Advent Calendars

This year I stayed up WAY too late on November 30th to make this cute advent calendar for the kids to start on December 1st. I'm so glad I did though because they loved it! Each day of December had a clip and hanging from the clip was either an activity to do, a scripture to read, a little gift or some candy. Because it wasn't just a calendar filled with chocolates or one where you just move to the next number we could focus more on what Christmas really means to us, something that often gets lost for me due to the seriously insane holiday shooting schedule I have.

Anyway, some of the fun activities we did together to make Christmas special this year:

Make snowflakes.
Bake cookies.
Go to the Temple to see the lights.
Date nights with daddy/mom.
Reading the Christmas story.
Unwrapping a new book and reading it together ("You Are Special" by Max Lucado).
Watching a new Christmas movie (Polar Express) together with popcorn.
Going on a Christmas lights drive with hot chocolate.
Doing a good deed for our neighbors (leaving a treat and a picture on their doorstep).
Everyone getting $5 and exchanging names and picking out surprise gifts for each other.

We had a great time doing all of these activities and the kids seriously loved it all! Especially my R2D2 Snowflake! (I should have taken more pictures of all of the fun things they got and did!! I'm kind of shocked I didn't!)