Some Christmas Traditions

As I have mentioned I was trying to do more fun things with the kids, building new traditions, that kind of thing. So here are some things we did this Christmas.

Few years back my sisters and I made the above advent Calendar. One year I put candy in the holes. This year (because the candy always wanted to fall out and I am not a huge fan of candy) I put pieces of paper, each paper said something like "Token, Extra 15 Mins, Book, Candy" The child with the best behavior for the day got to remove the number and reap the reward. Kids really enjoyed this.

Another advent calendar of sorts that was a lot of fun for the kids. The picture changes almost every day as the children took the pieces on and off and moved them around.

(they attach with velcro)

This year we started a tradition my sister started a couple years ago. You wrap Christmas books and each night starting on the 12th (12 days of Xmas) you gather as a family and read a book together. With 2 kids reading and 1 getting close I thought this would be fun. The kids really looked forward to the books. (I bought most the books used from amazon for $2) Couple of the books I had never read and will probably get new books to replace them next year since I was not a fan of them.

We have a friendly elf that comes and visits us during Christmas time. Kids love looking for him in his new spot every morning. Our elf's name is Joey Jingles.

Made my first batch of Christmas Crunch and it was a HUGE hit. I am thinking about renaming it to Holiday Crunch so I can make it for every holiday of the year...very addictive.

We also baked a lot of bread and such but it was gone before the pictures happened.

Our Christmas Tree.

We stayed with tradition and went up to Apple Hill and cut this bad boy down. It is alot of fun!

My village...had nothing to do with the kids but when I was first married I always wanted a village to set out during Christmas. I am not a fan of Santa decorations I prefer winter theme more- Snowmen, Nativities, and the Village is what you will find in my house. So for a few years I would buy a village house to add to my collection. Well after my divorce and moving around I never had a spot to set my village up. This year I really want to set it up so I thought and thought were is a location big enough out of the reach of kids. On top of the kitchen cabinets! I was so excited about my idea I went out and bought a Fire Station to add to the village.