This is the first time I've done a Holiday card since we've been a family. That's a bit embarrassing given my career as a photographer and past life as both a graphic designer and stationer. Add in my penchant for awesome stamps and it's all the more surprising. We wrote a message on the back (complete with custom kid art!) & mailed our cards as part of our advent calendar activity. I am pleased with how it turned out and will definitely do them again next year.
We're up at my mom's house for Christmas this year. John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album has been on repeat. Every Christmas Eve we make cookies for Santa and my son gets to have his annual cookie. It's a highlight in our normally sugar-free household. "Making cookies for Santa" was on the agenda as part of our advent calendar. It was really fun using the cookie cutters that I used to use as a kid with my mom.
Christmas morning came early, which is obviously no surprise to anyone. It was barely light outside when we started opening our gifts. Our son is the only little one on my side of the family, so the attention was quite focused on him. Next year will be a different story (did you see this funny that Honest Toddler posted this morning?) The wishes of our sweet 4 year were granted in the form of drums, a little umbrella for when it rains, Legos, and a "playhouse" (dollhouse). My brother and parents lucked out and found an awesome Plan Toys house sitting in a corner of a local hobby store for $50 (retail $240!!).
We had a great time wrapping presents this year. Our advent activity the other day was to wrap presents together. I wrapped up using kraft paper and twine and my son added the red pom-poms (with gobs of elmer's glue!!). I knew it would be a fun, doable project that would look great!
Here are a few photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. What are you up to today?
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed a few photos from our advent calendar. We haven't done advent calendars in the past because I've been turned off by the idea of giving chocolate/candy or crappy little trinkets every day for a month. Then last month I saw a great idea from Jordan: advent calendar activities! I thought this sounded like great fun and also an awesome way to make sure we can check off everything from our Christmas bucket-list!!
Most days I've planned for activities, but there are some days where my son gets a new little toy: I think there are 5 Schleich toys, 1 small Christmas Lego set, and a small bag of miscellaneous Christmas stamps. The rest of the days are filled with awesome activities. We have done several so far (links with photos). Here's the run-down of what we're up to this month:
The advent calendar on Saturday said it was time to get our tree! So we headed out to Patchen Farm in the Los Gatos Mountains. It was a lovely day and we all had fun going up and down the hillside in search of the right tree.
After trimming the tree, we went to a birthday party! What a great weekend!
