This year I wanted to do a little something different with our family advent calendar. Last year I gave gifts. They were small - and mostly encouraged creativity of some sort - stamps and stickers, scissors and sticky tape in different shapes, sizes and colours to what the children already had. But I still felt a little uncomfortable going down this path again. They already have so much "stuff", and I want to cut down on cheaper disposable purchases in general. I thought about getting books for each day of the calendar - but that seemed an expensive exercise. And I also considered activities, but wasn't sure I could come up with 24. Then I read the brilliant post by Esther at Babyccino Kids. Her advent projects were mostly about giving, and finding ways to have fun together as a family over Christmas. The only slight problem was that some of them were heavily geared towards a European winter - drinking hot chocolate or walking around in the dark at night. As summer is such a big part of the Australian Christmas, I set about adapting some of the ideas, and giving them a slightly different spin. Would love to hear if you have any other ideas.
images the indigo crew
love these! it's great because you kind of do the activities anyway at this time of year but they are made to feel like it's special cause it said so on the advent calendar!!! x
ReplyDeleteYes, but it really creates builds towards the anticipation of Christmas. I have to admit that when I first explained to my son that we were going to do activities, not gifts, this year, he was not thrilled. But tonight he said, "Yesterday when you said we were going to make cards for family and friends, I didn't think that was going to be much fun. But by the end I actually enjoyed it." These are pretty much his words verbatim. Tonight we made snowflakes to stick on the windows. He was really excited, and now the momentum seems to be building. x
ReplyDelete