are:
Watch the Grinch & make Grinch cookies & punch, make reindeer with hand & footprints, look at Christmas lights, make gingerbread houses, and I need to add a Nativity activity that I just found to the calendar, but there are lots more fun things on it! 
We are also doing acts of kindness throughout the month. We know that we are so blessed, and we try to show the kids how blessed they really are, so we hope this will help show them that Christmas isn't all about what they want, but that we need to help others and love one another. And of course, we have our Advent Wreath that we use every night. I am so excited for this season to begin!