Advent Activities – Part 1

I’m excited to begin celebrating the Christmas season with Little Man, whom I have decided should be called Dash from now on because of his incredible speed. Christmas has become more and more special to me each year since becoming a mother, but this year is really the first year that Dash will be joining in on the excitement. At two and a half, he’s becoming so much more involved in everything that we do and say around here, so when we pull down the boxes of decorations and begin fluffing out the tree, I think it could very well be even funnier than last year.

Now that he’s reached an age where he will be storing away a few more long-term memories, I want to start teaching him some of the important and fun stuff to know about Christmas. I’ve adored numerous advent calendars and considered trying my hand at them, but then I came to a realization. Every time I try to go all out on something new like this, it blows up in my face. I want it to be perfect, or at least close to perfect, and when I add in all of the factors of unexpected illness, having an active boy who doesn’t want to sit  and paint for hours, and overall holiday busyness, perfection never happens.

So, I’ve decided to get my feet wet in the simplest way possible. Each day’s advent activity will be short and uncomplicated, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll just abandon it and move on with our day. There’s not going to be someone secretly grading me, and I’m not even going to make a point to take a picture of each day so I don’t get caught up in that mindset. It will just be fun, and if the fun stops, then we will too.

Since I’ve spent some time compiling my list, I thought I’d share it for any other moms of young children who might be interested in doing something similar. To start with, let’s talk design of the advent calendar.

I thought long and hard about this because I knew the amount of time it would take to create one of the beautiful ones I’ve seen displayed online.I pictured what would happen if my child got excited around one those beauties, and it involved quite a bit of torn paper and some held-back tears from me. So I kept looking for other options, and came across this genius, far more age-appropriate one.(Thank you, Pinterest!) I love it because it involves working on fine motor skills, which is something we’re needing to do anyway. Plus, I can hang it out of reach and lift him up to choose the advent activity of the day.

Tomorrow I’ll share my activity list with you if you’re looking for inexpensive ideas of how to spread the holiday cheer throughout the month of December.