Holiday Fun with the McDs

A lot people were asking about our Advent activities last year, but I never really had the time to write it all out. This year I thought I would actually take time and make a post about the McD holiday fun!

Oh The Holidays!

If I don't have my act together, I can completely stress out; therefore, I try to have my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving. I have the decorations and the tree set up the week prior to Thanksgiving, and this year I hope to have all Christmas cards addressed before December 1st. The point of all of this is to be able to enjoy the holidays and teach my children a few things. I guess if the McDs had a Holiday mission statement (even though I think mission statements are completely cheesy, and I HATED making them in the ONE business class I had to take in college) it would be this...
'To learn about the Birth of Christ/what it represents, Giving to Others, and Family Time.'

Anyway, here's how we choose to rock out during the holiday season...

The Three Gift Rule

We only give our kids three gifts each. We believe that if three gifts were good enough for Jesus, that's good enough for our kids. A few years ago, some dear friends told me how they go even further with this idea.
The three gifts are...
1. Something child wants
2. Something child needs (books, pajamas, etc.)
3. Something that will help child grow spiritually.

We loved this idea and adopted it for our family. Yes, our kids still get one (only one!) gift from Santa. We don't put an emphasis on Santa, but we do throw him in the mix. I'm all about letting my kids live in fantasies, as long as they don't lose the big picture of what Christmas is all about. We try to keep the limit under $100 per kid for all gifts. Of course I say this, but this year I took some money out of the kids' Disney fund (everything we sell of theirs goes to Disney fund) to buy a play kitchen. This will go as a Santa gift (technically for Caroline, but we got one that is gender neutral. Homegirl needed a big girl toy in the worst way.)

We chose the three gift rule for many reasons. The kids are blessed with an amazing family who buy them a lot of awesome things for Christmas, and if we bought them a lot of stuff too... well, that's a lot of stuff! Too much stuff! Our solution? We believe that the kids won't remember half of the toys they get for Christmas, BUT they will remember going out and doing something for somebody else. They WILL remember the Christmas traditions we create together, so why not buy half the gifts and put the leftover money into giving and family time? We're not trying to be Scrooge; we're just making Christmas a lot more simple and meaningful.

Our tentative Advent Calendar for 2010

Several of our friends do Advent Calendar activities, so I've adopted several different methods and combined them to what works best for our family. I finally finished making my own calendar, but before that I just used one from the $1 bin at Target. I'll print and cut out the daily activities and place them in the pockets. The kids can go up to the Advent Calendar each morning after breakfast, and I'll read out the activity for the day.

1. Decorate and Camden's Mini-tree for his room
2. Read Nativity book and set up our Little People Nativity scene
3. Bethlehem in Bartlesville
4. Write Santa Letter
5. Go shopping for Angel Tree child (This is also a no-screen day. None of us will be on our phones, computers, TVs etc.)
6. Deliver treats to teachers at a local school
7. Meet Santa
8. Make Christmas Garland (red and green paper rings)
9. Read Polar Express and drink Hot Cocoa
10. Learn a new Christmas Song
11. Gingerbread House
12. Woolaroc Xmas Lights
13. Make Christmas Banner
14. Watch The Grinch That Stole Christmas (Cartoon version)
15. Read Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear (great book about giving!) and deliver gifts to Aaron's office and Cam's therapists
16. Make Cut-Out Snowflakes
17. Make Candy Christmas Trees (possible have friends come over to do it too)
18. Paint Christmas Cookies
19. Pick out our Compassion Child
20. Smores Night!
21. Fantasy Land of Lights (Bville park)
22. Go Hunting for Mistletoe
23. Stay in PJs all day
24. Cam's Christmas Movie Pick and Bake Cookies for Santa
25. Have a super fun relaxing day with family

Will I switch some things around at the last minute to accommodate our schedule? Absolutely! Looking at this list is a little overwhelming, and at first it was easy for me to say 'This will take up too much time!' There are a couple of things that are a little time consuming (i.e. Gingerbread House), but I schedule those on the weekends. Most of these activities take LESS than thirty minutes, but it is still quality family time we are all spending together. Some of these things I specifically picked to help Camden with pre-writing, letters, reading, fine motor skills, etc. (I love that he has no idea that gluing paper strips together to make garland is actually to exercise his fine motor skills.) We're so excited for the holidays to begin! Camden has already started begging to watch his favorite Christmas cartoon, Prep and Landing. He LOVED this last year and still remembered everything when he watched it this year. I'm still vowing to not start Christmas music until Thanksgiving, BUT I may have to play a little when we put up the tree. Let the holiday festivities begin!!!