Christmas Advent

Our first week of our Christmas Advent has been going pretty smoothly.  I like this tradition but I always worry about the balance between fun and overkill.  I want my kids to have great memories of Christmas and the fun things we did but I don't want it to feel too busy and I don't want to stress myself out trying to plan fun things that I don't enjoy things because I am more worried about planning for the activity.  So far we have done some pretty easy stuff.  Well, I guess I take that back.  We started the Christmas celebrations with our Christ Centered Christmas Dinner and that is never a quick and easy activity.  It takes a lot of thought and planning on my part.  But, besides that, it's been an easy week.  Ha, ha.  I'll write more about our dinner later.  This year we have two dinners and we have only had the first one so I will write about them both when we have the second one.

Here are the books and the activities:

Song of the Stars:  I thought it would be interesting to read about how some of the Christmas Carols came to be so for one of our activities we read about the history of a couple of carols during homeschool.  I'm not sure that the boys loved this activity but they enjoyed listening to the songs and it was interesting to me to learn about how some of them originated.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire:  This book is just the song put to pictures.  The kids had scouts that night so we couldn't do anything too involved.  They have been begging me to make scones and I make them about once a year so it seemed like a good time to make them again.  As dinner was approaching I still didn't have an idea of what we should do that was quick and easy and then I had a brilliant idea; why not make Christmas shaped scones?  I got out my cookie cutters and made some bells, candy canes, and stars.

Christmas Magic:  For a science experiment this week we made snowflakes.  I had the kids bend pipe cleaners into snowflake shapes and then we dipped them into a borax/water/food coloring solution and left them for a few hours.  When we pulled them out they had turned into beautiful crystals.

Olive, the Other Reindeer:  We made reindeer cookies.  The boys giggled and laughed over their "alien" reindeer.  It only took a couple of minutes so it was pretty easy-peasy.

We have a couple of more involved activities coming up like ice skating (we have only been once and the kids are aching to go again) but those days are going to happen after Mike's final is over and when the kids are all feeling a little better.  Also, it's basketball season which means three practices a week and at least two games a week so our activities have to be well planned out or super easy.  I hope the boys enjoy this tradition.  I think they are getting a little old for some of the books but luckily they still enjoy crafts and Piper really enjoys each book and the activities that follow.  It's fun to have little kids in the house still to enjoy all these Christmas traditions!  I"m not sure how long it will last before they feel too old for some of these things so I'm going to enjoy it while I can!